Take a hike

One of my favorite things about a trip to Petit Jean is the great hiking. Just like last year, Brian attempted to persuade me to go on the 12-mile Boy Scout Trail (before embarking on it, you actually have to register with the state so they know to look for you if you don't come home at night). Fortunately, the rainy weather pretty much made it impossible for us to go anyway. My favorite hiking photo from the trip so far (we still have a couple of disposable cameras to develop) is this one above, of Brian in Rock House Cave. The cave is a large rock shelter that has pictographs from its early Native American residents. Brian's pointing to one here.

A lot of the trails crisscross each other. Here's a photo I took during a trail mix snack break. I'm sitting on a rock jutting out over a 75-foot drop along part of the Boy Scout trail that we followed. See the wooden bridge at the bottom of the ravine? We had crossed that a couple of days before when we were hiking the Cedar Creek Trail. Like many of the trails in the park, workers in the Civilian Conservation Corps built it in the early 1930s.

We kept our eyes open for interesting flora and fauna, including leaves that already had started to turn fall colors. Brian also discovered adorably cute and freakishly small frogs along the trail. See it in his hand below? I love the face Brian's making as he inspects his amphibious friend.



















Other scenes from the trail: