In the vein of get out & do more, on Sunday Kade & I went out & seized the weekend. We joined a group of other single parents & headed down to one of the overwhelming multitude of breathtakingly beautiful spots Oregon offers (I love this state, can you tell?), Silver Falls State Park. We arrived early enough so it wasn’t too busy, joined our group, & after hasty intros we all followed the kids off to hike the canyon trail.
At first Kade wanted to be carried, but after a few hundred feet we reached the top of the big, roaring falls, he saw how much fun the other kids were having…& he promptly wiggled down & tried to kill himself by climbing the barrier wall to become one with the waterfall. Luckily our group was full of experienced parents, & we took turns keeping multiple eyes on all the kids & keeping death at bay.
Since we had so many kids, all under age 10, our was in extreme mosey mode, including two long stops to play in the creek at various spots.
“It’s HUMONGEOUS!” Kade’s word of the day upon seeing the first falls from ground level. Aside from the first & last few hundred yards, Kade hiked the entire four mile loop, usually leading the charge, cajoling us all on…until he was distracted by the rapids, birds, bugs, and/or the other boys in our group.
Despite being in the middle of a 20 odd people group, it was amazingly relaxing to be deep in the forest, walking along the bottom of the steep canyon, & not be the only pair of eyes on my kid. Even more so than most of Oregon’s forest (much of which has been heavily logged), there’s some especial peace along that creek, interrupted as it is by its many waterfalls. It was the perfect day for hiking, just cool enough that walking kept you warm, & damp but not rainy. Everything was that fantastic, deeply alive green unique to the Pacific Northwest, the kind that makes it hard to think of places running out of water.
I love to watch my son in the woods. He is as alive & full tilt happy, exhilarated, & thrilled as the forest around him. So much to touch, so many monsters to chase, berries to taste, bugs to poke, mud & water to splash in, rocks to throw! He is ecstatic, loudly exclaiming over everything, determined to share it all with my, yet at the same time effortlessly making a new gang of friends, regardless of ages. Despite wet feet & soaked pants, he hiked all the way up the hill out of the canyon, a good 500 feet within a mile, not much for even an out of shape adult but a feat for a toddler who just got his arm cast off a few days ago.
Another thing that popped out at me aside from the peace & Kade’s joy was something I brought to the group, an unfamiliar feeling to me lately. At one point the kids all abandoned the trail to go forge the creek to a small island, & all the adults were on edge, cause water & death & rocks & all. Once I let everyone know I was formally Wilderness First Responder trained & a former State Park Ranger, everyone relaxed & instead of chiding the kids out of the creek, they took out snacks & talked while the kids fought monsters & threw rocks & clambered on fallen logs. It felt good.
After the hike we continued on meandering home, which for me meant avoiding the interstate & sticking to the side roads back up to Portland. Kade was already asleep by the time we hit Silverton. I have a world map at home with pins stuck in it, marking places I’d like to live. I’m going to add that little town to the mix. It’s got a cute & still thriving downtown (Silver Falls is a big tourist destination & Silverton is the last town before you hit the foothills of the Cascades on the way). There’s plenty of building activity going on, safe space for foot traffic, a good balance of houses for sale, & the town is perfectly situated at the beginning of the hills, neither too steep nor too flat. And the views across the Valley….wowza. Plus, at just over an hour driving slow, it’s not too far from Portland, just far enough that you probably can’t see the city smog that even our hippy city has.
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