Day 2

Today, after spending a refreshing night in the parking lot of a Holiday Inn, I went to Side Cut Metro Park near Toledo, Oh.  This park was way more suburban than the park I visited yesterday.  It was packed with families cooking out and laying out in the warm sun.  We had pretty much perfect weather today so I can see why it was so busy.

Part of the park was in the form of an island in the middle of a river.  On the map there were no formal trails on it so this was where I wanted to check out.  I was able to get to the island by using stepping stones in the creek bed.  It was pretty dried out too though so that helped a lot.

Once on the other side I did a rough loop around the island looking for and taking pictures of wildlife.  I saw lots of geese, ducks, herons and other birds looking for fish and bugs in the water.

  On the other side of the island was a bunch of fisherman fishing in the faster flowing areas of the river.  After my loop I went to the center of the island and saw 2 deer feeding in the brush.

After that I went back and chilled in my van and snacked on some jerky while the sun was at its highest point in the sky.  After that I went on one of the longer hiking trails to see what critters I could find.

Here they are:

A Red Squirrel

A few really tame Deer.

So pretty much just the squirrel and a bunch of deer.  But I also found something that, to me, was pretty much like finding gold......

A DEER ANTLER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah it's just a little one, but hey I was totally not expecting to find it, especially in such a densely populated urban area.

So it was a pretty good day. I am getting sick of these tiny little parks filled to capacity with soccer mom's and school kids.  I'm ready for the big guns.  I want miles and miles of untouched wilderness.  Full of game and berry patches and lacking on the human inhabitants.   I want to walk on a trail (or off-trail really) for several hours and not see any sign of another person except for maybe airplane contrails against a beautiful clear blue sky.

Bring it on Michigan!  I'm waiting for you.