Hello everybody it's great to be posting on the first Wednesday of the new year. It's time and it has been awhile since I have posted in #WednesdayWalk hosted by 
I got off work early yesterday and on the drive home I thought of hitting up a park close to the river here. Now I haven't been to this place so I didn't know what to expect. My intentions were to capture some river photos and finish up an article that I have already published.
Now I quickly found out this park is tiny.There really wasn't much to it. That is evident because these few photos summarize it. The park had three metal benches and three metal tables. There was a bricked oval shaped area on top off a small hill. The metal tubes I think was some make shift art. For play to hang on? No I don't think so as they were close to 10 feet off the ground. Maybe in hindsight for a family of Bigfoots, hehe. There was some information boards about other parks off the river and some history of the river. The bad thing is it was too faded, contained many scratches and some vandals decided to graffiti them.
The slight rise in elevation did offer some river views. Not shoreline views but some looking down on it. My next course of action was to walk near the edge of road to see if there were any better areas to capture some more. I get there and notice there is a nature trail below. Now this park doesn't have an entrance to it. I decided to track down a hill about 50 feet below through some waste high brush.
Here I am I made the track down unscratched. The weather today is close to 32 degrees F (0 degrees C) and there is a bit of a breeze. As you can see in the picture I'm wearing a sweatshirt. I'm also wearing jeans and a pair of sneakers. I wasn't freezing though there were times when I could see my breath. A few times my hands got a little cold. The more I walked and the faster I went the more warm I was. It was only somewhat cold to me when I stopped to take pictures.
The make up of the trail floor was dirt. Many times it was completely covered in leaves which I didn't mind because some of the dirt was muddy. Some paths were partially covered and I tried to walk on the leaves as much as possible.
It wasn't muddy everywhere but after walking awhile I accumulated some mud on my shoes. Every so often the trail had placed stones in it. Were these put here on purpose for a would be trail walker to clean his shoes off? Well I definitely made use of it, haha. I did this on three occasions as I probably walked here for over an hour.
The forest hides many things. The snow here is pretty much gone since it last snowed the day after Christmas. So it is nice to see some of it. It was cool to see a split open stump containing snow along with a good amount of leaves. I was amazed that some trees are still fighting to hold onto their leaves, something that doesn't happen in January. The thing that caught my eye the most is the green grass. How the heck is this still around? Usually that disappears in the middle of fall. My yard is all brown, maybe I need to find out what kind of grass this is, haha. Hey I fight a lot in the spring to get my yard green.
Oh deer, animal tracks I'm not alone in this forest. I seen many animal tracks but most of them were deer. When I first got on the trail I seen some raccoon tracks and also smelt a skunk nearby. This kind of put my senses on alert because I didn't want to be a victim of unpleasant juices. There were some bird chirping, crunches of branches in the distance and sounds made that were unfamiliar to me. I did not see a single living thing though surprisingly.
There were so many downed trees on the forest floor. Also some trees were laying on each other both naturally and on purpose. I'm not quite sure when this trail was made but you can see many clean cuts marks on a lot of the tree trunks.
The forest hid the river well even though it was very near to it. As I passed through one area the trees couldn't hide it no more. I could now see it through the braches of standing trees. Some views were more clear than others. Than all of sudden I found an opening in the forest where I could take a picture of the river with a great view. The bridge is the Veterans Memorial bridge that connects Nebraska to Iowa. Seeing this view I realized I was well beyond a mile from where I started on the trail. Time to get back before the sun sets and it is dark. A dark forest is no place to be!
It was a very good trail to walk. There were lots of bends and plenty of uphill climbing. I had the forest all to myself except for the hiding wild life. A little muddy at places and yes I'm not wearing those sneakers today. They will have a date with a scrub brush very soon.
I hope you enjoyed the walk that wasn't planned. A little chill in the air but that didn't stop me from getting some steps in. I guess at some point I will come back and experience the whole trail. Perhaps when the trail is completely dried out.
Take care, stay safe and enjoy the rest of the week. Until next time.
