In pursuit of the waterfall.

Jude let me take a picture of him while on our hike through the dense and dark woods in pursuit of our neighborhood waterfall. We were determined to find a path that led to the bottom of the falls, but it was not to be. The waterfall drops a good 30 or 40 feet, so naturally there is a ravine that continues from that point. To get to the bottom of it, we followed a series of deer paths that eventually lead to a place where the deer can drink from the small stream. But once there, it is a matter of staying as close to the stream as possible, which is actually impossible. Being that this is a jungle, any amount of sunlight coming through is opportunity for ferns and salmon berries to grow. This makes it difficult to find a way. I kept telling Jude that I wish we had a machete (or a handy rapier, which worked for the Dread Pirate Roberts in The Princess Bride). The other (non-)option is walking straight up the stream. However, we'd need better/different shoes for this. The works are slippery, and the creek, well, wet. Anyway, this picture shows as far as we did get. Jude took a picture of me at that approximate spot, which is now my facebook profile photo. Jude was definitely a trooper and was more optimistic that we'd find our way and was in dogged pursuit of the waterfall. But in the end, we realized it wasn't reasonable and turned back. We never did actually get lost, but sometimes we like to pretend that we are a family lost in the woods.