Tuesday 1-11 Hiking Lake Tawakoni State Park

Let's go hiking, grab your hiking stick

We woke to a brisk morning with the temperature in the 30s and a breeze. We had only one of our electric heater plugged in. I had lowered the temperature to 67 so Larry turned it up to 72. It ran constantly all morning. Even though it was a cool day it was a beautiful day with a lot of sunshine. At 6:00 it was 48 degrees. We hiked about 7 miles today, a bit more for me since I also walked around the campground getting in my steps.

I crawled out of bed around 8:00 and got dressed, it was still a little nippy. The other day when we went grocery shopping we picked up a bag of pre-made pancakes. Only takes a minute to heat them up in the microwave, not as good as normal pancakes but not bad and really easy. 

After breakfast we went on a two hour hike for 4 miles. We hiked down to the amphitheater via the bridge to the trailhead behind it. When we got to the day area we saw two small herds of deer, each one had four deer. When they saw us they ran off. We hiked four trails. Each trail markers had a figure on it so you know you're on the right trail. We started on the Farkleberry (black), which was .5 mile with a Farkleberry on the signs. The signs were every 1/10th of a mile. We walked it to the Y, where we went to the left. We hiked the Blackjack (purple), which was 1.5 with a leaf marker. The blackjack is a medium size oak. It's stiff drooping branches form an irregular, dense crown that contains many persistent dead twigs or branches. When we got back to the Y we went the other direction to the other two trails. The next trail we took was Osage Orange (orange) for .8 mile.with a leaf markers. It looped to the Red Oak (red) for .4 miles. Then we were back on the Osage Orange back to the Farkleberry. The trails weave through the forest, they are leaf covered and are easy to walk. We had to be careful when hiking not to trip over tree roots because the leaves cover them. There were benches here and there to rest on. Once back to the amphitheater we walked to the bridge and went home. Along the trails there were benches to rest on. We had a wonderful hike.

 

Lake Tawakoni from the trails

 

A beautiful crane at the boat ramp

 

Larry resting on one of the benches

 

The hiking trail

After lunch I did my Solitaire and Mahjong Daily Challenges and the Event: Klondike Mini of 5 games. It took me 10 minutes and 27 seconds, which put me in 21st place in my group.

Then I went on an hour walk. I walked around the camping area and the White Deer Nature Trail. This trail had a head of a deer. I did this three times for a total of 3 miles.

 

White Deer Trail Marker

 

White Deer Trail

Back in 2017 painting rocks and putting them along hiking trails was a thing. They were friendship rocks. When people pick up one of the rocks they are suppose to replace it with another. While I was hiking the White Deer Trail I saw one but it took me the third lap to see it. It was very cute.

 

One of the painted rocks along Nolan Creek Trail in 2017

 

The rock I saw today on White Deer Trail

At 3:30 Larry and I went on an hour walk. We started the walk by hiking the White Deer Trail for .5. There are signs along the trail to explain some of the plants. This morning we walked the Farkleberry Trail but we had no idea what a Farkleberry is, walking this trail there was a sign the indicated a Farkleberry is also known as Sparkleberry, it grows in sand dunes, hammocks, dry hillsides, meadows and rocky woods. Other places it's known as a Huckleberry. After hiking the White Deer Trail. We walked to the day area, where we picked up the trails we did yesterday. The trails we hiked were the Nature Trail for .5 mile, Spring Point East Trail for .4 mile and Spring Point Branch Nature Trail for .1 mile to Spring Point Camping Loop. Then we walked around the camping loop and took the bridge back to our camping loop. While walking the Spring Point Branch Nature Trail we saw four deer grazing. We figured they were use to people because they didn't run off. We had a great hike. 

 

Deer grazing by the lake

 After dinner I walked around the camping loop three times to finish my steps. I ended up doing a total of 28,500 steps, which put me in 3rd place in my group.

Today was Mexican food day. We had tostadas for lunch and tacos for dinner. A little later we had hot chocolate. For dessert we shared a mini lemon cake. 

Larry and I spent the evening reading. Larry finished a book and started a new one. I started reading The Penitent Priest by J.R. Mathis & Susan Mathis.