March 17 - Victoria Bryant 7/47

The weather was gonna be decent, and I was still high from my triumph at Sloppy Floyd, so I wanted to head out to another park today. I waffled a fair bit, not wanting to drive too far, nor hit up any of the parks on water (saved for much warmer weather), nor aim for any park to the south. Victoria Bryant SP hit all my needs, but it's my go-to fall weather park. Eh, I grabbed my stuff and hit the road anyways.

Glad I did. Turned into a damn nice, sunny day.

Park wasn't very busy and I nearly had the trails to myself. In a continued bit of obstinacy, I did the Perimeter trail backwards.

I certainly appreciate the park's generous use of benches and painted markers for the trails, but when it came to signage, man... they're a bit skint. For the first time, I had to double back on a trail cause I missed my turn off. (I am now aware that I really despise backtracking.)(But thankfully I was stubborn enough to turn around and go back but not too stubborn to refuse to do it.) Totally worth.

The Broad River trail was wonderfully muddy and I had fun squelching around in it. Had the trail to myself* and that was really nice. Due to hot spots on my toes and my shoulders cramping up for some reason (*and the disconcerting hollering of young men in the direction of the back side of the trail), I decided to only do the first loop that includes the observation area for the beaver pond. I followed the left fork of the trail only to find it underwater! Definitely too high even for my waterproof hiking shoes so I turned around and followed the right fork. Glad I did cause there was a two story observation platform out that side! I (stubbornly) bushwhacked a bit to make a loop of the trail anyways and get back to the start.

I took a ton of photos.

All in all it was very relaxing.