That night at about 4am Bear's dinner decided to unexpectedly revisit her. Wow. Just when you think you've been through every type of parenting adventure, real life kicks in and confirms that, no, you have not "been there, done that." Poor girl. We had to drag a bunch of stuff out of the tent, and suddenly having a bathroom "only" a 100 yards away didn't seem to be cutting it anymore. We weren't sure what the rest of the night was going to bring, but Bear and I moved to the front seats of the car because popping open the car door seemed easier than scrambling around to find a tent zipper. Just in case.
As it turned out, she was fine after that and in the morning we pulled everything out in the sun to bleach it out a bit. We had planned to do another backpacking trip starting that day, but decided it wasn't very prudent. We opted instead to keep our campsite at Pehoe and do some short walks close by. In the morning we drove a few minutes to the two waterfalls that were near our campground. Salto Chico, the smaller of the two, flows into a beautiful lake that faces away from the park. There is a huge luxurious hotel that overlooks the falls and it makes it difficult to get to the area where you can actually see the water. We figured it out eventually and did a nice little loop there on the boardwalk.
Next we drove a short distance to the Salto Grande, the big falls. We had packed a lunch, planning to eat there, but it was so windy that we didn't even want to risk taking off the backpack, for fear it would blow away!
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| Bear, using her nifty binocs--bday gift from Nana |
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| This is the middle set of peaks in the park, called Los Cuernos ("The Horns") The gray rock is granite, and the darker rock up above is sedimentary rock. When this rock was buried deep in the earth, the part that now forms the top of the mountain was part of the ocean floor. Over the years as the rock has pushed up to form the mountains, the sedimentary rock has stayed atop the granite and has risen to the peak. It must be so phenomenal to find fossils of sea creatures up there at the top of the mountain! |
We were curious about how the name Paine came to be part of the name of the park. It turns out that it is a word meaning "blue" from the language of the Aonikenk, the native people of this area. They called these the "blue mountains."
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| Here is another of the picturesque hotels in the park--Hotel Pehoe. In my opinion, this is the hotel with the most stunning views. It's hard to tell from this picture, but it's located on an island that you reach by crossing a quaint little footbridge. The panoramas from here are similar to the ones from our campsite. Gorgeous!! |
We returned to the campsite and had a lowkey afternoon--the girls played at the playground and we read our books and spent some time down at the campground office using wifi for a few minutes to figure out some options for the rest of the trip.
That evening we decided to build a fire and roast marshmallows, a plan which backfired on us to some degree, as the clouds decided to dump on us. J was not deterred, however, and donned his Gortex jacket and hat and managed to build a quite spectacular fire in the rain, and even cook our dinner over it.
Meanwhile the girls and I sat in the car reading our book, and then we also ate in the car because it was pouring (sorry, Hertz, but it was the rental car vs. our tent as to which would receive the brunt of our food mess, and the rental car lost!). About 10pm the rain let up and we leaped out of the car and had our marshmallow roast after all. Nutella Smores. Mmmmm! Nothing like being pumped up on sugar and chocolate just before bed. The advantage being that at 2am when you realize that the fire that you generously doused with water just before you turned in has flared up again because of the wind, you have plenty of energy to hop out of bed and put it out again. I'm referring to J here.... I myself did not budge from my cozy bag. :-)
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