Hiking College Lodge Forest

6:57

7:34

7:35

It was a quick morning for me because I had a doctor's appointment at 8:45.  I did get in a half hour paddle from 7:40 to 8:10, in a drizzle, as the sunrise disappeared and the gray clouds took over.  It's 10:00 as I finish this and all is well in the world, sort of.

Kayak Morning

Cormorant

After cleaning up the kitchen from Monday night's dinner and because it was such a striking morning, we decided to drive to a forest we had never walked before, the College Lodge Forest, just outside of Brocton NY, purchased by State University of Fredonia in 1939.  It was a 17 mile drive through the rolling hills of Chautauqua County, mostly farms owned by Amish families, with wash flapping on lines from house to the barn.  The landscape reminded me of Athens Country, home of my alma mater, Ohio University.  

When we arrived, we were not sure of the lodges whereabouts, so we took a bumpy, graveled road up to the lodge and other buildings, only realizing when we got there, the road was basically a U so we would drive out the other way.  There were two main buildings, the main lodge with a great room and a sleeping lodge.  Both are available for rent.   

The old-growth forest consists of 198 acres of woodlands, along the edge of the Allegheny Plateau. The land is dissected by wooded ravines, swamps, and ridges with trails for hiking and cross country skiing. We were not sure of the trails even though they posted a large trail map. We finally decided on one of the trails but were not sure where to access it.  So we started back down the other end of the U and finally found the beginning of Merriam which we hiked to its end.  

Man In Khaki

In The Woods

It was a fairly short hike, so we returned and hiked Darwin and part of Muir before heading back to the car.  Our only complaint was that the trails were marked but not well kept and hard to follow, the reason for their fundraising drive, not only for upkeep but to save the forest from being sold to developers.  We want to go back soon and walk the perimeter trail called XC ski, a 2.8-mile loop.

Knee Deep In The Muck

We didn't get home until 1:00 and Evie made me another wrap on Lavash for lunch and I watched more of my show.  I then took a brief nap, falling asleep reading and another Longmire thriller, probably my 9th or 10th in the series.  Later, I did some work outside, took a brief walk and read, waiting for wine time.  Evie talked with her sisters at 5:00 on Zoom and I read till 6:00 when we ordered two Delmonico steak dinners from Steeners Pub.  I picked it up at 6:30, brought it home and Evie warmed the fries up.  It's always a crapshoot with the steaks, either they are tough and we say we will never order them again or they are great and we call them again, like last night.

Well, our dinners were good, not great although we did enjoy them, especially the hand-cut fries. We watched some of Shep, then Colbert and finished with the finale to Season Two of Borgen and started episode one of Season three, where everything has changed to our dismay. I guess we don't like change much.  I would be interested to know how much time elapsed between the making of Season Two and Three.  The series won various awards back in 2011 when it first appeared on Danish TV.