WOWZERS!

As evidenced by the title of this week's post, our hike to Sugarcreek Metropark just south of Dayton, Ohio was amazing! There were so many unusual things to see and so many awesome pictures taken that I fear for the length of this post, but I'll try to control myself. It was another beautiful day - 59 degrees and sunny. We hiked 4.02 miles in two hours.

After a forty-five minute drive, a couple of wrong turns, two parking lots, a couple of trail heads and a bathroom stop, we finally set off to hike. We traveled south on the Red-Green trail and were greeted by some beautiful spring flowers that I have yet to identify.  I have posted a picture and will await reader's comments to see if anyone knows what they are.  I tried to use a flower identification website, but because I don't understand the terminology of the dichotomous key, it turned up no results.  I know this flower exists because I took a picture of it! I'm just not sure how to describe it's parts. I guess that's why they say a picture is worth a thousand words.  There were some really muddy and very wet parts to the trail, but because the trail is so well cared for and so wide, it was very easy to get around these areas. Something that surprised us was the number of runners on the trail.  There must have been around a dozen.  Cheryl and I both agreed that we are not cut out for trail running, but we cheered each group on as they passed us by.

There are so many unique features of this park.  One of those features were the creek crossings.  On most of our other hikes, there were man-made bridges, however, this trail has huge boulders for hikers to step on to get across the creeks.  These really kept to the natural beauty of the surroundings and were fun to travel across. Another cool  feature of this park were "The Three Sisters". Cheryl loved the signs for this since she is one of three sisters! So, we kept following the signs along the Green Trail until we reached them.  I think the park sign describes them best: "Three ancient white oak trees, nicknamed 'The Three Sisters'...The trees have towered over the woodlands for over 550 years. When Columbus reached America, they were already over 50 years old!"  Although the trees survived the settlers moving through Ohio, they are declining. The park has done a lot to preserve them, but despite their efforts, one of the sisters has fallen to the ground.  After taking in these amazing old trees, we headed to the Orange Trail where I think we saw our most favorite feature of all the "Osage Orange Tunnel."  The Osage orange trees line this part of the trail creating a natural tunnel.  The trail sign explained that in the early 1800's these trees were used as a living fence to create boundaries along farmers' properties.  Fascinating!  I can't even explain the feeling we both had when we unexpectedly came across this tunnel, looking up and taking it all in - we were giddy!  We are truly turning into hiking nerds!

It's hard to believe this is the close of my third month of hiking and 16 hikes down. Things that I learned this month...

• Puppies can be great hiking companions.
• Hiking is a family bonding experience.
• Spring has sprung!
• Look out for the "inner princess" as bug season is upon us.
• There are worse things you can be than a hiking nerd.
• No matter how crazy life gets, I can perform better in all aspects of my life if I take time to stop and enjoy nature.
•  The importance of gratitude.

I'll close this post with a quote from Heather Zimmerman that we saw along the trail at Sugarcreek:

"I thank you for this day of life

  For feet to walk amidst the trees"

Inner Princess Unleashed!

With the gift of the time change, I got to go out on my first evening hike with my brother Joe this week to Chilo Lock 34 Park and Crooked Run Nature Preserve in Chilo about 21 miles east of Cincinnati. This park sits on a peninsula right along the Ohio River. It was beautiful! The temperature was 82 degrees and we hiked about 2 miles in 45 minutes.  We wore shorts and short sleeves - more about that later!

One of the things that Joe and I noticed first as we entered the trail at Crooked Run Nature Preserve was the very green grassy forest floor. We both felt that there was something different about hiking in this wooded area than other places that we have hiked. Most of the trees were smaller with some large old trees sprinkled here and there. Like when I've been on other forest hikes, I noticed large vines, but they really stood out amongst the small young trees. Later in the hike we met up with a woman who was working to clean up the trail.  She explained that the property used to be a farm, which revealed that this was a young forest.  Now, the unusual sites we were seeing made sense. When we walked around the park after the hike, we read on some of the signs that the park and nature preserve area are the site of where several families lived during the depression. Their fathers worked on the dam nearby.  The families farmed and lived very well compared to most other people during this era.

