Which was yesterday.

Yep, the sun shone, the sky was blue and we broke that elusive 70 degree barrier.

I called Katie, but she had plans to take Molly to the pool.  Yay!  That's a good way to spend summer.

I called MJ and we put the babies in the car and went to the Minnehaha Falls.  It was GREAT.  The park was packed, even though it was a Friday afternoon.  Who says massive unemployment is a bad thing?

Now that Punkin walks and Bananas runs everywhere, we left the stroller behind, which meant we could take the girls down to the park below the falls.   We started on a long, steep, stone stairway a hundred yards across the lower park from the natural pool down past the falls and the initial rapids that follow. 

Here, around a bend and after the creek stops dropping, there's a bridge and the creek widens for a short space.  Where the fattest part of the creek is, it's also quite shallow and forms a large, placid pool that we've been wading in for decades.  A couple of years ago, someone (I have no idea if they were park board or private) piled a foot high dam of rocks across the front edge of the pool, cutting the current even further.  The firmly packed, low sloping bank made the pool perfect for wading and a great place for moms with toddlers to cool off.

In the infinite wisdom of bureaucrats everywhere, someone got the brilliant idea to landscape this pool. 

Because, you know; Mother Nature sucks at this stuff.

Where for the last century there was a nice, natural swimming hole, now it's completely lined with a ten foot wide, hundred foot long flagstone patio, complete with a low wall for sitting on, and steps where the ground is uneven.  It's about a fifteen inch drop from the new, man made bank of the creek down to the water, so it's no good for toddlers, anymore.  When the surrounding foliage grows back, it'll be pretty but it was completely unnecessary. 

The economy is still in the toilet, the city is broke, the state is broke, we're probably going to have a government shut down because the governor doesn't think a $2,000,000,000.00 increase in spending is enough, but hey! At least we wrecked the wading pool in Minnehaha creek!

Did I mention they had to cut down several trees to build this hardscape?

We walked with the girls back up to the falls.  With all the snow we had this winter and non stop rain for the last three months, the creek was running higher and faster than I've seen it in ten years.  I have seen it higher, but I'm old.  We noticed a ton of work is being done on the banks.  Many trees on the edge have been removed, the pathways have been edged in stone (MJ calls this 'making the path less safe, since I trip on the stones') and shrubbery has been planted in place of the trees.  I'll buy that these are all anti-erosion measures and probably necessary.  Having been going to this park several times a year for decades, I noticed the crumbling of the cliff faces along the lower creek.  As much as I hate change, I understand that something had to be done.

But that hard scape around the pool was completely unnecessary.

I'll only be slightly less miffed if I find out the money for that was donated by some rich entity that thought it would be nice to have a pool deck around the wading hole; it's wrecked now, and I don't like it.  Whether or not I paid for it is only a stone in the shoe that doesn't fit.

The two little girls were completely impressed with the creek; we watched the white water rushing past and Punkin tried to imitate the roar.  Bananas kept talking about how big it was.  And we hadn't even gotten to the best part, yet.  When we came up out of the woods and rounded the bend to the bridge, there it was; the Water Fall, itself!  roaring and splashing mist all over everyone.  It was good to see it so strong after so many years of anemic precipitation.  We looked at it from every angle we could find.  Then we climbed up the stairs on the left of the creek so we could cross the top of the falls and show the girls the way it looked from up there.  We showed them the statue of Minnehaha and Hiawatha and after all that, Bananas said she was done and it was time to go home.

When a two year old says it's time to go home, you better go!

I was exhausted after that and it only took us a little over an hour.

That was yesterday.  Today it's cool, gray and looks like rain.  Again.

So that's how I spent my summer.  How's yours?

 

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