A panorama of four pictures of the view at Lookout Point.

The day was cloudy but rain was not in the forecast so I decided to take a walk back at Milton Reimers Ranch. This will be my third time back here in a week or so and will probably be my last for a while as I do like variety even if I do keep going to the same half dozen Parks. I try to rotate them in order to keep them somewhat fresh.

I had already decided that I was going to walk the Gravel Path which is what the upper trail is called that stretches from the first parking area to the last. This is a  man made trail and apart from a couple of areas that need some maintenance work is very easy walking. It follows the river but at time, veers inland away from it and at others, is almost on top of the bluff.

As I walked along happily snapping pictures of anything that looked interesting, I contemplated on the differences in the actual countryside to this Park and say McKinney Roughs. This, with its wide open spaces and long grass and a limited number of trees has a much more of a Fall/Winter look to it and is more brown than green. This is obvious from the pictures although it does have its own beauty in the coloring of the leaves as the trees change. Not exactly the Lost Maples but close enough. There were several butterflies still active and I got one picture. I had to wait my moment as this one after settling on the ground, kept getting blown sideways although not leaving the ground, in the strong wind.

I didn’t get to see very many people and only passed a couple of elderly ladies going in the opposite direction. When I reached the last parking lot, I contemplated going down and taking the lower trail next to the river to walk back but as I had walked that a few days prior, decided against it and backtracked along the Gravel Path. The Park has a series of signs that show the different animals, birds and plants that go to make up the Park and are very educational to the many people that were not raised in the country.

One of the information boards that are all along the trails.

As late in the year as it was, I only got to take pictures of three flowers.

It was a beautiful day for walking, not too hot with intermittent sun shining through the clouds. It was not long before I had to stop and take off my overshirt which I then tucked into my belt. Needless to say, at one point in the walk, I managed to drop it and had to backtrack  for half a mile or so before I found it. Luckily for me, there was no one else on the trail although I am not sure that anyone would want my ratty old shirt.

Along with the intermittent sun, the wind was blowing  pretty hard at times and serenading me with its sounds as it swirled around me. It blew through the trees and grasses and whistled and moaned in a delightful way. It took me back to when I was a very young kid of about five or six, sitting under a door that leaned against the shed just listening to the wind. I have never forgotten that moment and I am as impressed now as I was back then. I love the sound and the feel of the wind.

Riemers Ranch 11-27-2016 from Francis Allcorn on Vimeo.

Altogether, I covered a little over 6.4 miles of really easy walking. I drove home a very contented and mildly tired old man to sit in the hot tub and get the aches out of the old bones and muscles.

A panoramic view of the rock walls on the other side of the river