Saturday, September 10, 2011

Hiking with Fungi

Although I'd just returned from the UK and my sleep was very much off, I went for a quick visit to my parents to avoid the anticipated madness and mourning in NYC.  I didn't bother bringing any hiking gear since I figured the visit was entirely too short.


But of course, I still wanted to go!  I bought some new hiking shoes Saturday morning, and my parents humored me by taking me on a hike in the afternoon.  We went to a state park that  features a forest and a lake.

  

It was gloriously sunny, and you could see the edges of the lake glittering - it really looked like twinkling, actually. 
On the road, we saw this cool green caterpillar (left).

My mom documented it.




The main thing we noticed throughout the hike was the glorious profusion of fungi.  A wide range of colors, shapes and sizes.  They were everywhere - apparently, it had rained a lot the previous week and they were taking full advantage.  We actually didn't cover a lot of distance on our walk since we were stopping every few feet to marvel and photograph them:




I especially liked these (left) because they looked like cross-sections of a tree.


My dad took the prize (if there was one) for wildlife-spotting.  He pointed out a dragonfly with a bright red body.  I don't think I've seen one like this before:




And also two turtles on a rock, which although not quite as unusual, were not easy to spot at first: 



It was a very pleasant afternoon.  Afterward my dad went to a picnic to do some networking, while I went off with my mom to get more suitable hiking pants (tight jeans are not the way to go) so we could go again tomorrow.


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