Bradbury Mountain State Park

Although it started out cloudy, we believed the weather prediction for clearing skies and decided to check out the foliage before it was too late.  First, we headed to Freeport to pick up a birthday gift for Dan.  I had a $10 certificate to Beans, so we stopped there to spend it.  HAHA, know how hard it is to spend only $10 at Beans!  I finally discovered a nice dish towel for $9.95 and although, with tax, it totaled $10.50, I got away scott free!

From there it's only about 10 minutes to Bradbury Mountain.  We chose this destination because it's got a good bang for the buck...a short hike, the summit is only 485' above sea level, and the views are decent.

We took the "long" way to the top, The Northern Loop Trail, stopping below the summit for the first foliage views, via the Bluff Trail.  

We backtracked to the NLT, then to the summit, a large, fairly flat area overlooking the woods, all the way to the ocean.  The entire hike only took 35 minutes, including our short stop.

1:48 pm

Although we reached the summit at 1:50, it was still pretty cloudy, but the colors were worth the climb.  It was 66* with a light wind.

We found ourselves a nice, cozy spot on the rocks and had ourselves a snack.  While nearly everyone else was eating apples, we had ourselves cookies from Keeping' It Local. 

They have oatmeal so they're good for us...right?

We stayed until 3:30 and the clouds started breaking up around 2:00.  

1:50 pm...a little blue sky

2:05 pm...some sun lighting up the colors

2:25 pm...clouds moving out!

2:25 pm...lots of blue sky

There were a lot of people, kids, dogs and bees!  The bees LOVED the apples but didn't care for our cookies ;o)  Surprisingly, with bees literally everywhere, no one got stung until we were ready to leave and a super cute little red headed guy, maybe 3-4 was eating an apple when a bee landed on his hand and stung him.  We could hear him screaming half way down the hill.  Poor little guy ;o(

We returned to the car via the Switchback Trail..."very steep with sharp turns"!  Not so much!  Took us about 10 minutes and it wasn't a big deal at all; it was the only place we saw a lot of red.  Apparently, the red color is determined by the amount of rain in the spring.

A nice, relaxing afternoon.

Thanks for stopping by...
;o)