[OT] a walkin the woods

Well, I passed an impromptu cardiac stress test today. The weather

Marina...

Your walk sounds lovely, John. I wish spring would hurry up an arrive
here too, but we still have a thick layer of snow outside and the
forecast says it will be cold fo a while yet.

mlbriggs...

My daffodils are up about 6 inches and the tulips are up about three
inches. We had snow last night and expect some more in a couple of days.
Every year when the flowers are in bloom we seem to get a heavy snow storm
to break the flowers down,MLB

was sunny, calm, and relatively mild (low 50s Fahrenheit), so I went
hiking at Radnor Lake State Natural Area, outside Nashville. I

Monique Y. Mudama...

*snip*

Sounds great!

I'm in Colorado. I went hiking with some friends from Florida; their
idea; I thought it would still be snowy on the trails. Silly me! The
trail was bone dry, and I even saw some mountain bikers on it, making
me feel awfully guilty. It just hadn't even *occurred* to me that the
local trails would be clear!

It's supposed to snow a lot this week, though. We drove back from
Steamboat yesterday, and it snowed pretty much the whole way.

decided that, rather than take my usual more-or-less-level route
around the lake, I would take the Ganier Ridge trail, which I hadn't
been on in 10 years or so. I had forgotten just how steep the trail
is. You climb a couple of hundred feet up to the top of the ridge
(most of the climb in about 1/4 mile of horizontal distance), go along
more-or-less level for a couple of miles, then have an even steeper
climb down. I was glad I had thought to take along a hiking staff, as
I sometimes had to tackle knee-high steps down onto a slanting
surface, with a 45-degree slope beyond the edge of the trail to slide
down had I lost my balance.

While spring flowers are starting to bloom in Nashville, the Radnor
Lake park is at a sufficiently higher elevation that only a few early
wildflowers were in bloom. I saw a good many kinds of birds, and
could hear geese honking down on the lake. Given how many hickory
nuts were visible, I was surprised that I saw only a few squirrels. I
made enough noise walking on the mostly-gravel path to scare off any
other small animals, although I probably would have seen some had I
sat quietly on a bench for 15 or 20 minutes, to give them time to come
out from hiding. Later in the spring, there will be plenty of frogs
and turtles down in the lake.

Adrian...

It sounds like you had a very pleasent day, nature can be wonderful. :-)

CatNipped...

Ah, John, that sounds idyllic! I always wanted to live in a mountainous
area - but unfortuantely have lived on the Gulf Coast, which is flat as a
pancake, all of my life.

John F. Eldredge...

The Nashville area would better be described as hilly rather than
mountainous, but we are only about an hour's drive west of the
Appalachians. Incidentally, I went to high school in Appalachia,
without knowing it; the terrain around Campbellsville, Kentucky is
hilly rather than mountainous, but I learned a couple of years ago
that it is classed as the westernmost county of the Appalachian area.

Suz...

We are starting to see some improvement up here in New England. We've
gotten snow in April, so we're not out of the woods yet, but there's
hope.
Suz&Spicey