A Walk in the Woods at Hill Creek

Okay.  Family visit time.  My parents and their dogs arrived Thursday afternoon, rolling right up to the wood shop and raining chaos down on its unsuspecting denizens.  Vista was predictably THRILLED to see her cousins.  On Thursday night, we drove up to Hillsboro to eat at the Pretty Penny, which everyone adored.  I'm pretty certain that it's impossible to eat at the Pretty Penny and NOT adore it.  The fact that super-picky-eater me has tried something different each time I've eaten there and loved everything should say something.

Anyway, the plan for Friday was breakfast, then on to the Falls of Hill Creek.  I knew that it would be an abbreviated walk, as the trail is still partially closed due to damage inflicted by last winter's heavy snows.  And I wish I could show you lots of gorgeous waterfall photos, but the truth of the matter is that it's been so dry lately that the falls were barely trickling.  Plus, the Lower Falls, which is the second highest waterfall in West Virginia, was inaccessible due the aforementioned trail closures.  Sadness.  Still, it was a beautiful walk in the woods!

My father was fascinated by the Mountain Laurel, and pointed it out wherever we saw it.

I'm not usually a big taker-of-flower-photos, but I really couldn't resist.

We got there early enough that we were the only ones around and the dogs could run off-leash.  I love this shot of them all headed back to us!

A warning about the Hill Creek Falls trail: there are lots of stairs.  Like, a ton.  In some places you felt like you were scaling a tower.

Case in point.

Here's your one waterfall photo.  Yup.  This is of the Middle Falls.  Do a quick search for "Falls of Hill Creek" on Flickr and you'll see exactly how wide this can be.  I'm rather looking forward to seeing it frozen.

After leaving the Falls trail, we went to the Cranberry Glades Nature Center.  My mother, who works at the National Zoo at home, loved seeing the various animals they had there.

Like these fellows.  And then there was this gem of an exhibit:

Gotta love it!  We hopped on the Highland Scenic Highway for a lovely, circuitous route back to town, then picked up lunch at the Snak Shak, which we ate in Stillwell Park.

It was a perfect Pocahontas County morning!  We finished the day with a ride up at Cass, but that's another post entirely.