Franklin Falls and Boardman Lake

By Life with the Conleys - July 13, 2013

Hiking with a wee little babe certainly makes things interesting. Our inaugural hike was to Franklin Falls. It is a short hike, only two miles round trip, to a nice but not particularly impressive waterfall. It may not have been the best waterfall I have seen, but it was a good opening hike for Eli.

The Pants and Eli at Franklin Falls

Our happy little family

The entire hike runs along this little stream.

The week after Franklin Falls we decided to venture out again. This time we headed to Boardman Lake. Josh REALLY wanted to go fishing and this lake was supposed to have some fish. This hike was also 2 miles round trip. I think we will be sticking to shorter hikes for a while. Eli seems to enjoy being packed around in the baby carrier but until we know he can handle a longer hike we will keep them to just a few miles.

Shortly after arriving at the lake we tried to find a spot to fish that had an area where Eli and I could hang out. The first spot we tried was already occupied by another fisherman. The second spot had bugs. Not just a few bugs but swarms of mosquitoes and other flying, buzzing terrors. It was terrible. We quickly moved on to another little patch of shoreline and thankfully this one was relatively bug free. There were still some, but it was a manageable level and not the overwhelming swarm we encountered just a few yards up the shore. I don't really understand how the bug environment can be so different when the two areas were so close together, but they were.

Shortly after arriving at the lake Eli got real tired. Normally he will let out a few tired cries and then drop off to sleep. Not today. A fussy baby is never fun but a fussy baby in an otherwise quite, peaceful environment is much, much worse. I tried for a while to get him to sleep but was absolutely unsuccessful. We did a baby hand off and Josh got him to drop off after just a few minutes. Phew!

While Eli slept I decided to try my hand at fishing and had no bites. Once Eli woke up Josh took over the fishing. He caught one brook trout (10 inches or so) but that was it. There were several people fishing but no one seemed to be having much luck. After a while two other families joined us on our beach. (I would prefer to use "trespassed" instead of "joined", but I'm trying to be nice) I understand that with the foliage coming right to the lake shore there is very little available space but it still felt like they were encroaching on my little patch of nature. The most fantastic, and by fantastic I mean horrific, part was when one of our new neighbors decided to go swimming. In his speedo. Nothing says nice day fishing at the lake like a strange old dude waltzing around in a speedo.

After a while Eli started getting antsy. He was hungry and tired but we really wanted to make it back to the car before he ate and slept so he could sleep on the way home. We made it less than half way down the trail when he decided that enough was enough. So we had a mid-hike meal sitting right on the side of the trail. He fell asleep while nursing and I didn't want to wake him by putting him in the baby carrier so I carried him the rest of the way. It looked pretty ridiculous but he slept, which is was we were going for.