Hemlock Park with Ted

Ted and I took advantage of a beautiful Autumn day to take a geocaching hike in Hemlock Overlook regional park. Hemlock is the only one I had never visited of the chain of parks along the Occoquon River. That's because its primary use is as an outdoor eduction facility (jointly run by the parks authority and a local university). It turns out that in addition to that stuff there are hiking trails that are open to the public. So we headed out to do some hiking and find some geocaches.

One thing about caching is that it can take you far off the trail and get you pretty completely spun around. Even with two GPS receivers in hand, after two caches we had no idea of where the trail was anymore, but we quasi-backtracked and eventually found ourselves on a trail that led down to and along the banks of the river. It rained like crazy yesterday and so the trails, while not muddy, were a little slippery. Ted, as usual, was hiking in Crocs and had no problems negotiating the trail (he was also channeling some strange teenage Rambo vibe, with a camo bandanna, neck shade, etc.). I, wearing low hikers, came pretty close to sliding down into the river on one steep section of trail.

Yesterday's rain was a welcome anomaly. It's been a pretty dry Fall, which has the unfortunate impact of lessening the intensity of the Fall colors. It was still pretty amazing out in the woods, though. This time of year is pretty striking around here.

Alas, eventually we had to head for home. The economy being what it is we decided to forgo the burgers which beckoned to us from Fuddruckers. Instead we just grabbed a couple of Diet Cokes from the trunk of the car (a good deal at Target, but I keep forgetting to bring them into the house) and headed home.