Hays Nature Preserve in Huntsville, AL

October 18, 2022

We did one more hike in the Huntsville area with a friend before we left River Ridge Retreat in Guntersville, AL.

On October 8 (Saturday), we took Nox and drove to the Hays Nature Preserve. On the way, we passed some beautiful fall trees at the entrance to the Lake Guntersville State Park.

We drove through Guntersville and headed northwest on US 431.

The Hays Nature Preserve had a playground and picnic area just inside the park, across from a fishing pond.

Our friend arrived with his dog, Daisy. Nox and Daisy enjoyed getting to know one another.

We hiked around the lake and then followed a trail that became very swampy. We turned around and headed back to the road. We followed the road to another parking lot.

We kept walking along the road and we came to a big parking area with picnic tables and a map of the trails.

We decided to follow the trail that crossed the footbridge.

The trail was paved and easy to walk on. We came to a second bridge.

We continued walking a bit more, until we came to a golf course. The trail goes past the golf course. There was a bench, so we stopped and looked at the map to see where we were and to determine if the trail looped back.

The trail did not loop back, so we turned around. Nox was tired and wanted to be carried. Bruce picked Nox up and carried her for a bit. Daisy was rather curious about what was happening with Nox. Daisy kept wanting to see what was Bruce doing.

We decided to put Nox in her backpack as she didn’t want to walk anymore.

There weren’t a lot of flowers, but I did get a picture of the cardinal flowers blooming.

This dead tree had a lot of holes in it.

We had lunch at the Mexican restaurant across the highway from the Nature Preserve on the patio. Nox and Daisy were tired from their walk and laid down next to us.

We said goodbye to our friend and drove back to Guntersville.

We crossed the bridge into Guntersville and saw several sailboats on the Tennessee River. The traffic was horrible and the road into Guntersville was only one lane. Guntersville was having their fall festival. If I hadn’t been concerned about more walking on my ankle, we would have parked and joined in the fall fun.

Once we were past the fall festival, traffic cleared up and we finished our drive back to the RV.

It was a lovely way to spend a beautiful fall morning.