07/25/12

On to our next adventures in the mountains... the rainy mountains.  :)

We went to Dupont State Forest the next day after visiting the Arboretum.  It was something I was excited about because of the hiking and seeing the waterfalls.

The entire way to the park it was raining like crazy.  When we arrived, there were not many people there (of course) but those that did come out of the woods were drenched.  We wondered if it was even worth it.  

Eventually, the rain subsided enough for us to walk to our first falls - Hooker Falls.  It wasn't a long walk and it was exciting to hear the rushing of water as we meandered on the path.

Here was our first glimpse of Hooker Falls:

Then we went down to the foot of it and no one was there.  The rain had stopped and it was like this was just for Sweet Man and me.  :)  It reminded me of a very tiny Niagara.

Of course we had to pose in front of it.....

As we were walking out of the woods from seeing Hooker Falls, it began to pour down rain again.  We jumped into the truck and thought we'd wait it out.  

I was so disappointed.  I had prayed that the Lord would allow us to see His beauty.  I didn't mind the rain because I wasn't there for a beauty contest anyway... at least a HUMAN beauty contest!  However, I knew it would be miserable walking in the rain we were seeing.

Finally, Steve looked at me and told me he didn't mind what we did... walk in the rain or just leave and go to somewhere that was inside...  It didn't take me long to give my thoughts.  We didn't travel all that way to sit in some place inside.  We came to see God's beauty and we were prepared as much as possible with our clothing.  If we got wet, then so be it.

And, we did.... but, the Lord truly held off anymore pouring rain the rest of our day.  Eventually the sun came out and we got to see blue skies.  I took a lot of pictures with the skies all grey, but when we came back down the trails to get back to the truck (some eight miles later....), I got to photograph them with the blue skies.

This is the river flowing under the bridge we had to cross to get to the other hiking trails that led to the rest of the falls.

Triple Falls - beautiful!  Someone came by and offered to take our pics.  Between the rain and such, we are looking as good as we could get.  :)

We were able to go down steps that led to the "foot" of the Triple Falls (even though it still flowed over the last fall from that point).  WOW... it was so neat.  It felt like being close at Niagara again.

I am standing like I conquered Plymouth Rock or something... not sure what I was thinking here.

This is the water flowing over the last part of Triple Falls.

And here are Steve and me standing in front of that same area... hoping not to slip and fall backwards.

This was the beauty I was able to capture with the blue skies on our way back down the trail at the end of our day.

 

Here is High Falls... and, boy, was it gorgeous.  Yes, those are rain droplets and mist droplets on the lens.

A much more beautiful shot with the blue skies later on in the day.  There was a covered bridge at the top of the falls.

I took this shot from the covered bridge looking at the water as it is going down the falls.

This is the spillway for Lake Julia.  It was lovely as well.

Bridal Veil Falls - we hiked quite a ways to get here.  It was not as easy to see, unfortunately, so we didn't get to stay here long.  Still very lovely, though.

Last, but not least, we climbed and worked our way to Grassy Creek Falls..... and we decided this was as far as we were going because our legs could not take going down to the foot of the falls and back up again to go back up more hills to be able to go down hills to get to the truck.

Notice our shirts... and that wasn't really from rain.

The covered bridge was so neat.  I would love to do a portrait here!

We made it... together.  :)  I am so thankful we just went ahead and hiked even though it was raining.  The Lord blessed us with beautiful views of His Creation as well as great memories of our time together.  Life is for LIVING... not sitting by the side.

As we left the park I couldn't help but capture the beautiful blue skies that were around the mountain.  We didn't get to see much of this while we were there.