Sunday hike

What a fine weekend. Happy hour at the pub on Friday, project time on Saturday, steak-and-lobster dinner Saturday night (for me; P had a gig), lawn mowing Sunday, and then, a hike!
Hadn't had one of those in awhile. On my to-do list all summer has been: find another place to hike, ideally a little closer to home than our standby Gilbert Lake State Park. Chenango and Otsego counties are both pretty full-up with state forest parcels, and so we've been dutifully poring over the map, adventuring to first one and then another, hoping to get lucky and find one close by with a rigorous three-mile loop through pretty woods. 

And water for Del. This one came pretty close. We hiked a good rigorous hill at Hunt's Pond State Forest, then continued up the road to the fishing access site, which boasted (free, nice) campsites. There was a decent gravel loop for hiking, that paralleled the lakeshore then turned through nice hemlock woods.

And did I mention, there was a lake?

A lake full of fairly enormous, lily-pad-skipping bullfrogs, much to Del's consternation.

I loved being in the woods and seeing everything this time of year. Especially on the lakeshore, the flowers were sooo diverse, and all blooming (it seemed) in those late-summer carnival colors. Orange and gold and purple and magenta and baby pink and deep violet and white and pale yellow. 

Del emerged from the weeds satisfied, thoroughly tuckered, and decorated with tearthumb. It was great spending some quality time with this guy. He had his first off-leash adventure, even, in the state forest, which was a great success. 
A satisfying, low-key, gorgeous weekend. The very best way to close out the month.
Psst! Click here to subscribe to the feed!