Willow Creek Exploration 1-25-2011

The first time we went to Willow Creek (on Lake Natoma--the entrance is on Folsom Blvd. across from the outlets) we saw a cool island that we wanted to explore. Yesterday we made that happen. It's finals week at Burbank, so we have minimum days. I was caught up on grading (a rarity for me); the sun was shining; it was time for an adventure. 

Now I love being in the canoe, but sometimes the kids aren't as excited as I am about it. I guess for them, it's just a lot of sitting around. So this time, I decided we'd change things up a bit. When we put the canoe in the water, Rachel and I sat in the middle and we put Abby in the front and Lennon in the back and handed the paddles over to them. It seemed like we were forgetting something, but off we went. (Just kidding, Meghan was in front of Lennon and we gave her a paddle too.) 

I expected that we'd spend a lot of time going around in circles, but the kids did pretty well and got us to the island. We did some exploring. Here's what it looked like:

While exploring, Lennon came across a length of rope, and being well schooled in Man vs Wild, he knew that it could be put to use, so he picked it up. And then, with Rachel's help, he was able to utilize it.

On a side note, I'm still not confident in my poison oak identification skills, but I'm pretty sure the plant in the photo below is poison oak.

Poison Oak, right?

The photo above was taken right next to where Lennon's left foot is in the picture below. I found more scattered about. Luckily, we appear to have escaped  unscathed.

That's my boulderer

The far side of our island (I first typed back side of our island, but that's a different picture)

 When we got back into the canoe, we set our sights across the lake on what I thought looked like an exploded mini volcano, and what Lennon argued was a plateau (read pla-too). We decided we needed to further explore so we headed over. Unfortunately our expedition arrived too late. The territory had already been claimed by a lone explorer (read homeless dude taking a nap), so team leader Rach decided to postpone the summit attempt for another day. She then began to amuse herself by launching large rocks off the side of the hill. Abby promptly followed suit.