Chippokes SP 12-10-19

Yes, on the calendar it read December 10, 2019 but it felt like June 21, with a cool breeze keeping us cool from the 70 + temp of the day. It was totally the opposite of what I thought it would be from all the forecast I had saw for the past week. We had 23 Tuesday Groupers hiking the 5.5 miles around the fields of Chippokes Plantation State Park and along the shores of the James River as you can see in Bill & Bob’s pictures. Not a whole lot of Wildlife to be seen on this day after the park’s one day Deer Hunt on Saturday but we did see 3 deer running through the woods, they didn’t get them all. We gathered at the parking lot behind the Mansion at 9:15 A.M. after 5 of us met at McDonalds for breakfast. After our talk and our name calling we left heading south, (we all call out our name so all will know) tracing the edge of the fields we worked our way to the Boat Dock where the park has it’s canoe trips from. This was about half way of our hike and we took a short break checking out the new floating dock.

Back up the hill we now were heading north towards the James River and on this beautiful day it was a sight to see. The beach was wide and very clean with no gully for us to go around or over as was our last trip, remember Phyllis? The water calm and beautiful with the winds blowing out of the south made a great walk for almost one mile of our trip. The Cyprus Trees stood along the shore like guards in a row protecting the shore line. Here on the beach we saw tracks of Raccoon, Deer and maybe coyote or large dog. At the end of the beach walk we again headed back south over to the Farm Animals and talked with one of the Rangers about the Blue chickens she had in the pen.

Reaching the parking lot about 12:30 after leaving at 9:30 eighteen of us drove to Anna’s Pizza in Surry and had our lunch, as you can see in Bills pictures some ate Garbage and others had a good meal with better names. We all had a great time hiking and eating with our friends of the Tuesday Group. Bruce

Bob M has shared his great pictures with us. Click on the link to view his album: https://photos.app.goo.gl/oEqMQLEsdV4qT5Pb9

Bill Billings: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmJWrr5q