Trip to MO (3) - Elephant Rocks and Cathedral Canyon

We made another trip to Elephant Rocks and had fun exploring. Ben and Daddy went off the beaten track and we thought maybe they were stuck under some rocks...but they eventually caught back up with us. I love my adventurous little guy.

It was a hot day and Natalie slept the afternoon away in the stroller. Isn't the picture of Ben "holding up" the rock kind of cool?

One morning my brothers, Mike and I decided to go on a hike we had read about in Backpacker magazine...Cathedral Canyon. We finally found the location after about 45 minutes of driving down various dirt roads. It was completely unmarked and in the "boonies" of rural Missouri...think Deliverance. I had the theme song in my head the whole time. The trail was covered in giant fallen trees due to a recent storm, so we had to go off the beaten path quite a bit. My brothers are not what you'd call avid hikers...so everytime I'd turn around I'd get a face like the top right picture. They survived (not without a significant amount of whining along the way though). The trail ended at some pretty cool scenery that we didn't even know existed in our own "backyard." That's what I love about hiking. :)