Verdon Gorge and St. Croix Lake

The next day we drove to the Verdon Gorge--supposedly the Grand Canyon of Europe.

We did a bit of the scenic drive around it, and it was beautiful.  Here we are at one of the lookout stops.  We were following a bunch of Harley Davidson motorcyclists, and one of them took this picture for us.

Another motorcyclist guy said, "You have such a petite family... are you sure you're done?"  :)  At least, we're pretty sure that's what he said, it was in French.

The drive was extremely windy, as most scenic drives tend to be, and several of the kids were very sick and Talmage threw up a little.

See that guy?  He was getting ready to rappel down the side of the cliff.

Had it just been Brett and I, I would have loved to go to the mouth of the gorge and rent a canoe or kayak and see how far we could go into the gorge.  Or do this:

Ha!  Instead we went to the beautiful Lake St. Croix and had a nice picnic.  

I had unfortunately mentioned to the kids that we might rent a paddle boat or canoe or something, but there were no open places from which to do so, so they were disappointed.

But then Jethro and Brett went to the van for something and Jethro remembered that we had brought our air-mattress!

This place was sooo beautiful and we had it virtually to ourselves.  Just the way we like it.

I swam out to the island you see behind me.  It was such beautiful water!!  I was wishing I had some of my siblings swimming with me though.  I always think of girls camp swimming with Andrea and Kami, or at the family reunion at Cinnamon Creek where all of us siblings swam across to jump off the cliffs.

Jethro met me in the middle on the way back with his little mattress.  You can see him on the left, and me barely in the middle (I think I was floating on my back and that's why it's so hard to see me).

When I got back I felt a bit like Gertrude Ederle.  ;)

Playing in some clay.

Hazel sculpted first an owl for herself, then a dolphin for Ethne.

The owls and dolphin that the girls were very sad to have to leave behind.

Packing up to go.

What a lovely lovely lovely day.  Perfectly relaxing and wonderful.  (p.s. when I first wrote the title of this post it was Gordon Verge instead of Verdon Gorge.  ha ha)