We did a variation on an old favorite today. We paddled with friends so were able to do a two-ended paddle, putting in on Rollins Pond and taking out at the end of Fish Creek where we had spotted a car. Before starting out I got a good photo of Viburnum alnifolium in the Caprifoliaceae, also known as Hobblebush.
I also took this photo that must be a Vaccinium of some sort, or at least in the Ericaceae. These plants line the stream in spots.
Paddling the Cedar River is always an adventure. Twelve of us put in above Wakely Dam and paddled a couple miles down the flow. Then the fun begins. It is always a challenge to find the correct passage through the labyrinth of streams into the main body of the river. This is a screen shot from my GPS. It makes it look as though we are paddling through a nice open lake when instead it is a tangle of plants and beaver dams. The arm off to the left shows the first place we tried to get through without success. Then we retraced our steps and tried again. After struggling over a large beaver dam, we found ourselves in the nice, winding river.
The first place we could have taken out for lunch was occupied, so we paddled on to the lean-to. The squiggles at the bottom of the map indicate my walking around the area on shore where I found lots of trout lilies in bloom.
I always feel Placid Boatworks should use our group in their advertisements.
The clouds came in in the afternoon as we paddled back down the river.
Then back over the beaver dam. The entire paddle was about 10 miles.
I found a new plant along our driveway, a Red Elderberry (Sambucus pubens in the Caprifoliaceae). The plant looks like a Common Elderberry, except the flower and fruit clusters are elongated instead of flat-topped.
We did our first paddle with the group today, putting in at the northern Stoney Creek Pond and paddling through the ponds and out Ampersand Brook until we stopped at a beaver dam that was a bit too high to pull over. Then back out the brook and down to the Raquette River to Axton landing. Since there was a car shuttle involved, the boats sat for a while before we got on the water.
We finally made it back to the Adirondacks yesterday. We made an early morning trip to Price Chopper in Lake Placid this morning, the first in-person shopping here since the pandemic started. There were very few people around so we felt very safe.
We were interested to see the progress being made ripping up the railroad tracks between Tupper Lake and Lake Placid to make way for a walking/biking path. This is the view of the "tracks" between Saranac Lake and Raybrook. While they have made a lot of progress removing the rails, they clearly have a lot of work left to do.
Then I of course had to explore our woods for wildflowers. There seem to be more painted trilliums each year.
And we have lots of red ones as well.
The only other thing I saw blooming were tiny white violets.
I took a new photo of our camp with its current deck. Hopefully we will have a new, larger deck before too many more weeks.
We had another great New Jersey day today. The temperature was in the mid-80's so time to head to the beach. Our daughter has talked for years about the amazing bird rookery on the island which also houses the Ocean City welcome center.
Once I list the birds we saw, you will think we went to Florida. Great Egret doing a mating display.
Yellow-crowned night heron
Black-crowned night heron
Tricolor heron
White ibis, along with some more yellow-crowned night herons. And there were lots of glossy ibis but they were deep in the trees or flying around so it was hard to get a photo.
And we saw two families of Canada Geese with their very cute goslings
After getting very warm watching the birds we drove down to Corson's Inlet and took the short walk to the beach.
We explored another Monmouth County park today; one we had never been to before. Clayton Park is about a half hour drive south of here. I had read it is a good spot for wildflowers and we weren't disappointed.
The Wood Anemone (Anemone quinquefolia in the Ranunculaceae)
and the Rue Anemone (Anemonella thalictroides in the Ranunculaceae) were new to me.
There were LOTS of Spring Beauties (Clayton virginica in the Portulacaceae)
and Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema atrorubens in the Araceae)
and Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus in the Araceae).
The trout lilies were just starting to bloom.
We had to go to a store in Point Pleasant today to look at patio furniture. We are going to have to order furniture for our new deck at camp and wanted to see some examples. So while we were there we of course had to go to the boardwalk for a walk, some boardwalk fries, Kohr's ice cream,
and a game of mini-golf.
We had a good New Jersey day today. This afternoon we drove to Holland Ridge Farms in Cream Ridge to ogle and pick tulips.
Then since we were out anyway, we drove all the way to Neptune to get pizza at Pete & Elda's. We drove to nearby Memorial Park on the Shark River to eat it.
Just a note so I can remember our latest hike. There were quite a few wet spots we had to detour around so we walked about 3.5 miles.