There were some great water views along the trail.  On one side of the park is the Ohio River and on the other side is Crooked Run.  This is a great bird watching spot.  There are nicely cared for structures for people to hide in to watch for various water birds that live on Crooked Run. The woman we talked to said to listen for the loons, but we weren't fortunate to hear or see any. The water here was so still, you will notice in the pictures that it reflected the surroundings and the sky like a mirror. As we looped around and headed back down the Ohio River, the sun was starting to set and it glimmered on the rushing water.

When we finished the hike, we walked around the park area. It's a great spot for families. There's a little museum and visitors center, which was closed while we were there. There is a nice picnic area and playground and a very cool restored paddle wheel boat, the Jennie Wade, that people can climb all over. As Joe and I were driving home, we both agreed that it was a great way to relieve stress from our day.

Growing up I always considered myself more of a tomboy than a prissy girl, preferring to wear pants over skirts (I still love my blue jeans and baseball hats best!!!)  But when I started out on this venture in 2012 I was concerned about being too whimpy for the cold weather and too prissy to truly enjoy sloshing through the mud.  I was pleasantly surprised at how much I was loving this until...on the ride home Joe said, "Tick!" and he pulled a tick off of his neck.  YUCK!!! My immediate thought was - that's it no more hikes for me!!!!  I was scratching and itching all over after that just at the thought of having a tick on myself.  When we got to my house and were getting ready to eat dinner he told me he found another one and we suddenly looked like two monkeys at the zoo checking each other.  I was feeling very squeamish!  I'm happy to report that the inner princess didn't keep me from hiking again this week and I will post again in a day or two.  I've got to keep her down as bug season comes upon us or I will never achieve this goal.

15 hikes down, 45 to go!!!  If you'd like to suppress the diva in you and unleash the tom boy, join in for an upcoming hike.  Of course, gentlemen are always welcome.

P.S. Haven't had many comments lately. I need some shout outs peeps!

Hiking for Dummies

Cheryl and I set out on St. Patty's Day for a hike at Hayes Arboretum in Richmond, Indiana. It was an unbelievable 66 degrees, the sun was shining, and we didn't see anyone on the trail!  I couldn't believe that more people were not at this beautiful location enjoying the unseasonably warm weather.  It was truly criminal. We hiked three trails for a total of 3 miles in one hour and 30 minutes. We had little difficulty finding the park. Pat on the back to us! I only had to remind Cheryl once of the 3 Mile Rule: No talking within three miles of finding the trail. I gave Cheryl a high-five when she suggested we get a map from the Nature Center before we set out on the hike. However, we had little reason to use it because these were by far the best marked trails so far, hence the name for this week's post - "Hiking for Dummies."

These trails are truly beautiful!  We hiked the Blue Trail First.  Between the many signs of spring and all of the interesting trees, there was so much to see. We were greeted at the trail head by a carved wooden statue. All three of the trails begin at this landmark, so it was a helpful spot to get reoriented between trails.  I stopped to take a picture of the base of one tree that looked like it had a creepy face in it.  A little further down the trail there were several different varieties of fungus on the trees. One was striped and shaped like sea shells.  The other wasn't at all colorful, but it was huge and looked like a big shelf! Since this was Cheryl's first spring hike, she was really enjoying all of the signs of spring.  I had to keep moving her along or we would have doubled our hiking time. This is not an exaggeration!

Next we headed to the red trail. There were so many interesting trees. We saw one tree that looked like someone took a gigantic vegetable peeler to it and carefully peeled off the bark.  All of the bark was sitting in neat little piles underneath the tree.  How does that happen? We figured it had something to do with the variety of tree, but I have never seen anything like this before. We also saw a tree that had a series of large holes up and down it.  We figured Woody the Woodpecker had done the damage. About halfway through this trail there was a clearing.  We hiked up a good sized hill and at the top there was a cool historic sundial that was made in France. As we headed back into the woods we noticed so many new little buds on trees starting to add color to the forest.  Sometimes they looked that they were just floating in the air unattached to the trees.

