Another outing with the creek beagle Hononegah Forest Preserve

Vacation day #3. My knees and ankles were a bit sore from yesterdays adventure so I decided a little less rugged trail was in order so selected Hononegah Forest Preserve. I have not hiked there before but have been told it's a nice walk. Overall, I found it a nice hike. Relatively smooth and well marked trails and not all that much elevation changes. There are a lot of side trails that lead out to the roads that are not shown on the trail map, but all the ones I saw were pretty obvious what they were. Kind of buggy and muddy, but, it's a forest and there are bugs and mud in the forest. I am guessing we walked perhaps 2.5 miles. About 90 minutes.

I brought a decent camera and used a retractable leash. I have been looping the leash around my wrist so I don't have to worry about losing a grip on the dog. The retractable leash has no way to do that so I looped a piece of paracord around the handle and tied it to my wrist, just in case. Unfortunately, the leash while it is supposed to be retractable wasn't. It was a broken one I should have tossed a long ago, but I had left it in the car, and grabbed it. It still worked better than the short leash I had been using. Wilma likes to wander around more than the short leash allowed, and this is a better choice for both of us.  But, having the leash drag on the ground is an issue as it was getting snagged because it was not retracting. Also, it was harder to control her. So, afterward it went in the trash and we stopped at PetSmart and got a new one.

We followed the route in pink, starting near the park entrance.

This is a picture of Blackhawk, or more likely some kind of rendition. Nothing at all like St. Mary as far as I can tell. Not sure why this is at the entrance to the park.

The park sign at the entrance.

The start of the trail.

The trail starts by going through a forest.

Near the soccer fields it comes out of the forest as a mowed grass path for a while.

A field of pretty yellow wild flowers as seen from the trail alongside the soccer fields. Don't know what kind of flowers they are.

The trail continues on back into a forest when it becomes a dirt path again.

Wilma scoping out the Rock River. She was uninterested in drinking from it, or playing in it. Can't say I blame her much.

A duck family swimming along the river bank. We saw lots of other critters and birds including ducks, squirrels, and chipmunks. A lot of the birds and critters I was not able to photograph as I was not quick enough, and some I only got flashes of anyway.

A bog like area. The trail goes between this depression and the river. I saw a large bird in here that might have been a blue heron.

This is where the creek goes into the river. We turned to follow the trail along the creek. Calling it a trail right there is charitable. It was mostly mud for 75 or 100 yards.

This little foot bridge near the creek/river junction goes over what is probably a small stream when it rains. You can see there is just mud all around. It's sturdier than it looks.

Paw prints in the mud. Not Wilma's.

We found a spot to Wilma's liking and she went for a creek water drink. She seems to prefer spots in the creek with running water and sandy or rocky bottom.

A small foot bridge over a branch of the creek. We followed this branch of the trail out to the Bird Grove picnic shelter area.

A foot bridge over the main creek on the trail branch going to Bird Grove.

On our way back from Bird Grove, we stopped near the foot bridge over the main creek for some play time.

We followed the trail back to the vicinity of the soccer fields and then back to the park entrance.

During the hike, I experienced a failure of the lanyard on my hiking stick. It looks like a piece of folded over plastic of some sort sewed together. I will replace it with some paracord. I gave it a pretty hard workout yesterday and may have stressed it. Better it failed on relatively easy ground than while I was using it to get up a hill.