Hiking through Coopers Rock

I can't believe it has been six months since I last blogged. I need to spend a massive amount of time on my computer just to catch up with everything. Now that fall is here and the temperatures are much cooler plus the fact that it's going to be pretty much dark by dinnertime maybe I will have a little more time to sit down and browse through all my favorites.

A few weekends ago we all planned to spend a day at Coopers Rock State Park. It's only about an hour and a half away and since it's leaf season we thought it would be a beautiful time to go. I, of course, had an even better reason for waiting until October before we went....the snakes are all hibernating.

We packed the cooler with some lunches and grabbed our winter coats. It was a really cool weekend. As we climbed up I-68 we could see the temperature dropping into the low thirties on the thermometer. 
We went out onto the overlook and snapped a few pictures. (Those are the first two pictures at the top of this post.)
Then we headed for some hiking trails. 

                                 (Gage was our fearless trail leader.)
The first trail we started on was pretty easy but then we ventured onto another and it was a little more tricky but we had a blast climbing over and around all the rocks. 

We arrived at our first camp site, took a breather and then decided to take a different trail back to the truck. It took us deeper into the woods and I was kind of getting the idea that we were going nowhere. 

The maps that we were using didn't quite have all that trails listed on it. But we found our way back eventually. 

We grabbed our lunches and headed to a picnic table. It was so cold. People had campfires burning to huddle around for warmth and while we were eating it began to snow. Just a few flurries but those were my first flakes of the season. 
Once we got our bellies full we piled back into the truck and headed home. The kiddos slept pretty much the whole way home. Everyone was tired but we all enjoyed the day. We'll be making that trip again and trying out a few more trails.