Yesterday (and today too!) was one of those rare and extremely beautiful October days … where it made it up to 70 degrees (75 today!) without raining! The sun was out … and it was just completely intoxicating to be outside enjoying God's marvelous creation.
The grandkiddos and I drove out to Pickerel Lake, only a 15 minute drive from The Beach House. I love it out here.
At the entrance to this beautiful park that Frederick Meijer turned into a nature reserve, there is a very LONG boardwalk that crosses the western end of the lake. My sweet Emma Joy absolutely refuses to walk on it! She says she is certain it will break apart in the middle and all of us will be thrust into the swampy water!
So instead of beginning our hike where most people do (on the boardwalk), we went through the parking lot to the right and walked a pathway to the turnstile and squeezed our way through it to walk around the lake going the opposite direction of most folk.
Matthew found a nice walking stick almost immediately!
Emma brought her nature backpack with her and had her binoculars all ready to go.
We had such a great hike around Pickerel Lake! Of course, I didn't TELL the kids that we were actually going to walk around the entire lake ...
… because I KNEW they would say it was TOO FAR and they couldn't do it! Instead, we just started walking. I told them we were looking for signs of beavers … and perhaps we would even meet a real live beaver!
We took lots of little interesting detours along the way ...
And now and then, we would stop and rest ...
Being out in the woods like this, especially this time of year, is definitely one of my favorite things to do. There are NO mosquitos to fight with and hardly any bees bothered us … we were able to walk and explore and admire God's creation the whole time we were there.
We had walked quite a way when Emma finally asked me how we were going to get across to the parking lot without crossing that terrible boardwalk she hates so much ...
I told her we would figure something out when we got there.
In the meantime, we just walked and walked; and as we walked, we talked and laughed and … well, it was wonderful.
Thankfully, we found a map that showed an alternate route, a small "road" that would take us around the boardwalk and end us up on Ramsdell for a short distance … but it looked reasonable enough to try.
Finally! We found EVIDENCE of beavers at least. I handed my camera off to Emma to get a close-up of this gnawed off tree trunk. Good job, Ems!
We finally got to the alternate road which turned out to be marked "private property" with a sign that said: "Private property. Violators will be shot. Survivors will be shot again." But that sign wasn't posted until we had walked halfway to the end gate … so we proceeded and hoped we wouldn't hear any gun shots! I took this last picture from that private road … I love the reflections, don't you?
The kiddos were pretty tired out … but we actually accomplished hiking around the entirety of Pickerel Lake. I was so proud of them! We drove home and enjoyed a huge taco dinner … we were very hungry! And our Bible story was about Peter being rescued from jail … a wonderful story of faith! Another Sunday afternoon of sweet memories … thank-you, Lord!
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