I haven't been to Clifty Falls State Park in scenic Madison since I was in college. As you know, that was a pretty long time ago, so my memories are mostly of climbing lots of stairs and seeing some waterfalls. Turns out my memories are pretty accurate, because guess what we spent today doing? If you guessed "climbing lots of stairs and seeing some waterfalls," you are totally right!
We arrived at the Clifty Falls Inn last night, just in time to enjoy a delicious Thanksgiving dinner that we neither had to cook for nor clean up after (which makes it exactly my speed). The staff at the inn actually called to see if we wanted a dinner reservation because we had a reservation to stay at the inn, and I was so glad they did. Last year, we stayed at a hotel on Thanksgiving too, but we didn't exactly plan ahead, so we ended up going to Hardee's, the only "restaurant" in the whole town that was open, which of course was pretty unsatisfying. This year's feast was miles above that. Note to self: Always make Thanksgiving reservations at a place that serves dinner.
This morning, instead of waking up early to do some Black Friday shopping, the boys and I had a leisurely breakfast while Mike got showered and ready to go, then we hit the trails. We didn't do any one particular trail because we were more after a variety pack of the park's offerings, so we basically started at one end and worked our way to the other, stopping along the way for anything that caught our fancy. We saw a few waterfalls, as mentioned, along with some spectacular views of Clifty Canyon. The boys got to do a little climbing and running around, which was really great for them. We generally try to keep them fairly quiet so other people can enjoy the trail too, but today there were no other people, so we didn't have to worry about reining them in.
Our longest stop along our park tour was also the final stop. We spent more than an hour exploring the area around Clifty Falls, Little Clifty Falls, and Cake Rock. My budding photographer Liam took some really nice pictures, but Henry tried to follow him and was going too fast along some slippery rocks and took a tumble. He landed hard, and it was loud and alarming, but luckily he landed on his butt, and he was fine after a few minutes. Whew! Maybe that'll teach them to listen to us when we tell them to slow down. (It won't.)
We had one good bird sighting for the day too: a female hairy woodpecker.
We had a minor crisis when we realized that we forgot to bring Henry's swimsuit, so before we stopped for lunch, I reluctantly went into the local big box store to try to find one. I probably could have saved myself some trouble because of course swimsuits are out of season, but I did find a whole bunch of $2 movies and $4 sets of PJs, so I guess that's a silver lining. Anyway, back at the inn, Mike got to take a nap while I took the boys down to the pool, which they had entirely to themselves for TWO HOURS. Where were all the people? Surely not still shopping. Maybe they all went out on the trails for the late afternoon.
We've got one more night here, then we're heading back north. But if you get a chance to visit either the park or the inn, we highly recommend both. Fort seal of approval!
See also: SPP1, SPP2, SPP3, SPP4, SPP5, SPP6, SPP7, SPP8, SPP9, SPP10, SPP11,
SPP12, SPP13, SPP14, SPP15, SPP16, SPP17, SPP18, SPP19, SPP20.
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