A little excursion

I've been taking some vacation days on Mondays when our workload is not too heavy. Unused vacation days don't roll over at the end of the year, and I actually lost about a week last year. I don't want that to happen again. After all, I've earned that time, I should use it!

Mostly, I've used them to keep caught up on housework, mowing the lawn, that sort of stuff. Not exactly vacationey. So today, I decided Buster and I should do something kind of fun and go for our morning walk at a new place.

I'd only recently learned about the existence of the Vineyard Park Nature Area north of Hays, so I thought we should check that out. It's a little over a mile-long trail, with a shorter trail option, that meanders through the prairie. There's a pond where fishing is allowed and a little stream, although it's dry now. Before you get to the pond, there's a path that splits off to climb a small hill, then rejoins the main path at the pond, but it was an easy climb.

It took us about 40 minutes to walk the long trail, which is about an average walk for us. We got there a little after 8:30 am, so it wasn't too hot of a walk, and there are some shady spots from the larger trees. All in all, a nice little walk. Check out the whole photo album here.

If I thought it about more, after finishing that trail, we could have then driven a little farther south to the Dr. Howard Reynolds Nature Trail at Sternberg Museum of Natural History. Maybe next time.

We did stop by the dog park before heading home, but that wasn't as successful. There was a family in the big dog section with an excited huskey. He wasn't aggressive, just very eager to have another dog to play with, but Buster actually seemed a bit intimidated. I don't know if it was the dog, the strange people, it being our first time at the park, or a combination of all of that, but he just didn't seem comfortable with going past the staging area.

That's OK. I think we're both more the trail type than the park type. I'm happy the city has a nice place for people to take their dogs and let them be off leash, though.

I'd like to go explore the hiking trails at some of the area lakes, too, but that will take a bit more planning —  packing a lunch and plenty to drink — and might be worth spending the whole day anyway. I'd just like to go when there's not a lot of people so I guess this weekend (Independence Day) is out.

In my searching around on Google Maps, I also came across something else I'd never heard of — Wilson Wildlife Area. I can't find much about it online, either, so I'm not sure if there's a trail there, but it might be worth checking out sometime. (ETA: I did finally drive out to find this "Wilson Wildlife Area." It was a recently cut wheat field. Thanks, Google!)