{"id":573,"date":"2018-04-09T13:00:14","date_gmt":"2018-04-09T17:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/abcexplorers.com\/?p=573"},"modified":"2018-04-09T13:00:14","modified_gmt":"2018-04-09T17:00:14","slug":"abc-dates-gorgeous-grass-river-natural-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abcexplorers.com\/index.php\/2018\/04\/09\/abc-dates-gorgeous-grass-river-natural-area\/","title":{"rendered":"G is for the Gorgeous Grass River Natural Area"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/abcexplorers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/P7047789.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-574\" src=\"http:\/\/abcexplorers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/P7047789-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>On our way home from <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff; text-decoration: underline;\">Bellaire, <\/span><\/span>we decided to hike in the <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff; text-decoration: underline;\">&#8220;Grass River Natural Area&#8221;<\/span><\/span>.\u00a0 This &#8220;great&#8221; place is a little off the beaten path, but it isn&#8217;t hard to find.\u00a0 We had heard from others about the amazing &#8220;gem&#8221; that this protected location is.\u00a0 With our long, cold winters, t<!--StartFragment-->here are few things more wonderful than being outside on a warm summer day.\u00a0 We learned a long time ago to enjoy the sun when it shines!\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <!--EndFragment--><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/abcexplorers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/P7047779.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-576\" src=\"http:\/\/abcexplorers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/P7047779-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/a><!--StartFragment--><!--StartFragment--><!--EndFragment--><!--StartFragment--><!--EndFragment-->It was already late afternoon by the time we got started.\u00a0 Without a plan, we had come unprepared.\u00a0<!--StartFragment-->It was 90 degrees when we set out from the parking lot.\u00a0<!--StartFragment-->We knew we would soon be succumbing to the heat, since we had arrived without our <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff; text-decoration: underline;\">water bottles<\/span><\/span>. \u00a0<!--StartFragment-->It might have been easy to talk ourselves out of this date since we were also wearing the wrong shoes and hadn&#8217;t brought bug spray. \u00a0 Instead, we chose to live in the moment.\u00a0 As we set off, w<!--EndFragment-->e were immediately &#8220;greeted&#8221; by a friendly Docent on her way home for the day.\u00a0 She directed us to one of the easier trails.\u00a0 There are six of them which all interconnect via a looped system, none of them are really difficult, some are just longer than others.<!--EndFragment--><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/abcexplorers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/P7047778.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-575\" src=\"http:\/\/abcexplorers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/P7047778-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>We hoped to cover about<!--StartFragment--> 2 miles of the available 7.\u00a0<!--EndFragment-->Wooden boardwalks led us over the wetlands and swampy areas, they also served to guide us through the delicate Fern Trails.\u00a0<!--StartFragment--> Nature reminds us to reflect on this simplicity and take a moment to just breath.\u00a0<!--EndFragment-->We paused often along our walk, sometimes just to observe a dragonfly lighting upon a cat tail, or a frog jumping into one of the many rivulets.\u00a0 My date wasn&#8217;t bad to look at either!<!--EndFragment--><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/abcexplorers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/P7047784.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-578\" src=\"http:\/\/abcexplorers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/P7047784-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><!--StartFragment--><\/p>\n<p>Eventually, we arrived at a wooden dock where we sat quietly for a bit to enjoy the view of the Grass River.\u00a0The heat seemed to be keeping people away.\u00a0\u00a0 Except for the sound of bugs and birds, there was only silence and solitude.\u00a0 it was a &#8220;great&#8221; mini &#8220;getaway&#8221; to end our day.<\/p>\n<p>I for one am &#8220;grateful&#8221; that communities choose to protect areas such as this.\u00a0 The respite these places provide is priceless.\u00a0 Best of all, this had been a completely free date!<\/p>\n<p><!--EndFragment--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; On our way home from Bellaire, we decided to hike in the &#8220;Grass River Natural Area&#8221;.\u00a0 This &#8220;great&#8221; place is a little off the beaten path, but it isn&#8217;t hard to find.\u00a0 We had heard from others about the amazing &#8220;gem&#8221; that this protected location is.\u00a0 With our long, cold winters, there are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6,19,20],"tags":[126,195,208,261],"class_list":["post-573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventures","category-cities-towns-villages-adventures","category-bellaire","category-blog","tag-bellaire","tag-g","tag-hikes","tag-nature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcexplorers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcexplorers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcexplorers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcexplorers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcexplorers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/abcexplorers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcexplorers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcexplorers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcexplorers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}