1 August 2023 Visiting Mohican

Our long weekend was on its last day. We made a detour on the way home for a visit to Mohican State Park. We spotted a few butterflies and saw buckeye nuts on the trees. As August begins the wear and tear visible on butterflies calls out an approaching end to summer.

6 March 2021 West Branch

 I spent a lot of time at West Branch when I was young.  It was a go to place with my boat.  Anything from long days fishing to evenings sleeping on the shore.  These days, visits are spent on the trails.  Today we were here with blue skies and a hint of spring.

20 May 2020 Lakeside Daisy Preserve

 I had been to this preserve once before, but not when the daisies were in bloom.  This year there were a few extra vacation days that weren't going to be used for normal social events so we decided to spend time together.  Lakeside Daisy Preserve seemed a great idea.

The daisies were clearly in bloom from outside the preserve.  Once we were in the preserve, we also started to see birds with a couple of quick yellow warbler sightings.

A large nest in the distance raised our hopes we might spot a nesting pair of osprey.  Unfortunately, the nest was empty.

Despite the bird distractions, we were here for the daisies...

They were everywhere in small clusters and standing alone.

The old quarry where the preserve sits is the only naturally occurring site for the plant in the US.  The quarry is a rocky terrain with little soil and a much different look than the fertile farms of the area.

We walked around the preserve and were headed back toward parking when Ali spotted the first Oriole.

We left the preserve and heading to an old haunt of mine East Branch State Park.  We walked a few wet trails.

I try to avoid earthcaches.  The topics are often weak and information can be wrong.  An earthcache at the state park took us to some nice glacial grooves we hadn't seen before/

We were also treat to more immature orioles near the earth cache site.

We moved onto a county park where the theme of submerged walking paths carried on.  The cache under the pedestrian boardwalk would need to wait for another visit.

We also spotted more yellow warblers.

We had a bonus with our first spotting of a female tennessee warbler in a tree snacking on insects on the way back to parking.

Our last cache in the area was near a rock wall by the state boat launch on the south shore of Marblehead.  We enjoyed plentiful columbine and herb robert in bloom while finding the cache.

2 May 2020 Social or Hungry Heron

 We're used to seeing herons fly away when they hear the lens motor 100 feet from where they are standing.  We were at Mosquito Lake State Park and saw this great blue by the shore.

It seems like normal heron behavior until you look at the person fishing a few feet away.

I guess it was hoping to snag a fish before the guy fishing. 😀

9 November 2019 Mosquito Creek State Park

We took a quiet walk with the dogs through the woods at Mosquito.  The trail led us to a peaceful pond with a few mallards.

23 March 2019 Lake Milton

It was another day for me in another state.  We grabbed the dogs for a visit to Lake Milton and Berlin Reservoir.  Our first stop at Lake Milton was a pleasant loop trail.

Lizzie never misses an opportunity to get her toes wet.

We had fun before moving on to Berlin.

28 July 2018 Preble County

We were nearing the end of our journey to find ten caches in each Ohio County. Today's target was Preble County. We stopped on the way through Vandalia at Jim's Donuts for some pre-caching sustenance before making our way to Fort St. Clair to enjoy out donuts and start to work off those calories with a walk around the historical grounds. The fort was built in 1792 and appears to have been the scene of one large battle with multiple casualities. Today the grounds are a quiet park with the graves of soldiers who were killed at the site and memorials to other more recent military actions. The entrance is marked by an old tank and the grounds appear to be home to the local holiday light display. We enjoyed our walk, the caches we found, and a few of nature's sights.

Ohio Spiderwort in bloom

Southwest Ohio has some well preserved covered bridges. We made a stop at the popular Harshman Bridge on our journey.

This was an interesting old fastner inside the bridge. I have no idea of the purpose of the piece and can't find more information on line. Still, it was something I haven't noticed on other covered bridge constuction.

Hueston Woods was one of the first state parks we visited together many years ago. We were eager for a return trip and a visit to the trails. The caches weren't stellar, but it was fun to return. There are a reasonable number of paw paw trees which survive near home, but they rarely fruit. The state park had a number of trees bearing fruit today.

A pearly eyed butterfly along the trail

Our trip back to the hotel included a stop for a cache at this old steel bridge. These are vanishing in Pennsylvania. It was great to see this one had just received a refurbishment.

Vandalia also was the home of Airline Dairy Creme. While the airport across the road looked lightly used and sleepy, Airline Dairy was very popular among the locals. The offered lemon soft serve which made a very tasty cone when mixed with chocolate.

7 January 2017 Visiting Punderson

29 July 2016 State Park Visits

Ali had state park visits planned for the day starting with Pike Lake State Park. We both liked this relatively small state park. It was quiet and peaceful with nice trails in the woods.

Oh my, look at those paddle boats...

Last week I had never seen a five-lined skink. Now I have seen them in a nature preserve and this state park.

I was happy neither of us fell into this old well while hunting a geocache at the park.

Our visit to Scioto Trail State park was a quick walk along the shore of the lake with more rain on the way back.