Craig Given

Although it's been cooler than normal for August, Labor Day made up for it as the family and I headed out for a few hours of hiking at the Elsie Holmes Nature Park on this hot and steamy day. The kids played in the water and we spotted toads, turtles, snails, and several beautiful mushroom patches that looked like coral and flowers. We also spotted, but did not touch, several cow killers (aka velvet ants). We found wild muscadines which were quite delicious and which were drawing in the box turtles who were cleaning up the fallen fruit. About half way through our journey we also ran into Team Bear-Cat who joined us for the last leg as we headed up and out. I caught up on my geocaching for this park and picked up six more finds. One of which was a puzzle cache I'd solved two years ago on May 20, 2006 but never finished because we had to flee a hail storm back then. After four hours of hiking we quenched our thirst with soft drinks from Sonic and rewarded ourselves with a ...