The last trail we hiked was the yellow trail. Cheryl noticed that the trail terrain changed frequently.  Sometimes it was thick with leaves, other times it was covered with bark or gravel.  Every once in a while we would hit muddy patches. We noticed a sign for a wedding chapel, so we hiked up a hill and came upon neat little rows of benches and an altar - a very cool setting for an outdoor wedding! As we continued along the trail we came to different informational signs. One was about watching for wild turkeys.  We were a little disappointed that we didn't see any.  Another sign indicated that we might see coyotes in the area.  Cheryl said that if we saw one, they wouldn't hang around after they heard her high-pitched squeal.  There was some additional reference to her wetting her pants...I will leave this part of the story to your imagination.  Thankfully we didn't see any coyotes.

14 hikes down and 46 to go!!!!  Hopefully this beautiful spring weather will hold out.  I have some longer hikes scheduled coming up before the weather gets too hot.  I hope I have some joiners!

Four-Legged Trail Scouts

This week's post will be a treat for all of you dog lovers because the featured guests for the hike at Cincinnati Nature Center's Rowe Woods were Zoe and Lucy my brother's two Boston terriers. Also in attendance were Zoe and Lucy's "handlers" my niece Brenna and brother Bill, my nephew Ryan and my brother Joe.  Sorry you guys get second billing, but truly the dogs were a hoot! It was really different pulling into the parking lot this week.  The lot was almost full.  Probably because the temperature was about 67 degrees!!! Amazing for March in Cincinnati.  The sun was shining and spring was bursting. We hiked about 2.5 miles in one hour and 40 minutes.

This is a great place to go hiking. The trails are so well taken care of.  We hiked the Upland Trail and the Fernwood Trail.  Most of the path was laid with gravel and the trails were very well-cleared. The trail signs were also easy to follow which I'm finding is not true about everywhere we go. From the very beginning of the hike, Zoe and Lucy took the role of "trail scouts" (really because they always wanted to be in front.) Shortly after we started, Brenna and Bill started some "doggie shenanigans". Because the two dogs both want to be out front, Bill held onto them while Brenna ran ahead on the trail with a couple of doggie treats in hand.  Then, when she was out of site, she yelled for them.  I almost couldn't get a picture they took off so fast when Bill let them go!  Zoe and Lucy were excellent scouts - they sniffed out the trail to make sure it was safe, they trudged through the mud to show the way to go, and they tested the walking bridges for sturdiness. Well...sort of.  I really considered Zoe the leader because she seemed to be the one who was most insistent on being first.  Until we reached one bridge and we each walked right past her.  For some reason she was afraid to go over.  Joe ended up having to pick her up to get her across.

Something neat that we saw along the trail was the tapping of the trees for maple syrup! There were spiles (tree taps) all over the place in one area.  The park runs some workshops to help people learn how to select the right tree, tap it, and make your own maple syrup.  There are so many activities like this at the nature center. They have full moon walks, winter tracking hikes, and a salamander celebration when you can go to the park with your flashlight and see the salamanders migrate back to the pond between winter and spring. There is also a new PlayScape area for smaller kids with places to climb and small ponds of water.  It looked very popular.

I know that soon the the leaves will cover the trees so I really enjoyed how the sunlight came through the trees today and made interesting shadows on the forest floor. There is also starting to be a green covering on the ground and the landscape is changing quickly. Downed trees covered with moss and fungus were abundant.  Check out the picture of this week's "How Does That Happen?" There was a huge tree that was growing out of the ground in one direction and then sharply angles in the opposite direction. Weird!

There were some good hills along the Upland Trail.  We were all huffing and puffing!  Bill noticed that Zoe and Lucy were now trotting in "survival mode", so they had to stop for a snack and some water to keep their energy levels up.  It's important to make sure your trail scouts' basic needs are being met or danger could ensue!

This was definitely one of my favorite trails so far.  I don't know if it was the temperature, the sunshine, the company, or the furry friends who joined in, but it was a great time. When I came home I calculated that I have hiked 40.61 miles so far in 2012!  WOW! I can't believe it!  This was hike number 13 and I have 47 hikes to go.  I must confess that I am getting a little nervous.  Come April I will hit two hikes a week season in order to get all of the hikes in and I'm not sure I can always be successful with that.  We shall see....one week at a time, I guess.

