Monday 11-29 Camping and Hiking

Gorgeous Day at Buescher State Park

We woke up to a brisk 37 degrees. Thank goodness for power so we could plug in with an electric heater. By the end of the day it got up to 66 degrees with a lot of sunshine. We had a gorgeous day.

I made mini waffles for breakfast. Afterwards we went on a  five mile hike using the hiking trail. We hadn't been here since December 2012 and they have made improvements to the trail. They added some cutoff trails, expanded the trail in places, trimmed back the undergrowth and made new trail signs. We started from the Minnie and walked to the trailhead. We hiked Winding Woodland Trail, which was 1.5 miles to the pipeline road and crossed over the road to the other side where we picked up the Pine Gulch Trail at a parking lot. It is 3.5 miles long but we hiked it to a Cutoff. The cutoff was .5 miles to the main road. We took the main road back to the campground. We took the road because Saturdays rain left parts of the trail muddy, especially the first part. The trail was very well maintained and well used. It went through trees, up and down small ravines and crossed the park road multiple places. It went by the cancer research center. When we got to the parking lot there were a few vehicles and an overview.  We said hi to a bicyclist who was leaving. According to the trail map we received the trail is  suppose to be for bicycles and hiking but the signage at the trail heads says no bicycles. So it's a little confusing for bicyclists. While there I took a picture from the overview of the surrounding area. We had a peaceful hike because we were the only ones on the trail we hiked, except when we got close to the parking lot where met a couple of ladies. We had a great hike.

 

The hiking trail terrain

A view from the overview

In the afternoon we enjoyed the campsite, Larry with a book and me doing games. I did the Solitaire and Mahjong Daily Challenges and the Event: World Tour Mini of 7 games. It took me 20 minutes and 29 second, which put me in 28th place in my group of 100. I also did some Sudoku games.

For dinner we had beef enchiladas, that I made before leaving the house. After dinner Larry and I went on a half hour walk to the tent area and the CCC Recreation Hall. While walking we saw some deer hanging around the tent area by the CCC Pavilion. We had another peaceful walk. 

After dropping Larry off at the Minnie I continued walking another half hour to get my steps in. I ended up doing 27,000 steps, which is a great start for the week.