Rescued!

It was my idea today to go to Falls Lake, which is only about 20 minutes from my brother's home.  After a bacon and eggs breakfast we drove over there .... we being my mom (who's 81), my brother and me (who's .... well you know!).

I had called Falls Lake earlier to get information on potential birding areas. The woman I spoke to said to stop in the information office and she would give us a bird checklist and also show us some good areas to go.

Upon arriving at the information office we got the bird checklist and she gave us maps of two different areas for potential birding.

The first area was near Sandling beach and we headed there first. This area was pretty much an open field ..... we heard birds but we didn't really see any. So then we went to her second suggestion which was Beaver Dam Area. She gave us a map and told us that the trail was a 1-mile loop .... keep that in mind.

The Beaver Dam Trail was really nice and wooded which protected us from the heat a little bit. We started out on the trail and it was a little rough but not too bad. I told my mom and brother that the loop was one mile (because that's what she said!) and we decided to give it a go.  We felt like we were walking for miles and miles and when we came upon the same bridge that we had already passed we got a little worried.  At this point we had no idea where the car was and we were all exhausted, sweaty and hot ... we decided to call a ranger for help.  Unfortunately we hadn't taken any water with us as we thought it was an easy trail.

We waited for them maybe 10-15 minutes and they showed up with water and ice packs and we were so so grateful.  The ranger told us that the trail wasn't a mile .....  it was more like 1.6 miles. I know that might not sound like much but it was a strenuous hike in 90° plus temps. We even had to crawl under a fallen tree that was blocking the trail at one point. No wonder we were all exhausted! Turns out we were only about a 3rd of a mile from the car! But we were afraid of going the wrong way!

I still have some pictures to fill in from my stay here in North Carolina but I wanted to put this up whist the memory was still fresh. When we got back to Dave's apartment we all took showers! I feel such better now!