Hiking

Christian was given short notice to give a talk on Sunday (this is in addition to the regular Sunday class he has to teach). So he had been scrambling all week to gather information for the talk he had to give but by Saturday, he still had not had enough time to write it all out. So I took the girls out of the house to give him some peace and quiet.

Since the weather was still on the milder side of summer, I decided to take the girls up hiking in the Box Springs Mtns. I've been wanting to explore the area up there since we moved but never had the time. So the girls and I packed some snacks and water and took off.

At first it was pleasant enough. We found what appeared to be the trail head. The trail seemed to split off into a "Y." We took what appeared to be the bigger more travelled trail. The trail wove in and out of the shade of grown sycamore trees. It was quite pleasant. As we continued on, the trail narrowed a bit. And then it just stopped. The trail was overgrown with a very, very prickly plant. They were long leafy branches of a bush, but along the stems were very fine thorns. I gingerly touched it with my fingers when investigating the plant when I was stung by them and my fingers didn't feel right again until the next morning!

Needless to say, we backtracked and tried to find a way around but there were no trails that the girls could travel on. They were all game trails up steep hill sides. We took another smaller trail off to the side and traveled some way up the mountain but it was not pleasant. It was still just a glorified game trail I think. The grass weeds kept sticking into our socks and we had to stop every now and then to pull them out. After some time traveling up these trails, we found that they just branched off everywhere and we didn't seem to be getting anywhere. The girls were pretty fed up with the condition of the trail and I couldn't hardly blame them. It was getting pretty hot and we decided to turn around and call it a day.

I thought maybe with all the budget cuts that they stopped maintaining the trails some time ago. We did not run into another soul while out there. But I spoke to my neighbor who hikes up there all the time (as a matter of fact, she went the next day) and she said that the trail was well maintained. Evidently, I did not enter at the correct trail head! I have no idea where it might be as I took the most obvious route in. She said that she would show it to me some time. I am determined to find out how I could have missed the correct route.