Here we are back again at work starting a new week. A short week at that... But our weekend wasn't short. It was adventurous and filled with surprises. Here's what happened...
On Saturday morning Deb and I decided to meet everyone at the trail head, so we had a little extra time to fuss around the house before we left. Undo pressure in the morning, especially before I have my coffee, is not a good thing so I was a happy camper.
Deb and I eventually arrived at the Chatfield Hollow State Park a little early, so we decided to venture off a bit. I took some pictures nearby while Deb went to the potty. When we got back to the parking area, everyone had arrived and were applying bug repellent and basically getting ready for our adventures. It wasn't long before we all were on our way.
The trail head was not far from the entrance to the Chatfield Hollow State Park, so we decided to walk up the road to find it. We then ventured down a dirt road and across a well built bridge thinking we were on the right path, but later we noticed we were on private land. We then back tracked and found the entrance to our hike a few stretches further up.
The trail we choose this week was very rocky. So much so, the rock formations we saw made this hike one of the most interesting this season. Most of the blue trail we followed lead us up, over, and under the best rock formations in the area. This hike is definitely on our repeat list. Most of our pictures are using rocks to frame us in all our glory.
After we snapped a few group shots in and around all these rocks, the trail ventured off towards a number of dry, rocky stream beds. It really hasn't rained all that much this season, so all the streams and lakes have significantly less water in the them, if any at all. While we were crossing one of these dry streams, Deb and Sof started screaming and shouting. At first we didn't know what was happening, but it didn't take us long to figure out that we were getting attacked by bees. One of us must have stepped on a bees nest. The girls then ran past us, screaming as they went. Rob, Bob, and I chased the girls to try to help, but once we tried to stop and swat the bees away, we found out we didn't run away far enough. We eventually were able to run out of their reach to stop and apply some medication, but not after a very trying experience. We also rested to contemplate our next move.
All in all, both Deb and Sof probably received about 10-15 bee stings apiece, mostly on their backs. I got stung once in the back of the head, behind my right ear. We then hiked a bit further until we reached a small wooded bridge where we rested a bit while we were counting our wounds. Later, Sof mentioned that she was worried about what to do if we had to get out of the woods quickly, like I'm sure everyone else was. At this point we were about 4 miles away from our cars. None of us are allergic to bee stings, thank God, but if someone like Christina was with us, we would have had a major problem on our hands.
Our plan was to hike about 4.1 miles to the end of the trail and then turn around and go back. On our way back we decided to avoid the dry stream beds and go around all those bees. About at this point Bob got stung on the elbow, so that left Rob the only person without wounds. We were able to finally get back to our hiking again, at which point we were greeted by some people on horseback. We warned them about the bees, and then we finished the rest of our hike by snapping some more group shots, and then eventually eating lunch at Cafe NV, then we had our Starbucks fix. What an adventure!
ok, that's all for this week.
See everyone next.
Joe
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