Great Hike @ Riverside

The weather was great and the turnout for saturday's hike was even better. We avoided all but a few of those 24 hour mountain bike racers, and no children or dogs fell into the Spokane River.
The bridge let us all get uncomfortably close to the raging waters of the Spokane River while also keeping us safe. Most everyone seemed to walk a bit quicker than normal while crossing the bridge, just bidding the time until their feet touched down on firm ground again.
We came across this mini fort left be what I believe were other children. We let most every kid have their turn sitting inside the fort before tearing it down.
While one child hunted for dinosaur bones, and two others were fascinated by flowers some of the boys seemed to be able to turn almost any stick into a machine gun or sword. Nothing is too firmed up yet, but there should be a few more hikes in the coming weeks. Stay tuned here and on Facebook for more news. Until next time...

Fishing Report

This year we signed up to be in the 8:00 am group at Clear Lake because my wife was graduating from graduate school later in the day. This allowed us to get the first crack at trying to catch one of those larger 5lb-10lb rainbow trouts. Old Lady Luck was not on our side so instead of three behemoths to clean and cook we caught three guppy sized rainbows.
Then began the time honored tradition of the father getting to clean the fish. I am pretty sure I have never cleaned a fish this small before, but my five year old son insisted we go through with it. I also learned that cleaning tiny fish will make your hands smell just as bad as if you had cleaned a record breaker.
The process was good for teaching about fish anatomy. As the picture above shows they were pretty eager to learn what goes on inside our aquatic friends. Even though my lecture about the science of how fish breath under water should have won an award, I am still pretty sure that my boys were not buying it. I should go pony up the $24 for my resident annual fishing license and take the boys out a few more times now that we have a fishing pole for each of them and only live three blocks from the Spokane River.

Let's Go Hiking (5/28)

This Saturday we are going on a group hike at 9:00 am. We will be meeting up at the parking lot just below the campground in Riverside State Park. We plan on taking a moderate to easy walk across the suspension bridge and head downstream a ways. The 24 hour bike race will be starting at noon on the north end of the park, so we want to be sure and stay out of the way of those athletes while still getting a good nature walk. The Spokane River is up at near flood stage with the spring melt so we will want to be extra careful to respect the cold and fast moving water. In just a few short months we will need a Discover Pass to go hiking in Riverside State Park. Who knows, maybe we will find a caterpillar on or two on our hike.