Easter Dumb And The Rat Raves

What an awesome day! I'm still on a natural high thinking about how much fun we had today. The kids, some friends, and I hiked to Oyster Dome and the Bat Caves (a.k.a. Easter Dumb and the Rat Raves).

Here's the view from Samish Overlook. Beautiful! This is where we parked the cars and started off on the trailhead.

At the overlook. Henry, Guyan, and Owen were ready to go.

Alice too...A hiking we will go...

The boys found this awesome log, going across a little stream. It became their canoe.
There were lots of cool boulders in the forest.

We found all sorts of wildlife. Sixteen slugs (no photos). Here's one of six millipedes.
And another millipede.

Here's the frog we found. And some pretty flowers. We found some little waterfalls along the way. Lots of neat tree roots which provided convenient steps up the steep trail.
King of the Mountain. Alpha Dog. Leader of the Pack. Henry was all those things today.

We were almost there. Well, we were "almost there" lots of times. But this time - we were really almost there. Melinda was demonstrating how we all felt.
The top! We made it to the top of Oyster Dome. And it was breath-taking.
We crept to the edge, very carefully, and peered over. A straight drop-off to a bunch of pointy boulders. Oh boy.

Henry and Guyan at the edge. Another view.

My boy. I was so proud of him. He did a great job hiking today!
I was so impressed with my girl too. We were on top of the world.
Two of my coolest friends, Sean and Melinda.
After the trek to Oyster Dome, we made it back down the trail a ways, then veered off to find the infamous bat caves. The kids were quite excited about this - Owen was really hoping to find the batmobile there.

Oooh... we knew the bat caves were very near. We saw the batman logo.

They're not actually "caves." It's a huge boulder field, right at the base of Oyster Dome, with lots of great hidey-holes for the bats. We were told that some of the holes are super deep and there are lakes under these huge rocks.

"Look! I found the bat caves!!" Henry was convinced that he saw a bat when he peered in. I'm not so sure about that. But he was. And that's what mattered.

The view of Oyster Dome, from the bat caves. We were on top of that, just moments before.

Henry was a little unsure of himself when he discovered how dark it was once we got close to the rocks.
But all four kids were fascinated by the bat caves.
Before long, it was time to start heading back down the trail. Bye, bye bats!

Sean found the perfect photo posing spot. The kids and I, coming back from the bat caves.
Somehow, Alice kept this smile throughout our long hike. I was really proud of her. Melinda did the math (and she can be trusted with stuff like that!) and we believe that we hiked a total of 6 miles today. Wow. The kids did such an awesome job! You can't blame them for acting a little goofy as we headed back down the trail.