Surprise Flowers

I have two surprises for you today! The first surprise is these flowers. I keep saying that I almost never see flowers around here. And I really don't, but here are these. When I see them I make sure I get at least a few pictures.

I'm lucky I had my phone this time because these flowers were tiny and the phone zooms right in and gets good focus on small things. My big camera doesn't do quite as well in automatic mode. Now whenever I have something small to share I use the phone.

And you may not have noticed my second surprise. There's a bug in the picture above. I don't know whether I caught him by surprise or he just diesn't move anymore. But I got the bug in the picture too. And it's a nice clear shot. Pretty good for just one picture.

And I found another flower! I said I had two surprises, but does another flower count as a third? This looks to be some kind of thistle, maybe of the Canadian variation, but it's kind of small compared to most. This flower is also tiny, but not as small as the others.

This is a nice lavender colored flower, but you won't want to pick it. It bites. Look at those thorns below the flower. I don't like that part. Such a shame. I wanted to pick this flower to death so much too.

I would have posted more pictures this time, but I only had these two. Like I said, I don't see many flowers around here. Maybe I need to look harder. My next trip might have more flowers or some other interesting plants. I guess we'll find out next time. I'll talk to you later.

Hills So Steep

I recently visited a new nature park, kind of. This new park is actually the back entrance of Five Ridge Prairie Preserve. I've visited the front entrance several times over the past few years. The reason that it is new is because this park is so big that I've never been anywhere close to this end of it.

The park is very hilly and even if I was still in my best shape I'm not good enough to hike through the whole thing. The hills just about kill me. And that brings me to the good and bad points of this mostly new nature park.

First of all, this end of the park is beautiful. It's almost exactly what I've been looking for in a nature park. The trails are only just wide enough to walk through, and there are lots of trees. The trees are the important thing for me. I love being surrounded by trees on a good nature trail. And this park doesn't disappoint with trees.

But now comes the part I didn't like, and it was unfortunately a deal breaker. This main trail goes up a very steep hill. Take a look in the picture above. You can kind of see it. Pictures never show hills properly for some reason.

I said before the hills just about kill me, even at the best times. My back has become weak, and I can't seem to fix it, so I do the best I can. Surprisingly it wasn't my back that was the problem here. It was my legs. I went as far as I could before I was in agony, and I had to turn back.

It's hard to see it in the picture above, but from here I could just see the top of the hill. I couldn't walk any farther. At least I got a picture. I had to turn around and make my way back down the steep hill. It was a much easier journey on my legs, but going down the hill was much harder to maneuver. I had to be very careful not to slip and fall.

After awhile I made it back down to the bottom and to the beginning of the trail again. I knew I wouldn't be back here again for quite some time, and I was regretting it because the trails are so nice looking. I really wish they were flatter. It would become my favorite park if that were so.

So now my next plan is to visit the other end of the park. I can walk much farther there. That end is good, but the trail looks like an access road. I like the small forest trails better. They make me think of hidden secrets to explore so much more than others.

So I guess I'm done here until my next adventure. This one was a little more serious this time. That's sometimes good. We'll see what my attitude is next time. And until then, I'll talk to you later.