Probably Not a Good Choice

Monday was a comedy of errors.  It began with bickering girls and a mom with a parking ticket.  It continued with an intended trip to Shenandoah National Park being thwarted by an hour spent on a road 2 minutes away from home, with a still 2-hour trip ahead.  We detoured to Great Falls National Park to do the Billy Goat trail instead.  We underestimated the height of the flood waters and found a "trail closed" sign at the trail head. Kristy suggested we head up to the emergency access trail where we would enter at a point with higher elevation.  Trail closed sign there.  Kristy then suggested going around the sign: she was certain we would be safe from the high water anyway.  My heart soared.  At this point, I would normally be trying to convince Jeff to hop the sign and he would be lecturing me about the terrible example I was setting, etc.  He was not present - only his DNA in a frowning-upon-us Molly that begrudgingly followed us.

We still had fun, however, as rock scrambling is an activity my kids love.

Kristy was right in that we were safe and not in danger of being swept away.  But as we stopped for lunch, Kristy's face fell and she said, "Oh no - it's a ranger and he's coming right over here."

The ranger pointed out that surely we had seen the trail closed signs.  As he was asking us to get off the trail and citing its dangers, a wild yelp came up from the raging waters below us.  "It's a beautiful day for this!" yelled a kayaker who must have been pretty darn good at kayaking because eddies that had trees swirling around in them were unsuccessfully trying to trap him.  He was soaking wet, with waves crashing over his head and throwing him around.  We all stood with our mouths open, and Molly, who was most nervous about the ranger and whose eyes never left him, reported that he started texting, probably to some authorities up the river. While the ranger followed us back to make sure that we obeyed, we were pretty sure he had a bigger concern .

Anna remarked, "Well, we probably did not make a good choice." Molly was not comfortable with the whole thing.  We decided to take the flat towpath down to the Falls, which ended up being closed as well.  Whole trees were crashing up into the bridge and water was washing over it.  

Finishing our lunch on the towpath.  Boo.

We did get to see lovely bluebells along the towpath

Lots of herons and some fishing ducks.

Not as fun as the Billy Goat trail, but better than getting another ticket.