Jan. 12 (Picture Lake Campground) Today was gorgeous – 70 degrees and sunny. And boy did we take advantage of it!
The theme of this trip – did I mention that we have a theme? – is National Parks and quirky museums. Due to the parks component, we assumed that we would be getting lots of exercise. But the weather has been miserable, so we have mostly been in the car or indoors.
But today the weather was windy but otherwise perfect!
We started the day by kayaking on Picture Lake, which was frozen when we arrived but is now open. Actually, it turned out that only the sunny side of the lake was open, and we had some fun being ice breakers. We posted a very short video to YouTube because the sound of breaking the ice was really crunchy. https://youtu.be/tdg59RmEQ9g.
A view of the campground from the lake.
Then we headed off to Five Forks National Battleground (the Civil War) for a 3 hour hike through the piney woods. There is a small interpretive center with a film giving the importance of the site – the Union army routed the Confederates here, which allowed them to capture the last remaining supply line, leading to the Confederate surrender.
The quality of these interpretive films at the National Battlegrounds is excellent. However, for us the main attraction was the hike. We walked to the junction of the 5 roads (and our route home also took us through the junction) but mostly we walked in the woods with towering pines.
Rumple (who is 14+) kept up valiantly. Fortunately for him, tomorrow we will likely go to historic sites and give him a chance to recover.