A Circle for The Circle

There hasn't been much to report about the activities of The Circle lately but this weekend we decided to get together for a picnic dinner and a hike in Roxborough State Park. I guess my post about Checking the Bloom had piqued their interest. Guitar and Pic-E had been there before but K and Too Tall, Two Timing had not and I was anxious to show them this little jewel

Sunday afternoon we all gathered at a picnic area a mile or so outside of the State Park. Strange as it seems this State Park has no facilities for picnicking? Chicken salad, quesadillas, pork and beans, layered green salad and margarita pie all washed down with a little bit of Framboise Lambic. My mouth is watering again from just thinking about it. A perfect dinner for the June afternoon of the year. If this is how the rest of June is going to go, I'm really excited.

After a very relaxing outdoor dinner where we all had the chance to catch up on the events of the last couple of weeks, we packed up and headed for Roxborough. I was about 6:30 by this time, cooling off with a nice little breeze....things are really going our way! The park is open until 9pm and I didn't expect that there would be many people there on a Sunday afternoon. I was correct and we pretty well had the place to ourselves.

We decided to take the Fountain Valley Trail. A 2.2 mile loop (hence the post title "Circle for The Circle") which I think gives a good overview of the park. It was also a perfect way to work off the daiquiri pie we has just eaten!

I was surprised at how many more wildflowers had bloomed since I was there just 3 days ago. It's still no where near bloom but things are beginning to "bust out"

About a third of the way into the loop, the ladies who were walking ahead of the men, stopped and pointed ahead. There on the trail was a black fox. Now I've seen a lot of red foxes before but had never seen a black fox. I tried to get a picture but he hopped into the brush before I could. Then as we were talking about how cool that was, he came back out of the brush and stared at us for a few seconds before disappearing again. Seems he was as curious about us as we were of him.

The rest of the hike was much less eventful....thank goodness. That's an odd statement you say? Well, in this case "discretion is the better part of valor". When we got back to the ranger station a little while later, the ranger said that a momma black bear and her cub had been spotted on the trail we were on, just a little bit before we finished the hike.

The ranger also said that he had seen the black fox only once and it is a rare sighting so we felt pretty lucky.

By about 8:30 we were headed home. A great gathering of The Circle with great food, great friends and a most enjoyable nature walk.

Thanks for visiting.