The Search for Hidden Falls

Day 1 of our search for Hidden Falls. We actually had a "free weekend" for the fourth of July holiday weekend. We decided to go on an adventure in our neighborhood, we took off on a walk to find Hidden Falls. Our adventure started by us trying to find Hidden Falls Park just about a mile or so from our house. Thanks to the iphone map we were able to zero in on its location. Ben was very excited to find a "beach" so close to our house. Hard to believe that we have lived here for 7 years and never been to this park or to the river bank. Mike and Ben had a good time skipping rocks. We were not really prepared for an all day outing so after 2 hours in the hot sun we headed back to the house for lunch with promises to return the next day so that we could actually see Hidden Falls. The best we could come up with on the iphone was a picture of Hidden Falls from some one's Flickr site. Apparently the location of Hidden Falls is top secret!

Day 2

The next day we set out on our mission prepared. Lunch from Jimmy John's, beach toys, sunglasses, and water. We were prepared but not prepared enough as we still could not find Hidden Falls. While the kids and I played at the beach Mike combed the park looking for the Falls. Emily was happy playing in the sand until she did a face plant down the hill into the sand. It wouldn't have been so bad if she hadn't had a runny nose for all the sand to stick to! And then there were the tears mixed with the sand.
Day 3

That's right we didn't find the Falls on the second day either. So on Sunday I decided to take the kids to this flower park I had caught a glimpse of during my bike training for the tri. I thought it would be a pretty place to take pictures of the kids.

It would have been great had it not been 95 degrees outside and super humid! Despite the heat I was bound and determined to show the kids a waterfall so I took them to Minnehaha Falls of which I had never even seen before myself.

Ben was quite impressed and now I'm afraid he will be very disappointed once we do take him to Hidden Falls. As I do now know the location of Hidden Falls. I asked the very friendly and helpful park ranger at Minnehaha Falls if she knew where it was. She got out a map and told me exactly where it was and how to find it.

Turns out you can't

actually get to Hidden Falls from Hidden Falls Park!

Who knew?

I promise we will find Hidden Falls, someday.