This week's hike was an out-and-back at Long Hunter State Park, the Bryant Grove Trail, on the edge of Percy Priest Lake. The problem with out-and-back hikes is you see the same boring stuff on the way back that you saw on the way there. Caterpillars! Trillium! Cedar trees! More cedar trees! Then you see it all backwards. BORING! But! This was actually a pretty surprising hike. I had verrrry low expectations, but it turned out to be pretty fantastic, scenery-wise. Most of the hike was along the lakeshore - this is a lake that's famous for turning up dead bodies, but Chicago Meg and I were disappointed that we didn't see one bobbing facedown in the water. We had her dog with us, despite the big NO PETS sign (our cover story was going to be that Chicago Meg had just recently been blinded and that Cooper was her guide dog trainee and then she was supposed to bump into a tree) but we never got snagged. Long Hunter is mostly made up of a series of cedar forests interspersed with some more open, glade-like areas. It's very unusual - one minute it feels like Wisconsin (so says Chicago Meg and she would know, so no posting about how that's wrong) and then the next minute it feels like the thickets of East Texas. It's really odd. There was almost no one on the trail ... which is good because I'm not sure how good of an actress Chicago Meg is and she might have blown the blind-act we had worked up.
We did have one lingering question. We saw a flock of, uhhh, something skittering across a field. They were shaped like pheasants but they were big like turkeys. What are those? Seriously, they were like waist-high. (That's not what's in the pic below - I know that's a heron). We saw another one of the mystery birds in the woods (and it could run fast), along with a fox. I'd never seen a fox in person before so that was exciting.
This particular trail was marked in half-mile increments and we're a little suspicious - they seemed like some AWFULLY long half-miles. Eight miles might be my limit at this point in my life because I was some serious-assed tired. We determined that the one thing missing from nature was a Coke machine. I'm not sure I'll do this actual trail again, but I'll definitely visit Long Hunter again when the seasons change. It was a surprise.
5 comments:
Grouse, maybe? The bird, that is. Although eight miles would probably make me grouse too.
Nice! That's a long way to go, yes. Glad the scenery was worth it.
And those probably were turkeys, of the wild variety. They are wily and fast. And big.
Wild turkeys. Nothing else is that big, and they are really fast when they feel like moving.
That's what I thought but seriously, the shape of the bodies looked more like peacocks in the body-shape department. Maybe they were just really pretty turkeys, like in a pageant or something.
Stumbled across your witty blog while searching for info. on Long Hunter State Park. Moving close to that area soon and am looking forward to some wild life watching and hiking (not eight fucking miles at a time tho!).
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