December 27th, 2021

Bet you thought this was going to be another Christmas themed post?  Nope, not today.  Today I thought I would write up our most recent photo safari which took place before Christmas.  Fear not, the Christmas Themed Posts will resume tomorrow :)

But for now, Another Photo Safari Report!  I am calling this one the "At least it was a nice hike" Hike because, well it was a lovely hike but oddly, we took very few photos.  Not sure what that was all about but it was true.  Neither Joy, nor I, took very many pictures.  

It was a gorgeous day though.  Chilly enough to wear a sweatshirt but warm enough to wear hiking shorts.  It had rained hard the day before so the grass and leaves were very wet, but the sun was shining brightly for our hike.  The previous days storm had some wild and crazy wind but it had settled down to a gentle breeze for us.  Very Very nice.  I think it might have been the easiest hiking we've done in a long time.

There was no sweating, no frond "bridges" that needed to be built and we ran from no feral hogs.  No sneaky snakes, no hungry gators, no vampiric mosquitos and in fact, there was not much at all other than the trails and a lot of trees.  

​The trails are gorgeous,  make no mistake:

We didn't even find many birds!  Where were they hiding?  Were they out Christmas shopping?  Were they nestled into their nice warm nests reluctant to emerge into the chilly morning?  Perhaps they were on vacation?  Here are the few birds that I actually saw (and a couple of other things too):

I did take some botanical shots though.  I always do of course, but this time it was because there just weren't many other photo options:

We still had a great time. It always feels so good to be out in nature, in the quiet, walking the trails and admiring Mother Nature's handiwork.  I suspect that even if we had no cameras we would still manage to get out there and hike the trails.  And it was especially nice during the hectic and insanely busy Christmas Season to step away from the crazy for awhile and listen to the quiet.

And that's it!  Like I said, not very many pictures. But we walked about 4 something miles, enjoyed ourselves,  and ultimately we were, as we always are, happy with the day.

I'll be back to writing up Christmas related things again tomorrow. I think there are a few more stories to tell along that line.