Leon Turnbull Photography

My son Jadon is not really much of a hiker. Whenever I ask him to go, he always says no. He would rather stay home and play with his Legos. But an opportunity presented itself this week. My parents are visiting us for the week, and the kids have been enjoying swimming in the pool at the hotel where they are staying. On one day, I said to Jadon that I would go swimming with them that day, if he would go hiking with me on Saturday. He agreed. I didn’t mention that he would have to get up at 4:30AM as well. I picked a nice easy hike for him, close to home. Hidden Falls in Auburn. My mother also wanted to tag along as well. So the three of us (plus the dog, Kaya) got up early on Saturday and left Folsom at around 5AM. While hiking down to the falls, Jadon wondered where everyone else was that morning. “Your daddy is the only one in this town crazy enough to get up this early, son”. Considering it was an overcast day, we really didn’t have to start hiking so early. But usually it is sunny, and in order to get good photos, I need to start hiking even earlier than we did today. I thought this was a good starter hike for Jadon, and I wanted to see how he would do on an early morning hike, and he did great. He even really enjoyed it this time. He has a little digital camera that I got him, and he liked taking pictures and video of the waterfall. But my mom got him even more excited about taking pictures of wildflowers. Uh oh. All in all, it was a very enjoyable morning, and I might even be able to talk him into going hiking with me again sometime. We’ll see.

Hidden Falls is certainly not a spectacular waterfall by any means, but it is nice and it is easy to walk to. They have put in a new overlook directly over the falls. It is a nice view, but not a great angle for photography, so I scrambled down the bank a bit to get a better angle while my mom and Jadon waited up above. I was looking out for poison oak down there, and did not see any. And yet, I came home with a very bad case of oak from this hike. I am 100 percent sure that I did not touch any poison oak. So this much prove that I can get it just by looking at it. Seriously, I did not touch any on this hike. The only thing I can think of is that my dog was in it and got it on her fur, and I touched it on her. Ugh, if that is true, it might be the last time I take her on a hike. Just kiddin.