January 25th, 2018

Intrepid explorers we, Joy and I hiked through this sort of muck today.  To be fair the trail started out nice and dry.  We didn't see the mucky bits until we were at least an hour into the hike.

​It was a pretty day, chilly with peek-a-boo sun and very few other souls in our sights.  Lots of birds, lots of green, interesting things here and there to admire to photograph and talk about.  We have been to this particular state park many times now on our photo safari's so we were surprised to find a brand new trail cut in so of course we had to check it out.

​We walked and talked and stopped to take photos as we went and were having a particularly lovely time when we rounded a corner and found  water covering the trail in the photo above.  Dang.  Now we realized that we had a choice. We could be brave and slog through it or turn around and go back.  Because we are relatively fearless and occasionally a wee bit reckless, we chose to go forward.  Also we could see the continuing dry trail on the other side which encouraged us.  What's a tiny bit of inconvenience after all. 

​Carefully we picked our way along the extreme sides stepping from grassy bit to muddy bit and only occasionally stepping off, unintentionally, into ankle deep, cold, wet muck.  Ewwww.  Cameras held carefully out of harms reach, we slowly made our way forward and were rewarded at the end with dry ground. Hurrah!  Feeling proud of ourselves for not chickening out (there could have been yucky stuff in that water y'know...like snakes) we continued on our way.

​As we rounded the next corner we were dismayed to find that there was another section of trail covered in water, again with dry ground on the opposite side. OK, deep breath.  We  were already wet and mucky so why the heck not.  Decision made we strode forward.  The sides of the trail in that section were even narrower than the first spot and the water was deeper.  So no matter how carefully we stepped, we got wet.  Water muck inside the shoes and inside the socks. Yucky yucky.  But finally we cleared the swampy area.  Swamp hikers rock! 

​Eventually we got to yet another spot with even deeper water over the trail and worse, no dry trail on the other side.  The trail ended at the deepest water.  What?  Crap.  That means we had to turn around and go back, slogging through mud and water and God knows what else to get back. And no don't tell me because I do NOT want to know.  But we did it.  We felt AWESOME!  

​Our shoes made splutsplut sounds as we squelched along the nice dry part of the trail but we took some more awesome photos and saw all sorts of birds and trees and flowers and vines and in short, I think that Joy and I would completely agree it was totally worth the cold, the wet, the muck and having to put our shoes through the washer when we got back.  The socks however, were irredeemable.  I threw them out.  Maybe, instead I should have had them stuffed and mounted.  I could hang them on my wall like a trophy!   Or maybe I need to buy some hip boots for future hiking trips. Heh.