March 17: Hiking

We went hiking today. It's hard for Larry to get me out for a walk around the camp ground but I can't wait to go hiking. This was a 2 mile walk along a path called Eagle's Nest Trail. It followed a small part of land that juts out into the lake. We had a hand drawn map and a list of flora and fauna we'd see. However, there were no pictures so we had to guess at what we were looking at. Fortunately I knew some of it but not nearly enough. I saw a weed that had a sign that said "Do Not Touch". Looked to me like a weed that I'd yank out of my garden in a heart beat. Read my flier and determined that it was a Bull Nettle. It's needles sting when touched. It was only about 3 inches high but already looked bad. Never did figure out why they could put a sign on this weed and in two places where leaf cutter ants crossed the path but couldn't identify the trees and shrubs along the way. I determined one tree was a sassafras tree and we sampled the leaf. Tasted like sage. We both hoped it wasn't a fatal sample.

The eagle's nest had been damaged in hurricane Rita so it was no longer used. But it was a really nice hike. Found lots of stuff to take pictures of:

Well - I don't know what I took pictures of. This flower on the left smelled a little like a honeysuckle. The one on the right was very delicate. This white bell was about 1/2" long and notice the little bit of pink flower up closer to the leave.





This is the one of thousands of dog woods in bloom in the area. On the right are a couple of bigger ones and grew along side the tall pine trees.








This beautiful butterfly finally stood still long enough for me to get a picture of it. I couldn't even find the lizard in my camera until Larry got a stick and made it move. It did seem to want to stop and pose for a long time. Larry finally tried to catch it but it was way too fast for him.




This is the visitor's center. It had a view out the back of the lake that was just beautiful. It was closed today - only open on Saturday's so we didn't get in on any informative seminars.





This state park is very new but we had to jack up the wheels on the right side about 5". Our neighbor said he couldn't believe that a contractor didn't already own or wouldn't spend the $12 required to purchase a level to make level camp sites. The bottom step came to Larry's knee. We have another step that we put on the ground but it still made for a big step for me. There is also no TV, cable or wi-fi. Larry played a lot of Hearts on the computer and I got a lot of reading done. A night or two without news and computer isn't bad but that's about all I could handle. Especially with the NCAA March Madness coming up. Gotta get to TV and Wi-Fi somewhere.

I have also scanned about half of my slides I brought with me. The last group "Grimes" has as many slides as the others put together. I also have Larry's slides that he has from his previous life to scan but he has to sort them first.

Tomorrow we head for Natchitoches and a private camp ground WITH TV AND WI-FI.