[Canuck]

My husband had no desire to go to the mountain today, he figured it would be packed. So our 4-year old son and I worked on him for 2 days (subtly, of course) and slowly convinced him to spend the day up there. We never did see the mountain, but it was a very pleasant day and we saw all kinds of cool things (amazing what you can see when you slow down with a little kid. We watched an ant hill for about 10 minutes... gross, but really amazing!). First we stopped at Kautz Creek and had a wander down the trail a little ways:

Old Kautz Creek view point

Old Kautz Creek river bed

New Kautz Creek riverbed

Trail goes right

Shy deer

(that deer was looking RIGHT at me, and wasn't phased at all by my being there but of course the second I snap the picture, he looked away, and then slowly meandered away... darn it! Near perfect picture!) Then we headed up to Longmire and did the Trail of the Shadows:

Skunk Cabbage

Milky Iron stream

Longmire meadow

My boys checking out the springs

Marshy area - Longmire

Miracle springs - Longmire

We drove over the bridge over the Nisqually but the road was closed just past the bridge. Looking back towards Longmire:

Sliver of the mountain

Construction at Longmire

Joe said he wanted to go home now, he was tired. We convinced him to do one more hike, the short .4 mile Twin Firs loop. Gorgeous forest...

Cool nurse log

Twin Firs trail

Weeeee!!!!

Happy tree 2

Tired Joe

Young tree hugger

Where's Joe

Finally we headed for Elbe & an ice cream cone. Great cones, but what part of "TINY kids size cone" do they not get? The sucker was the size of a large grapefruit!! Oh well, the sun was shining and my darling kid was really pleased with his cone so what's a parent to do? I had one too. What a great day of adventures!! I wanted to get up to Paradise, just to see how much snow was there, and also to drive up by Reflection Lakes, but it was enough for Joe for the day, so we headed home. I'm hoping for Staircase tomorrow!!