Some water, ice and trees at Bear Brook State Park
Today I took the day off and headed to New Hampshire. The wife and I decided it was time to get out and since it was supposed to reach sixty, figured we could have a good time.
Our destination was Bear Brook State Park. Not far off of I93, so just a little over an hour from home. The park is closed for the winter, meaning the facilities are not open, but you can still “recreate” in the park. At least that was what their website said. This seemed to mean hiking and other such things were fine but you were not going to be able to camp or visit things like their camping museum.
The ride out there was fine except for the gray clouds as soon as we crossed into New Hampshire. I was thinking, when I saw a road sign that said Salisbury, that maybe we should have headed out that way. Perhaps the woods were not looking so good if it was going to rain. Better to maybe go to take a peak at the ocean and perhaps spend some time in the arcade, playing some pinball. All of this seemed even more enticing once we got to the park. There was still a lot of snow on the ground there, as there was a lot of denser white pine forest stands there. It was also quite chilly when I got out of the car.
Turned out I was wrong about my first impression. It was a bit cooler than I would have liked most of our visit and there was a lot of snow throughout much of the 4 + miles we walked. Yet it did get warmer and the sun even came out later in the afternoon. It was also great to be out in the woods. The park has a lot of trails and much of the snowier one’s we were on appeared to be cross country skiing trails. So the snow on the trails was packed well. Another nice thing about this park is there is a lot of water. A few lakes, some ponds and plenty of marshes. With snow melt, water was pretty much running everywhere.
We found an open area exposed to some sun that was alive with ground bees. They were hovering all around, apparently looking to make nests. There were also some ground beetles running around. Black heads with red elytra. Once we saw one of these suddenly we noticed dozens.
Getting some time out in the woods, having a chance to relax for a day with my wife, seeing signs that spring is soon to be coming on strong….all good things and it made for an awesome day.
