Wild Azalea Canyons

Wild Azalea Canyons

March 13, 2011

 

March is when the azaleas bloom in Texas and so we discovered a trail close to Newton county that was supposed to have wild azaleas. We didn't pay a lot of attention to the fact that the name of the trail said “canyons”, I mean really this is East Texas right, there is no big hills in East Texas. It took a little bit to find the trail because they are putting in pipeline in the area and the signs were moved and confused us a little bit. Once we got there, we realized that we may have bit off more than we wanted to for fat folks.

 

After seeing the “canyon” behind the sign, Adam grabbed to nearby “walking sticks”, I am not sure if he was going to walk with them or ski.

 

 

I think Anna was a little cocky with her strut, I think she didn’t realize we had to come back up that stairway.

 

 

We had to walk down a couple steep stairways.

 

 

I was surprised how far it was down. I figured once we got to the canyon floor we could walk without much trouble.

 

 

Stewart wasn’t real sure about this.

 

 

What I didn’t realize was that “wild azaleas” is the same as honeysuckles. This one little flower was the first flower we spotted once we reached the bottom.

 

 

There was a little ridge that we was to walk on with more “canyons” to each side. Adam started his usual monkeying around and I told him, “Son, you fall off that you may roll a good ways before you stop!”

 

 

Anna spotted this little violet poking out from the leaves. The trail was not well maintained, the slippery leaves made inclines very difficult and the trail was not marked well.

 

 

Adam was trying to beat us up the the “mountain side” and decided he would pass out half way up.

 

 

I called to him, “Hey, no dying on the hiking trail.”  This was his response.

 

 

We got to the top of the main ridge and sat down to rest. Anna decided she should rest too.

 

 

Adam decided we were lost and a shelter should be made.

 

 

Adam looked down in the valley and was shocked we walked this far up.

 

 

We were almost to the end of the trail before we actually came to the flowers. Stewart read the sign, looked a the sparse display of flowers and joked, “I think that someone else must have already took them all.”

 

 

There was not many flowers bloomed.

 

 

A few up in the bushes but not many. Maybe we came to early and they were not in full bloom.

 

 

We finally got back to the trail head and there was a little rest stop. We were so tired, the trek back up those stairs was rough for a fat girl and apparently for a skinny girl too. I told Stewart if we did this every day we would get skinny quick.

 

I was disappointed that there was not many flowers but I felt so good after the workout. I always just tell myself that if the views and such was not all that I had hoped for, at least it was good for me.