Trail Hopping

With cooler weather comes hiking explorations. Our hiking down here is much different than up north in the mountains and more like a walk in the park...which is what we did a couple of days ago. Last season we hiked the south side of the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse Nature Trail. At the time, we didn't know there was a north side until we were headed back to Jensen Beach. On Sunday, we braved the possibility of Thanksgiving weekend crowds and took the north trail, only to discover we were the only people in the park! There is one paved handicap accessible path that leads to a boardwalk and viewing pavilion.

Then there is a sandy loop trail through the scrub brush with several tortoise dens.

It didn't take us long to complete the entire trail, so we crossed the street to do the south trail too. It is a bit hillier with different kinds of trees and plants.

This nasty sharp tree is called a prickly ash tree or toothache tree. From what I have read, the bark can numb your mouth, but beware there are some trees that look like this that are poisonous.

When the Jupiter Lighthouse started peaking through the bushes, we knew we were about to round the corner towards the Intracoastal Waterway.

As we walked along the ridge above the shoreline, Dave heard someone call out to him from the water. It ended up being the captain of a charter pontoon boat looking for the people who hired him to pick them up somewhere on the park's beach for a surprise wedding! We hadn't seen anyone but the captain said that if we do, tell them where he is, but don't wreck the surprise, because the guests don't know about the wedding. We never ran into any lost people so we don't know how it all turned out. We did find this Hammock Hangout oasis though, complete with posts for your hammock. I wonder how many people actually use it.

We still have a few more weeks before the winter season starts and more people arrive to take advantage of our weather. We are going to try and do as much as possible before then, but we still have our motto of "when they zig, we zag," down to a science.