pesach final camping day

I look at the news today and Gary, IN has made the headlines. !@#$ing Gary, IN.
Everyone I know who drove by Gary, IN on occassion had the same thing to say about it. It was as if a haze hung over the city and you would just look at it as you are driving into Chicago and just blurt out, beeping Gary, Indiana. You knew you were getting close because an awful feeling comes over you and you look at this place and think, nuclear salvation, and then you see the sign that says Welcome to Gary.

Back to Pesach.
We woke up in the morning and planned on heading over to Nachal Elal. This was supposed to be our major hike, 4 km, 2 waterfalls and walking alongside a flowing stream. Some friends told us they wanted to join us, but they hadn't made it to the campgrounds because their baby was sick. They called and said they were coming and it would only take them a couple of hours to get here. We went slowly and found stuff to do, we had to stop in a grocery store to get stuff for lunch, etc.. But when we finally got to the start of the trail, our friends were still nowhere close by and they were then thinking about another tiyul because it was so hot. It was 100 degree heat, but very dry so you really didn't feel it. We bathed the kids in sunscreen and brought 12 liters of water and started down the trail. It was a lot of fun getting down into the wadi, not a simple grandparents trail, but a real climb. We made it to the first waterfall and everyone dunked their heads and got sprayed on and after playing for a bit, it was time to head on out. We started walking and soon in, we saw that the forest had burned. Someone had told me that there had been a fire there, but I wasn't expecting the destruction that we saw. Everything was black and the ground was covered in ash. There was no shade. We continued onwards and after about half an hour past through the burnt part. Other then that, the scenery was amazing. We found a nice large spring of water to eat lunch at, and the kids played in the water for a nice amount of time. We continued onwards, it was hot and the kids were a bit cranky. By the time we got to the 2nd waterfall, my wife looked down at what we would have to do to get to the waterfall and then get back up and said there was no way that we were going down there. We were standing at the top of the waterfall and we would have to climb all the way down and then all the way back up.
We bypassed the fall, though it looked very refreshing and I would have loved to jump in. By the time we reached the end, we were n our last lit of water, or so. The kids were all beyond exhausted and I was happy we hadn't gone down to play in the last waterfall.
We all got popsicles at the end of the tiyul (which makes it all worth it) and our friends who had only done a small tiyul in the area picked us up and brought us to our car. (Which was really nice because I didn't want to start hitchhiking at that point.

After that we headed for home for a relaxing end of chag. We went to the beach the next day and found a giant dead turtle floating in a small cove. The final day of chol hamoed we went to nachal kziv and walked through the stream for about an hour.

Good times.