Caney Creek

Today we got off to a slow start so, I had to change the plans from hiking Hurricane Creek to hiking Caney Creek. The frist adventure of the day was to save two box turtles from the middle of hwy 33. Don't you know that we got some strange looks picking up turtles out of the road.

Upon arriving at the Caney Creek parking area, I was pleased to see that we were the first ones there. We loaded up the packs and headed down the trail. Along the way, we came upon another box turtle in the middle of the trail. Once we maked it the upper falls, the sun was just too bright to photograph the falls so, we crossed the creek and headed on to the lower falls. The trail has lots of fresh blow downs across it and one spot has started to slide into the creek, but one can go up and around it with no problem.

Once again when we arrived at the falls the sun was in the wrong place, so we crossed the creek and took a break on the rocks along the falls. We were suprized to see that a small pool on the second level of rocks had a hundred or so tadpoles all in different stages from super tiny to almost frogs there was also a very small crawdad in the mix. I guess there is just enough water flowing over the rocks to feed the small pool. also while we were waiting on the sun we were visted by two butterflies who were quite social. they would land on my pack and just hang out there or they would land on the rock next to us and just set there. now of course when I unpacked the camera they didn't sit as still but I still managed to get a few good photos of them.

about an hour or so goes by and finely the sun moves enough for me to photograph so we loaded up the packs and made our way down to the bottom. thought hard about going for a swim, but I didn't bring a change of clothes and I didn't want to hike back in wet ones not that it would have mattered much with all of the sweat anyways.

thinking that sun must be just right for the upper falls we start our way back. along the way we startled what looked to be a good sized black snake and a frog it was trying to eat for dinner but I am happy to say the frog lived to see another day. the rest of the trip back was uneventfull other than my camera strap braking again good thing I always keep my hand on it when I have it slung over my shoulder.

As we got closer to the upper falls, I was very dismaied to hear the sounds of small childern running around and slashing in the water. upon topping the hill I could clearly see the lighting was just right and that there were also two families with about five childern playing in the water. but all were respectfull and I was able to shoot around them. took another break and ate some MM's before working our way back up that hill from ****. We end the trip with two Ice cold drinks from Sonic.

Photos are coming