Next week's hike is to Whitewater Memorial State Park and it's 4.3 miles.  Holler if you want to join in!

Wild Tulip Bulbs

We saw the first signs of spring this week on our hike to Ault Park. We were originally going to hike at Chilo Lock 34 Park, however, there was a terrible storm yesterday with possible tornado damage in Moscow, which is along the way to that site, so we decided it was probably best to choose another hiking location.  I was joined this week by Phyllis and Lorrie. We hiked for 1 hour and 50 minutes and traveled about 3.63 miles.  It was another beautiful sunny winter day and the temperature was 41 degrees.

When we exited the car, it was super windy, but we were fortunate that once we got into the woods the wind was not a factor at all. As we started hiking toward Valley Trail, Lorrie and I noticed right away that the ground was not as muddy as the hike from last week.  We were both grateful for this. When we got to Valley Trail there were signs saying that it was "Under Construction" and that the trail was closed.  It looked passable so we continued anyway.  Whatever construction they are doing, appears to be almost finished.  It was difficult to tell what kind of construction was taking place, but there was a lot of temporary plastic orange fencing.  The trail was all gravel and we hiked on it until we reached some railroad tracks.

From here we headed up our first good hill onto the Ridge Trail.  The ground was still pretty dry at this point and the scenery was beautiful. This was one of the highest elevated points of the trail, so there were a lot of nice woodland views. As we looped around and headed back down toward the Valley Trail, we hit our first encounter with a lot of mud.  Thankfully, no one bit the dust and Phyllis did not become the latest member of the F.Y.B.C. (Fall on Your Butt Club, for anyone who missed last week's post.) There was a spot where we had a choice of two paths, but they were both blocked with piles of tree limbs.  Someone took a lot of time stacking those limbs and why I have no idea.  We stepped around them and carried on. It was at this point that we saw one of the first signs of spring and where the most interesting conversation of the hike took place. It was about tulip bulbs and it went something like this:

Lorrie:  "Someone was out here planting a lot of tulip bulbs!"
Mary:  "You think someone planted all of those?"
Lorrie:  "Well, yeah, how else would they get out here?"
Mary:  "Tulips naturally occur in nature-they aren't manmade, so I would think that they could be wild tulips."
A few moments of silence.
Phyllis:  "Maybe the squirrels had something to do with it."
Mary: "Yeah, you know like how birds eat seeds and then spread them around."
Lorrie:  "I don't believe that a squirrel is eating a tulip bulb and then poops it out! I'm looking it up on the internet!"

Oh sigh...such fun on these hikes! We crossed the Valley Trail again and then started hiking Tree Trail. This was a pretty area.  The tree roots had a lot of moss on them and it was a nice contrast on the winter earth. There were lots of cool trees. I am going to start a new segment called "How does that happen?" We saw a huge tree that looked almost like the bark had been peeled off, but it was more than just the first layer of bark.  Weird.  We saw another tree that had a skinny trunk, but had a huge knot that was about three times the size of the trunk.  How does that happen????  We obviously need a scientist type joining us on these hikes!

I got us turned around toward the end of the hike and we took Cliff Trail, which was the most muddy treacherous part of the hike.  We weren't planning on taking this trail, but we have proven to be directionally challenged, even when there are trail posts.  This path was almost all uphill and was so muddy we were sliding all over the place! You had to watch every foot placement to keep from falling.  I was looking down and WHAM! whacked my head on a huge tree limb.  I couldn't see it because I was looking down and the bill of my hat covered it. I had my adorable pink and cow print reading glasses on my head - they were busted beyond repair.  So sad.  Doesn't everyone wear fancy reading glasses when hiking? (If they want to read the map, they do!)

Overall, this was a fantastic hike. We got some great exercise, we laughed, and took in the fresh winter air.  TWELVE HIKES DOWN AND FORTY-EIGHT TO GO!!!!

Next week I hope to head to Hayes Arboretum in Richmond, Indiana for a 3 mile hike.  Looking for fellow hikers!