Saturday was the 1st sunny day we've had in weeks, so we decided to go take a nice nature walk at Gifford-Pinchot state park. We went camping there last august, but didn't get out on the trails. Since it's less than a 1/2 hour from here, we packed a lunch and headed over. The trails were very nice and most were graveled, so we weren't ankle deep in mud after 2 weeks of rain. We walked the interactive trail, with signs along the way pointing out various natural features (Sara loved to run ahead and read them out loud). I forgot the camera, unfortunately. I must say, the trails were not very well marked at all, no trail names at intersections or anything. Luckily we had a map, and sorta stayed on course. Then 2/3 of the way through the walk we found that the trail had flooded. And not a little, "oh, there's some water we have to hop over" I mean the "Lakeside Trail" was now the "Lakebottom Trail" as the weeks of rain had caused the lake to expand and engulf the land where the trail used to be. We debated going back, but we all had on old shoes, so we just waded through the water. Sara was estatic, after having me constantly harrassing her for the past mile to stay out of the water and mud constantly. The water was COLD and came about mid-shin in places. After we found land again, we dripped and squelched our way to the picnic area where we had lunch and went home.

Later that evening, Sara came in from the bathroom saying there was some sort of animal in one of the trees in the backyard. We all went and looked out the window, and saw something large, brown and furry in a small maple tree behind the pool. I couldn't see what it was but it was about the size of a watermelon. It didn't have a tail, so I knew it wasn't a raccoon (the only thing I could think of was it looked like a baby bear). So we all slowly went outside to try and get a better look. About 1/2 way through the yard, a LARGE woodchuck (who had been eating the leaves) jumped out of the tree and ran under our shed. Holy cow!! Did anyone else out there know woodchucks could climb trees??