Hiking Day!

It turned out to be such a nice evening, as David and Cindy took me out to dinner to entertain me in Clem's absence, and then Chris came by for a visit at the coach!  We had fun chatting and awaiting the big storm that my phone kept announcing!  It had beeped all day warning of storms in Florida, then spent the evening beeping about one approaching here!  Cool app.....would not let you sleep through a storm for sure!

The day dawned gray again, after heavy rains last night.  I decided to take a walk, and surprised that it was actually warm, decided to look up nearby hiking trails for a longer walk with the camera.  I have a cool app on my phone for that!  Surprised?  Anyway, the hiking app showed some that were about 1/2 hour away, but a search on the internet turned up one in the same town, which turned out to be a stone's throw away.  Problem was, it took me nearly half an hour to FIND it!!  Probably why it is not listed on the app!!  

The trail followed an old stage coach line, where you can see marks in the rocks from the heavy coaches, and led to overlook rock,  the highest point in the town, with an elevation gain of 200+ft.  While that seems like very little to my Portland hiking buddies,  with whom I have done 1000 ft gain and more, it is huge by Florida standards!  A nice warmup to getting back to hiking!  A few birds chirped, and chipmunks scattered, but not many photos.  A lovely hike in the woods just the same.

mountain laurel 

have to admit I did not see the spider hiding when I shot this

At the summit, granite pegmatite rocks were scattered on the  ground, and crystalline chips were everywhere.  I wanted to gather some for the girls, but they splintered!  I did gather a couple of small rocks with the pretty crystals for them to see.  Not familiar with this rock, I had to look it up, and discovered it is formed of molten rock material and this one solidifies beneath the earth's surface, and  is usually composed of quartz, feldspar, and mica, which must be what the chips were.  Now I just hope to someday be asked in a trivia game or something what igneous rocks are!