A trip to the "Cherry Cows"

I thought I'd better catch you all up on what we've been up to since we got to NM, but this is probably going to take several posts now that I see all the pictures that are going into just this one day's worth of activities.
In the first week after we got to Animas, Kett and Cameron came down to hang out and we all went up to the Chiricahua Mountains for a day of fun. (A note on the pictures; if you see one that looks really good, it was probably taken by my sister Kett. She's pretty much amazing and let me steal some of the pics she took that day.)
For anyone who doesn't know, my family lived just a few minutes drive from here for a couple of years and so this area was pretty much our back yard. We spent hours and hours playing in the creeks and hiking the trails, so it's always fun to go back even if it is a 30+ minute drive now that my family has moved.
We started off playing in the creek in the John Hands campground. We splashed around in the creek for a while, than us wimpy girls (and Erik) climbed in the car to head upstream to Herb Martyr Campground while the boys hiked the trail between the two.

Cameron and Ethan were having a marvelous time hunting for the lizards that were hiding in the rocks.  

They caught a pretty one! 

They were even nice enough to let Erik get in on the hunt.

Ethan tried to get Erik to stand in the waterfall, but he wasn't going to fall for that one!

By the time Erik was done playing in the creek he was soaked and too cold to walk back up to the car, so we stripped all his wet things off (except his shoes) so that he could make it back to the car without freezing. 

 Next we drove over to one of our favorite swimming places in the Chiricahuas, Turkey Creek. It has several large(ish) pools, and most of them have natural rock water-slides that empty right into them. We didn't actually have any intention of getting in the water (have you ever tired swimming in snow melt?), but we really wanted to see how the area had fared in the forest fire and resulting flooding that happened a year or two ago. It's always been gorgeous, and we just had to see if it had come through the fire.

Using long sticks to measure the depth of the pools,  they ranged in the depth from 2-6 feet. 

This was a first in all the time we've been coming here. We actually saw wild turkeys in turkey creek. 

 We came to the pool that has always been the best swimming hole. It's got one of the better slides at its head and is the deepest of them all. We were trying to gauge the depth of the water with a long stick, but it just wasn't working out. Finally Cameron decided he would just take one for the team and jump in. It didn't take long before Ethan felt he had to preserve his manly reputation and he jumped in too. Does it look like maybe it was a bit cold?

The water looked crystal clear until they jumped in and stirred up all the muck  in the bottom, I don't know that they'd have jumped in if they'd known how gross it was going to get. 

 While we were hiking up stream to check out all our favorite old spots, Erik and Grammy stayed at the bottom and splashed around in the stream some more. I swear, if Erik could turn himself into a fish, he would. He sure loves water!