Another Hike in the Woods

When the warm weather started to return this past spring, Harry and I made a promise to ourselves that we were going to MAKE time for some relaxation this year during the spring and summer seasons. For the past few years, we have put those kinds of times on the back burner while we concentrated on the house. Every spring, my sister and I would say, we should do some hikes this year. And then, the summer months would come and go…and we would say, well, maybe next year. So this year, we got out our respective calendars and put some FUN on the calendar. This past Sunday was our second planned hike!

Here is the whole crew before the hike…my sister Denise, her kids Andrew, Matt, Hannah, Harry, my mom and stepdad, and my brother-in-law Mike.

 

The path was great, very wide and obviously well traveled. There was no chance of accidentally straying from the trail.

This trail has a very interesting feature in that when you are almost to the top, all of a sudden, around a bend, you come across the ruins of a hotel.

 

 

This was originally the Overlook Mountain House…

 

 

It has changed a lot since its early days…this is a picture I found online which was taken in 1907…

 

 

 

 

The other interesting part of Sunday’s hike is that I saw my first rattlesnake – not once, but twice!! Luckily from a safe distance.

The first one was curled up under a rock up on the summit.

 

You can see it curled up in the center and its head is over to the left.

 

 

We encountered the second rattler crossing the trail on our way down.

I could even hear the rattle.

 

 

And the view from the top was very nice. It would have been even nicer if we could have made it to the top of the fire tower, but neither Harry nor I like heights, so we only made it to the second level.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was another great day!