Whitewater Preserve

This past weekend was a pretty significant milestone for Kuma. Now that he is 16 weeks and fully vaccinated (not to mention a whooping 27 pounds already!) it is safe to start taking him public places. And with the weather nearly picture perfect and my eagerness to see the wildflower bloom, it seemed more than appropriate to see how he would do on a hike. Now unfortunately dogs are not allowed on the trails up in Joshua Tree National Park where we would usually go, you know because it is quite literally right down the street. But we had been meaning to check out another preserve called Whitewater, not too far away but more importantly, pet friendly. It turned out to be quite a find.

Once you make the turn to go up to Whitewater, the sides of the road are covered in brilliant yellow from all the brittlebush. I really should have stopped to snap some pictures. An old trout farm's historic building has been transformed into a visitor center and ranger station. Apparently you can feed the fish and on certain days, participate in catch and release fishing. It was very shady and tranquil.

We wandered on a trail for awhile and then headed back to check out the stream. The kids and Kuma could.not.get.enough of the water. They were jumping in, splashing, skipping rocks, following tree branches as they cascaded down. It was just perfect. We will definitely be coming back to Whitewater again.

The kids in front of the trout farm building and pond:

Several rocks around the visitor center had really cool quotations etched on them. I really liked t this one at the start of the trail:



This picture really captures how much fun Kuma had in the water:

Next time we come, we are definitely bringing swimsuits and towels. The kids were soaked with no change of clothes:

As you can imagine, such an adventure is quite tiring. Needless to say, not only did all of us humans need some time to relax at home afterwards, Kuma slept pretty much the rest of the day. He was one tuckered out little (or not so little) pup!