Hiking Weekend

We spent Friday afternoon and Saturday morning checking out a couple of the trails in the hiking book that we recently purchased.  We had a great time!

Houston Aboretum

Daniel was excited to use his Garmin GPS toy that he got for Christmas.  We spent a little while in the parking lot when we got there while he got it all set up.  :)

The aboretum had lots of trails to follow and I think we hiked all of them!  We walked for about 2 hours and had awesome weather.  Some of the trail was rock, some dirt and there were some boardwalks.

There was a wetland area where we saw tons of turtles.

We also came across some blooming azaleas!



The trails were very well labeled.  I was teasing Daniel a bit about using his gps.

I fully enjoyed the hike, but it was very clear we were still in the heart of the city.  We could hear the freeway traffic beyond the park.

Challenger Park

Challenger Park is out in the League City area and is dedicated to the memory of the astronauts from the Challenger shuttle.  We went out there Saturday morning despite the gray skies.  We had no rain, but it was windy and a lot cooler than Friday had been.  Daniel's garmin needed new batteries which we didn't have, so we went without it.  Although I had made fun of Daniel's toy on Friday, I wished we had had it on Saturday.  The trails at Challenger Park were not as well labeled as those at the aboretum, so we had trouble deciding which trails we had already been on.

The trails were well covered by trees, which cut the wind a lot and made it much more comfortable.  There was definitely no traffic noise and it was a very relaxing hike!  The trails were dirt and grass covered and we walked about an hour and a half.  There were some lovely yellow flowers blooming and falling on the trail in one area.

And since we had no traffic noise to remind us we were still in the city...we were relieved to be reminded by some nature loving graffiti.  Kids, kids, kids...

What did you do this weekend?