Month: September 2017

Overall Rating: B+

Rachelle, Paul, Dan and I did a 5+ mile out and back walk on the American Tobacco Trail, a rails to trails conversion that passes right by Rachelle’s and Paul’s house.

We drove to the end, mile marker 22 and hiked just over 2.5 miles along a lovely tree lined gravel road.

The trail is a popular family bike destintion and we passed a horse and rider while on the bridge crossing over dead tree swamp.

Paul found a few golf balls next too the driving range and Dan pointed out some poison ivy – which to me looked a lot like poison oak.

Numerous turtles were sunning themselves in the swamp.

The weather was in the mid to high 70s with humidity around 40%.  All in all a very pleasant experience.

Overall Rating: A-

Today Dan, Rachelle, Silvia and I went for a nice 3.6 mile hike along the Eno River.

The trail dropped gently from the parking lot down to the River at a place called Fews Ford.  Several people, mostly kids, were wadding in the water.

We followed the trail up river, along the bank – which involed the occasional scramble but in general was an easy walk.  At our first junction we had the option of crossing a foot bridge over a tributary that connected to the 2.6 mile Holden Mill Trail loop.  We went counter clockwise which immediately started climbing up at a moderate angle, then some small rolls along the top and gently decended back down to the river, which we followed back to the bridge – passing several cool outcrops the went gently into th water and had been worn smooth.  These outcrops provided great places to picnic or rest.

There were several other hikers, all very friendly, and many with dogs.

Dan spotted the most wildliunfe, turtles, a tree frog, a salemander, spider webs.  There were several places were bugs were making a load noise in the trees (cicada?)