Ledges Edges

Those who say that living in Iowa is boring because "there isn't anything to do" simply aren't looking. Sure, we have a lot of pigs and corn, but that is certainly not all. There are times, like this past weekend, that I am reminded what a beautiful state this is.

We spent the weekend hiking, picnicking and geocaching in Ledges State Park. This huge park is well known for it's beautiful creeks, stunning views and cliffs/ledges that are great for climbing, hiking and exploring. I was excited to find that there are four geocaches hidden there!

Chris, the D-Man, our friend Matt and I set out to find the caches, do some hiking and have a picnic. It turns out that three of the four of the caches involved lots of climbing. Steep hills and stairs were the norm for the day, giving our legs quite the workout. Fortunately, it was delightfully cool (around 60 degrees) so we didn't sweat our butts off.

After finding the second cache, we found a picnic table and had our dinner - some awesome sandwiches, broccoli slaw and home made strawberry rhubarb pie. Yum!

Here are a few pictures from our day:

Gads, his brand new shoes! Why did I let him wear those? Oh well. You can't take a boy to a creek and expect him to stay out of it. lol


First cache of the day found. The D-Man got a toy motorcycle out of it and we left SpongeBob, as seen in the lid there. You can't really tell from the pic, but the hill I'm standing on is quite steep.


The waterlines: Ledges State Park suffered some horrible damage during the floods of 1993. This pole documents the water level in the lower parking area of the park during various times of flooding, the very top marker being the water level in 1993. See that little guy at the bottom? Yep, that's the D-Man. Judging by his height of 45", that would put the water level of '93 at about 27 feet. Yeah. Fortunately, the park has recovered nicely from the flood though you can still see remnants of many huge trees that were lost.


Ahh, the view from the top of one of the ledges. It was pretty scary up there - I'd guess about 150 feet up or so, but what a gorgeous view.


My favorite picture of the day.

By the end of our adventures even the D-Man was tired of hiking (which is quite an accomplishment). He wanted me to carry him but my shaky, tired legs refused to allow me to carry a 45 pound kid when they were having trouble carrying me. Yes, we all slept very good last night.

I love the wilderness and I'm so happy that I've managed to pass that love on to the D-Man. At one point, as we were hiking, he informed me that he wants to live there because he loves it so much. Oh, how I wish we could...