We lived in Cary, NC for 6 years, less than 2 miles from William B. Umstead State Park, and the only time we ever made it close to visiting was when Mike and Meghan went rollerblading when she was about 5 yrs old. Other than that, we drove all around the park but never made it in there once. That was then, this is now. We had to do abbreviated hiking/Splorin’ today as we also wanted to do some Splorin’ in the car around our old neighborhood, grab some lunch at the North Carolina State Farmer’s Market, and we were getting together with our old neighbors later in the afternoon. But we will take any Splorin’ we can get.
Since we didn’t have a lot of time we decided to just eat breakfast at the Embassy Suites hotel that we were staying at — they almost always have decent breakfasts and this was no exception. Boring but good fuel for hiking. After eating we had a massive 10 minute drive to the state park. Mike had done the planning and we were going to be taking the Sycamore Trail along Sycamore creek — he thought it should be about a 7 mile hike with some ups and downs, but nothing major. After two days of mountain climbing, that was just fine. It was a chilly mid-40s for temperature, so we thought we would almost have the park to ourselves — we were in the South after all and we know they notoriously have very thin blood and don’t spend much time outdoors in those temps.
We arrived at the park around 8AM (30 minutes later than planned) but figured we would be able to get done by around 10:30ish and still have plenty of time to do our other Splorin’. Upon arrival at the park we noticed there were already quite a few cars there. We saw some signs and people looking like they were providing directions — so we figured there might be something going on – oh well, out of our way, we got Splorin’ to do!!!
We started down the trail (once we found it hiding behind a picnic shelter). We immediately descended to the creek and it was very pretty. We crossed on a little bridge and we were off and hiking along the creek. We came upon a gravel road that was quite the view.
We were really enjoying the trail and had a couple of little hills that we went up and down. At about the 1 mile mark we ran into our first trailmate — someone doing some trail running. Not bad – a mile into our 7 mile hike and we met our “first” other person. <Insert the loudest, most dramatic foreshadowing music that you can imagine.>
This trail is what we have coined a “lollipop trail”. The stick of this lollipop was about 2 miles and the loop about 3. Between that first mile and when we made it to the lollipop, we saw about 15 or 20 more people. Runners and hikers coming towards us, and runners coming up from behind. Boy, were we wrong about not very many people being out this morning! I guess we should have remembered we WERE in the middle of Raleigh, (population 464,758 in 2017) and not in the middle of nowhere! When we finally made it to the lollipop, we were going to follow Mike’s “left hand rule” but as we turned the corner, we saw someone walking that direction already going very slowly. Mike quickly switched us to the “right hand rule” and off down the trail we went.
Heading down a big hill on a switchback we saw something we had never seen before — a man sitting in a camp chair in the middle of the woods (well off the trail) reading a book. Hmmm, strange place to read a book, but it was nice and peaceful (except for all those trail runners). We were now down paralleling the creek again. The water was very low but given all the washouts, we could tell that there were many times the water was a LOT higher. We came upon a very pretty stone bridge.
After standing there, talking, taking several pictures and not being quiet at all, we started down the trail again only to see our second person just sitting in a chair reading a book. He is actually in that picture above if you look closely enough. Just to the left of the tree trunk right up against the water. Never even saw him.
We then crossed the road that went over the bridge and saw about 7 or 8 more people on the road walking their dogs. Over the next mile or so on the loop we saw about 20 or 30 other people – mostly running, but some just hiking like us. We saw one more person sitting on a log reading a book. Mike thinks it must be some kind of seminary or something where they were doing a “retreat”-type outing to the park. The book they were reading could have even been THE “Book”. Right before we saw the last person reading, we came upon some lovely fall colors.
Making our way back to the car, we could hardly enjoy the trail at all because we constantly had to be stepping aside for the runners, or stepping off the trail and letting others go past. Perhaps we are just too nice, but we are ALWAYS the ones to let others have the trail while we step to the side. We can be walking down a wide trail that has enough room for two people to walk side-by-side. We will have two people walking towards us and we move into single file. You would think the other people would do the same, but 90% of the time they stay side-by-side which forces us to have to step off the trail. Mike wants to just put his shoulder down and take them out, but Tammy won’t let him. :-(.
We finally made it back to the car and again, there were people EVERYWHERE!! UGH!!! Oh well, we were off to the Farmers’ Market to have lunch and do some shopping like we used to do. On our way there, we drove through our old neighborhood and it was strange — it looks so small now and there were cars everywhere. And our house was a different color which made Tammy kind of nostalgic and sad. We made it to the farmer’s market only to find that there was some kind of activity going on there and it was beyond overflowing with people. No way we had the time or patience to navigate that crowd after the crowded ‘splorin’ we had already done in the morning. So we went back to drive around Cary a little bit more. We ended up stopping at Woody’s Sports Tavern and Grill for lunch. Mike had been there a couple times to watch Packer’s games when we lived there and it was only about a mile from our house. The food was good, but it certainly was not a #SupperClubSaturday.
We did end the day very nicely visiting with friends from our old neighborhood — it was awesome catching up! Just goes to show you that no matter how far away you move or how much time goes by without seeing them, some friends will always be your friends!!
Splorin' Saturday 