Tolt MacDonald Park

On Sunday Lyday and I went to Tolt MacDonald Park. This is where I'm taking both sets of girls camping and I'd never been there. The park is relatively close to Seattle so that's nice. It's actually a pretty little park. I wasn't really sure what to expect, especially considering you're still kind of in a town.

Nothing really to say about tall trees, but they're cool.

I don't know what this little yellow flower is, but I really like it. I was playing a lot with my camera's ability to take really close up shots. (There's a word for it, I can't remember it.) (EDIT: It's Macro and Super-Macro mode)

Tolt MacDonald park is on the confluence of two rivers, the Tolt and the Snoqualmie. Since we had just started getting crazy warm weather, the river was running much faster than I think it usually does and it was much more swollen than I expected. This poor little tree looks like it is not usually this much underwater.

This is the bridge across the Snoqualmie River. It is a suspension bridge and very... hmm what's the word. Well I don't know if there's a proper word but it moves a lot. We had to cross on foot. That will be a bit of a trial for the girls because they are going to have to cart their gear across it to get to the yurts. There are wagons at the camp host's station that we can hopefully use.

Three dandelions! Yay! Lyday and I both blew the dandelion fluff off several in the hopes that our wishes would come true. :)

Snail. Obviously. He was cruising across the path like he owned the whole world.

Bumble bee! Yay! There were a whole lot of them buzzing around the flowers next to the trail. They seemed a tolerant bunch and let Lyday and I get up pretty close to take their pictures. It did make me realize that I don't know if any of my little girls are allergic to bees. I kind of want to email all the moms and say "Go get your kid stung by a bee. I don't want any surprises." That's probably not the best way to go though.

I liked the green in this photo and the way the moss hangs off the tree branches. They almost look like zombie arms.

This is the Snoqualmie River from the bridge. Although the bridge is designed to span the entire width, I'm pretty sure this is unnatural. Lyday wants to go tubing down the river. I am not partial to tubing. I don't like feeling like I can't control where the tube goes.

There were several grassy areas that were just so simple and pretty. This one was full of those teeny little daisy like flowers. I like those flowers. I remember when we were kids, we used to do this thing where we'd hold the flower in our fingers and say "Momma had a baby and her head popped off" and then we'd flick the blossom off the stem. I don't know why we'd do that. Kids are weird. They are also effective for making diasy chains.

Two little purple flowers. THey were so cute and little. Lyday decided to do a whole set of pictures of pairs of flowers.

There were these ferns that grow kind of in a circle like this. I don't know why they do or what kind of ferns they are but it is so cool the way they do that. Mishka, you know about the area, do you know what type of ferns they are?

I liked these little star type flowers too. They were cool. Another flower I can't identify but I thought it was very pretty.

This is the confluence of the Tolt River and the MacDonald River. You can't tell in the picture but in real life, there is a distinct line where the two rivers are not quite the same water. It's pretty cool.