Here Comes.........

SPRING!!

Okay.......I haven't seen any flowers like that yet here in New England.....but I'm sure they're on their way.

The weather has been warm(er) and most of the snow has melted! (please, please....snow gods....don't jinx me for saying that!)

Because the weather is so much nicer and the winter was so long and difficult, we decided to go out for some hiking today.

Please understand that when I say "hiking" I do NOT mean UPHILL! I mean ..... a walk in the woods.

We had decided to go to our beloved Parker's for lunch/dinner (Linner? Dunch?). I had to work this morning so we couldn't go for breakfast but it's okay......they serve breakfast all day.

Whilst we were out that way, we figured why not pick one of the State Parks we haven't been to yet and do a little hiking. I found Pearl Hill State Park which looked like it had some nice little hiking trails.

It turned out to be a gem. The first thing we found was the "Nature Trail" which meandered beside a very beautiful babbling brook. There was still quite a bit of snow on the trail and a considerable amount of mud, but we found ways to get across it. And I only slid in the mud and fell on my butt once!

After we got through the Nature Trail we decided to do walk around the campground road which was a big loop. Yikes! The road went up and down quite a bit so there were some friggin' hills involved but with a lot of huffing and puffing and even more encouragement from my Hubby (Thanks Hubby!) I made it all the way around.

What I found unbelievable was the utter devastation that our area experienced from the ice storm last December. There were crazy amounts of limbs and trees down. Parts of the road were just covered and we saw many places where someone had already been there to cut up trees that were blocking the road.

When I had gone online to look for a State Park to hike in, I found several that were posted "closed indefinitely" because they had sustained so much damage. It still amazes me the amount of carnage that storm caused.

We're going to try to visit all different State Parks this summer. The more often we can go, the more we hike and the more my damn cholesterol will go down.

It probably would go down quicker if I didn't eat a huge breakfast/lunch/dinner at Parker's first.