November, Lake Manawa~

 Another sunshine day with a breeze & low 70's.  The Wabash trail is way too dry for me to enjoy.  I dropped Finn off with Doris & made the drive up to Lake Manawa.  At least though things are still bone dry, there's not the dust.  For the first time in history, the farmers in Nebraska were asked to stop harvesting due to the extremely high fire danger.  Heat & roaring winds are not a good combination.

Explorer in the empty parking area~

I drove in the east entrance to the park on East Manawa drive.  The west entrance is still closed due to construction on the road.  Things here are as super dry as anywhere else & there was decent wind blowing mostly from the south.

The walking trail~

The trees are just beautiful, mostly shades of gold against another clear blue day with just a few clouds floating by.  I rode my usual loop, just glad to be out.  

Virginia Creeper

I've been pulling out Virginia Creeper this season in our woods.  It takes over so quickly & was smothering out some of my hosta's.  I do love the red color it turns in fall, but trying to train it to stay where I'd want it is a tough task.

The old campground~

There's been nothing happening at the campground & I'm so glad of it.  From time to time the entrance points are reinforced with a few bigger logs, but otherwise it's a quite refuge just off a very busy street.  I always look forward to a short stop here before tackling the long stretch along the creek in the photo below.

West side along Indian Creek~

Here, the wind was really gusting.  There were a couple times when I kicked Shadow's PAS gear all the way to Turbo just to make a little more headway.  Once I'm here though, my reward is taking the turn into the beautiful tree lined park trails along the south side of the park.

Shadow at the edge of the lake~

I overshoot the parking area where the Explorer waits & take the trail out to my favorite spot.  The covered picnic area was occupied by a couple listening to music. I walked up the edge of the lake to a spot on the rocks to take a break.    Not as comfortable, but enjoyable nonetheless.  It's just short of a couple miles back to the car.  I'd covered almost twelve miles.