As part of our desire to stay and play local this summer, we took the family up to Feeley Lake for the day in early July. It is up in Nevada County, and absolutely beautiful.
This was our family's first official hike, and I would say it went pretty well. The hike itself is not too difficult, so it was perfect for the younger kids. The area was also very, very quiet that day; we had only passed one group that was going in the opposite direction of us, and that was about it!
The hike up to the lake was about 2.5 miles, and we took our sweet time getting there. We stopped to explore, to take photos, to see who could toss a rock further into the water...that sort of thing. When we found the general area of where we wanted to be, we pulled out our lunch and the kids got ready to get into the water. Now, this was our first experience up here, and the kids first experience swimming in something other than the swimming pool. (Well, outside of playing at the beach, but isn't a while lot of swimming that goes on there.)
How did the swimming go? Well, it didn't. The edge of the water was just too rocky and hurt the kids feet. We moved down a bit to a better area, which helped, but it was still too rocky and to "squishy between the toes" for the kids to really want to venture in much past their knees. We instead just explored the edge and enjoyed that thoroughly.
Joe was convinced we were going to see fish and be able to catch one. We did find a number of very small "baby" fish and eventually was able to get one sucked up into a water bottle. We named him "Catch of the Day", and the kids carried him around for about 30 minutes. We spared the poor little fishy his life and returned him to nature, although I cannot guarantee that we didn't shorten his potential life span.
The walk down the mountain took a bit longer...Ez had to carry a very tired, and eventually sleeping, Evelyn. That said, the kids did great, the weather was perfect, and we had a fantastic day together as a family!
This was our family's first official hike, and I would say it went pretty well. The hike itself is not too difficult, so it was perfect for the younger kids. The area was also very, very quiet that day; we had only passed one group that was going in the opposite direction of us, and that was about it!
The hike up to the lake was about 2.5 miles, and we took our sweet time getting there. We stopped to explore, to take photos, to see who could toss a rock further into the water...that sort of thing. When we found the general area of where we wanted to be, we pulled out our lunch and the kids got ready to get into the water. Now, this was our first experience up here, and the kids first experience swimming in something other than the swimming pool. (Well, outside of playing at the beach, but isn't a while lot of swimming that goes on there.)
How did the swimming go? Well, it didn't. The edge of the water was just too rocky and hurt the kids feet. We moved down a bit to a better area, which helped, but it was still too rocky and to "squishy between the toes" for the kids to really want to venture in much past their knees. We instead just explored the edge and enjoyed that thoroughly.
Joe was convinced we were going to see fish and be able to catch one. We did find a number of very small "baby" fish and eventually was able to get one sucked up into a water bottle. We named him "Catch of the Day", and the kids carried him around for about 30 minutes. We spared the poor little fishy his life and returned him to nature, although I cannot guarantee that we didn't shorten his potential life span.
The walk down the mountain took a bit longer...Ez had to carry a very tired, and eventually sleeping, Evelyn. That said, the kids did great, the weather was perfect, and we had a fantastic day together as a family!
Joe and David
Lily and Alexis
Evie, Keri, Lily, David, Joe, and Alexis
Not exactly loving the water
"Yertle the Turtle" anyone?
Another Yertle
Joe trying to catch a fish
Evelyn and our catch of the day
A very hungry Evelyn
The Family
Ez, Joe, and David
Evelyn, Alexis, Keri, Lily
1 comments:
Looks like you've had a fun summer! That is a gorgeous lake! I love hiking -- haven't gone much lately... I'll definitely have to try that one out someday. (PS- I like how the lake was "too squishy" that is too funny!)
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