Hiking and Pool Party

Joshua and I have been trying to find a time to go hiking for a couple summers or so and finally made it happen yesterday. First we hiked Secret Falls, which isn't so much a trail as a creek walk, but it's beautiful. I just had a little camera, so the pictures aren't as good as they could have been, but I didn't want to risk bringing my regular camera because I and others have fallen in the creek on this hike. We got to the point where I've stopped the other times I've hiked it and decided to keep going which meant finding our way down this cliff; yeah it was kinda crazy, but everyone loves an adventure right? The view from the bottom was amazing. We wandered farther downstream and stopped to watch a couple snakes crawling around a tangle of branches, then turned around. This is where we stopped for lunch, after we came back up the cliff again. It was just a little steep. We had bread, fruit, and cheese, pesto jack cheese actually which was tasty. We continued upstream slowly, soaking up the beauty, smells, and nature in general. There is nothing like it and it was so refreshing. We had to pass through a patch of ladybugs and it was scary because ladybugs bite, plus swarms of anything are gross. We made it back to where we left our shoes; yes, we were hiking barefoot, it's really the only way to go. We drove the rest of the way up to Calvin Crest and said hi to some friends who are on staff this summer before hiking George's Falls trail. That was beautiful too. I wished we had all day to soak it up. But I had plans for the evening. Ashley was hosting a Flat 8 BBQ and pool party at her house, so I headed back to Fresno. Juan, Jen, and Alicia weren't able to come after all, but the rest of us had a great time. We had hamburgers for dinner and looked at Charity's London scrapbook, then swam and just had a chill evening. Ashley and I were trying to take a picture together. Ashley had made chocolate dipped strawberries and they were so good. It was a great evening.