The Perfect End to a Fabulous Summer

With the official beginning of autumn this Wednesday, we spent our final weekend of summer hiking some trails at a local state park.  Other than a few campers fishing in the creek, we had the entire place to ourselves.

Before our hike, the younger children rode bikes and played on the playground.  We had to walk right past this beautiful---but rather frightening---orb spider that was next to the steps leading to the swings.  I wasn't willing to get any closer than this to photograph it.  I just had images of it leaving its web and landing on my head.

The first signs of autumn were visible with fallen leaves accumulating on the water.

This trail has a lot of bridges, and the fishermen in our family had to pause on each one to search for trout.

We've had so little rain here during the past two months that local creeks are lower than I've ever seen.  Some are just dry rock beds.

Since I was taking photographs with my tablet while hiking, our precocious six-year old was also stopping to "take pictures" for her imaginary blog with an iphone that she made out of cardboard.

It was such an incredibly beautiful day with temperatures around 80 degrees and a brilliant blue sky.  My photographs could not do it justice.

This trail is one we hike quite often with our children because it's fairly light climbing, and it winds right alongside the creek.  They love all the bridges, rocks, and "beach" areas.

Um, did I already mention there are a lot of bridges in this park?

I stated in a previous post that we are fans of Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.  Our youngest son does the best impersonations of Gollum, and he can't resist jumping and crawling around on all these flat rocks like Gollum does in the first part of The Hobbit.  I know, it's a little quirky...but that's who we are.

There were even plenty of spots to sit and relax when we were finished.  The rock in the middle of the creek was not my choice.  I found a nice squishy mossy spot up against a tree instead.

Now, I feel ready to welcome in fall.  Bring it on!