cvnp, day two

Today's agenda: More trails! More waterfalls! More birds!

We started the day at Bridal Veil Falls, where Max and Henry gave a good impression of actually liking each other.

After that, we left the national park to check out an interesting place called Viaduct Park. It's part of the whole national/state/county/local system that makes up what they call the Emerald Necklace (catchy, right?), and it's not super-easy to find, but once we figured out where to park, we were golden. The big draw at Viaduct Park is the Great Falls at Tinker's Creek, which is an 80-foot-wide waterfall that used to power a saw mill. The saw mill is long gone, but to the delight of all three boys, there are still tunnels that were once part of the mill, so they had a blast running through and popping up unexpectedly here and there. The park's namesake is a huge, gorgeous stone viaduct over the creek, with a train bridge on top. The boys got as close as they could (which was not very close, but there was climbing and dirt involved, so they were perfectly content).

After fortifying ourselves with lunch and coffee (yaaaassss coffee), we headed back into the park and took the Station Road trail because we heard there were more birds. And indeed, along the way we spotted more red-winged blackbirds and great blue herons, but the big draw was nesting eagles! There were a couple of very helpful rangers out on the trail who had spotting scopes all set up, which was a good thing because none of us thought to bring binoculars. Still — EAGLES!

Henry kept talking all weekend about how he wanted to see turtles, and on the way back to the car from the trail, his wish was granted many times over. The sun came out, and so did the turtles, warming themselves in groups in the marshy areas near the river.

In the morning, we're heading back home, back to life and work and school and house hunting and reality. It's been a brilliant couple of days, though, and I'm excited that we get to come back next year when my cousin Quinn gets married!