Umstead to Quail Ridge

Okay, so one of the reasons why I started this blog is because there are a few big walks that I have been planning that I'm quite excited about.  Need to tell someone, so what better plan than to write them all down and toss them into the electronic ether?

One of the first I'd planned was a walk through Umstead State Park south (and pretty much just see how far we could go).  I'd never been down there and wanted to check it out.  Honestly I didn't think it would be this soon.  We had a lousy day forecast for Sunday.  It was drizzling in the morning and was supposed to have thunderstorms all afternoon.  But then, unexpectedly, the skies cleared to bright blue sunshine, mid-70's, light breeze, beautiful.  So B.B. tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Hey paw, what do you think?"  (She's chatty that way.)

We got kind of a late start.  It was almost 4:00 when I realized it wasn't going to rain all afternoon, so we hopped in the car and drove down to Umstead.  We live in Cary so (for those of you familiar with the area) naturally we use the entrance off of Harrison Ave.

Now, even though it's not accurately reflected on this map (which has us taking the bike trail down past Reedy Creek Lake, we actually took Loblolly Trail through the woods to the multi-use bike trail that goes through Umstead.  Loblolly adds another mile (or so) to the length and lots of ups and downs, but it really is a beautiful walk.  It's got several bridges and one place where you have to hop over a small stream.  B.B. seems to like that jump for some reason.

Once we got to the bike trail, it was a straight shot out of Umstead.  That trail becomes the Reedy Creek Trail system.  From there we lost most of our shade, but luckily it wasn't too hot.  (One of the reasons I may have jumped the gun a little and tried this walk earlier than I expected was the fact that summer is fast approaching.  Last year, we pretty much stopped walking altogether in July and August because of the heat.  B.B. can't take too much with her heavy fur coat and we had numerous days in the upper 90's and even triple digits.)

The walk down the trail to Edwards Mill Road was lovely.  Woods on the right (mostly) and pasture on the left.  We walked past the entrance to Schenck Forest but the signs all said they don't allow dogs, so these trails are officially dead to me.

Across Edwards Mill Road (and I notice there's a bike tunnel under so bicyclists don't have to wait at the light... although we took that opportunity to have a bit of a rest, having walked about 5 miles at that point, and didn't mind waiting) you get into some slightly more industrial looking area.  Still seems like pasture/farmland but there were some large building to the right and to the left, one nasty looking wrought-iron fence around one, and some NC State facilities.  About a mile later we got to the NC Art Museum.

This is where it got beautiful again, and I do want to go back and explore the museum grounds some more (although, once again, it has a few areas that don't allow dogs, something that annoys me to no end... not so much the rule, which I guess I understand, but the fact that some people—obnoxious dog owners—clearly have set a bad enough example for these places to set these rules, just ruins it for the rest of us).  The park around the museum has some large exhibits out-doors which make it interesting.  We'll have to go back and see the rest some day.

The trail from the museum forks off to the right and heads down south to I-440.  This is interesting because I've driven 440 many times, and I've seen this walking path over it, but I never really knew where it came from or where it went.  Today I found out.  The trail winds through some more woods south of the museum (down a steep hill to a bridge across a stream and then back up) to this bridge which spans the length of 440.

Across the bridge, I was really in uncharted territory.  I knew where I was spatially since I've driven down there many times.  In fact, one of our favorite local independent bookstores (Quail Ridge Books) is right there (somewhere) next to a Whole Foods, a one-two shopping combination that often makes for a very enjoyable weekend morning for us.  But the trail turned away from that direction and went under Wade Avenue, where they are clearly doing some construction, and into Meredith College (which Google tells me is the largest private women's college in the south-east, interesting).

Reedy Creek Trail (yes, we're still on that same trail system) winds around the outside edge of the college grounds and is just a beautiful as some of the other places we'd been.  As we were walking counter-clockwise, the college building were to our left and they really looked beautiful.  Made me miss my own college days (not so far back that I can't remember).

And then the trail ended, right there on Hillsborough Street.  At that point I did know where I was and we walked back down to Wade and stopped, finally right outside the bookstore.

Now, I'm very lucky, in that K has agreed to come pick us up if we wanted to take walks like this.  Previously I'd limited us to circular walks, either from home in a big loop, or from places like Umstead such that we always ended up back at the car.  K doesn't really want to take these long walks with us, but she is more than willing to help out like this, which expands our opportunities greatly.  I called her about a half hour before I figured we'd reach the bookstore (which I know for a fact she has programmed in her car's GPS) and she got there about 4 minutes after we finally sat down to rest.  Amazing timing.

B.B. was a machine, just trotting along.  She loves going new places.  It's funny but if we're walking a trail or sidewalk for the first time, she's on high-alert, sniffing everything, watching everything, inspecting, examining.  But the second time we go there, she's much calmer.  She knows this place.  Been there, done that.  It's routine.  Smarter than I am, that dog.

So, to wrap up... not all of our walks are going to be this epic.  This was clearly one of the big ones that I'd been wanting to take.  We've got lots of routine favorites that we'll hit more often and I'm sure I'll be blogging about (if, for nothing else, to fill out this travelogue of our adventures).  I'm sure I won't be taking pictures of all of them.  But for the really fun ones, I'll do so and write it up in these pages.

Thanks for coming along.