Today was
our son’s birthday and proved to be a challenging day not being home in
time. We had decided we needed to slow
the pace of our return from that of our trip out to Colorado. Having weathered the journey so far with the
snow, the fires, the medical procedure and the less than optimal health news,
we just needed to slow it down. I spent
the day feeling the weight of that decision and being relatively close to home
but not being there.
We moved
across the state again without a final destination planned. Deciding to take another secondary highway,
we traveled through a nice area of the state and kept checking off our
potential campsites for the night as we moved ever on. We stopped at the first option for lunch and
decided it was simply too early to call it a day. Moving on, we checked the second one off the
list when it was placed in the heart of a small town with far too many Trump
banners for our comfort or pleasure!
Despite our
intended slow pace, we put a good number of miles in and finally settled on the
Noccalula Falls campground having no idea what we’d encounter. The park was obviously very well attended and
popular with lots of trails and services including a petting zoo (although with
no petting – ala Covid) and everyone’s favorite, a little train – conductor, whistle
and all!
The
campground was actually quite nice and it didn’t take long to get settled and
on the trails. We wandered and wandered
and found ourselves never sure of exactly where we were! The trails were all marked incredibly well
but as we traversed, we found that they changed without notice and we’d end up
backtracking or completely disoriented!
No worries, we enjoyed it all and finally found our way to the park’s namesake
Noccalula Falls which were not really “falling” much being the end of the
season. 
We actually
wandered beneath the falls only to find ourselves directly below our campsite
but with a sheer cliff face between us and it!
Being adventurous and clearly not too smart, we followed two young women
up the rock to the top. Well, I say we
followed them – we watched them find their way then spent the next half hour
huffing, puffing and heaving ourselves in far too vertical a fashion!
Not to worry – we are hear to tell the story! Feeling pretty proud of ourselves and kind of giddy from the adrenaline, we pulled out the lounge chairs and the cocktails. We closed the day having pizza ala Matt who had prepared some amazing crusts for us to enjoy on our trip. We enjoyed each bite as we toasted his birthday and talents and looked forward to our reunion just days away.
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