Gooseberry Falls: Saturday August 20, 2011

Saturday we went up to the North Shore, first time this summer!!! Usually we got a few times in the summer and I was determined to not let this summer go by without a visit! Camping is pretty much out of the question since these days I can't really even get comfortable in my own bed :-/ So we just decided to drive up for the day.

We didn't have the hiking club password for Gooseberry Falls State Park so we decided we'd hit that one. It's a touristy place, and not a good camping park - so a day trip would be great to get it marked off our list. I also wanted to hit this park because they have a big visitor center/gift shop and I needed a new passport book to hold my smashed penny collection. Yeah I'm a dork and get those dumb fifty cent smashed pennies where ever I go :-P I was even hopefully going into it saying "Then if we're up to it we can stop at Moose Lake State Park on the way home and get that hiking club trail walked" HAHA

We started the morning off with a lovely breakfast at our favorite Uptown Cafeteria, rooftop seating. I've been obsessed with their 'French Toast Treasure Box', which is DELICIOUS! It's three pieces of french toast (I only make it through one and a half usually) the top is covered with blueberries and then there is a wonderful surprise of vanilla cream cheese under the first piece!!! YUM YUM!


Then we stopped home, picked up Harpo, and headed up north. It's about a 3.5-4 hour drive to Gooseberry Falls State Park. About two hours in I started getting uncomfortable... very uncomfortable. Sitting for the long in the a car was not fun. We stopped a few extra times to get out and stretch our legs. By the time we got there we were ready to get-ta-walking. We just wanted to do the hiking club trail which was about 1.5-2 miles. Like I mentioned Gooseberry is one of the more touristy parks, which makes it one of our least favorites. They do have some beautiful falls... but people are ALL over the place, making for not such great pictures. We didn't go down to the big falls, as we did this one time when stopping by. But here are the 'little falls' just north of the big falls.


There are actually MORE people at the big falls. This path took us on a bridge across the river and under the highway, over to the Gitchi Gumi Trail. This was the hiking club trail. I'm glad Kyle got a picture of me before the hike, as I was a sweaty mess shortly after this photo, lol.


It was a gorgeous day! I don't even know why I packed a long sleeve shirt in the car, it was NOT needed! lol Hiking is a little harder when there's a 14" little boy strapped inside my belly!


I found a log to prop the camera on and attempted a few family photos.

After three attempts we were able to get one :-P


heehee.

It was crazy how many dragonfly's were EVERYWHERE!!! I tried to get a picture of how many there were, but it was rather hard since they were all flying around. You can see quite a few in this photo:


Here's a close up:


Once we made it around the mile loop, I was worn out. It was a great walk and I enjoyed it. It was just a little harder than I anticipated :-P Instead of exploring anymore of the park we decided just to head back over the river to the parking lot


Of course Harpo was walking like he needed to poop the ENTIRE time! We were hoping he'd go at some point along the trail since we were secluded... but he didn't. It was rather funny because as soon as he saw the parking lot he was READY to go, I walked him over to some grass and he quickly relieved himself, lol.

Flowers on the path to the parking lot:


On our way home, of COURSE we had to stop for our annual visit to Betty's Pies!

Yum Yum! We figured it up and we've stopped there every summer for the past three years. This day I got Apple Strawberry Crunch a la mode and Kyle got Blackberry Peach Crunch a la mode.

We made the long trek home, again not very comfortable! but I'm so glad we were able to make it up there at least once this summer!!