Busy, Busy, Busy

I don't know how much anyone has noticed, but I have been falling behind with a few things on here recently. This has actually been a good thing for me. The reason for this is because I've been spending even more time with nature.

I think I mentioned about a week ago that I discovered a new place where I could go hiking. I originally saw it a last summer while I was driving by an alternate entrance. I had just gotten through applying for a different job in the area. Apparently they weren't smart enough to hire the best person for the job.

Because I didn't have a big reason to go back to the area, I didn't go back to investigate this new nature place. It looked very small and I had other things to keep e busy.Well, I finally got around to going back and I discovered that this place is huge.

It has over six miles of hiking trails. That's bigger than any other place in this area. There are three times that many combined hiking, biking, and horseback riding trails too. You can hike on them all. Thebest thing is that it isn't really that far away from me.

I've been spending most of my available time there just trying to find my way around. I took my compass, which I don't usually have to do, and it promptly got lost in this huge pond. It was dropped through the cracks of this dock.

This wasn't such a good thing because this pond is at the farthest point away from the entrance. It was a good thing I have a good sense of direction. The trails twist and turn all through the park, and I had to find my way back. It turned out to be easier than I thought it would be.

I'll be giving more details on this park this week some time. I have plenty of things to show you from my visits there. In the meantime I decided to show you some pictures that demonstrate what I saw.

I have been getting home very late and very tired after visiting these trails. It's a good kind of tired. Walking through here so much has helped me work out the pain in my legs from running from those baby raccoons I've been telling you about for the last few days.

This new place isn't the only thing I've been doing. I have a new little device that I hope will enhance my experiences with nature. I hope to begin hiking bigger areas and do many new and exciting things that I never dreamed about before.

My new toy is a GPS(Global Positioning System) that's specially made for hiking. It's much better than a compass, and besides, it has one built right in. As soon as I learn how to use it I'll be doing some bigger and better things. I'll still tell every experience through the eyes of a beginner though.
There you have it! I'll try to catch up on everything here on the internet this week. This recent outdoor stuff has made me very tired. I've now been awake all night trying to get everything, including this post, reasonably caught up. I'm not quite there yet.

Okay, that's enough typing for me. It's very early in the morning, and also time for me to go to sleep. I hope you enjoy these pictures. I'll talk to you again soon you soon!