Lost Maples, Cool Water Acres

Today I made my annual pilgrimage to Lost Maples state park. I hiked the Maple trail, the East trail and part of the West trail, a hike of a little over 5 miles.

Maybe the new is wearing off after visiting for each of the past several years, or maybe it was the drought, but the scenery didn't seem quite a spectacular this year. Even so, the weather was great, sunny and upper 60s, and it was a nice hike.

Of course I took a few pictures. After looking at them I realized I should have had my date stamp on to prove that these were new. They are almost identical to ones I've taken before. Honestly, I really did go again. Here are a few pictures from the Maple trail.

Then, the obligatory one overlooking Can creek from the top of East trail.

Yes, it is a bit strenuous getting up there. About 2 miles of the trail looks like this. I've done it before with a full pack, so fortunately with no pack today it seemed a bit less difficult than I remembered.

It was a nice trip overall, but I'm hard pressed to say it was any nicer that strolling around Cool Water Acres. Here is a picture I took a few days ago of my cabin here. You can see why it is so tempting to just sit on the porch.

This is probably my last report from here, but I hope to be back on line with a report from Ireland in a couple of weeks.