Back on the Trails

September 14, 2014

Osage Hills Thistle (click for Osage Hills slideshow)

A week into September 2014 the summer weather abated, allowing Wendy and me to venture out for our first hike since our vacation in New Mexico in early July. On a Sunday morning we headed west out of town to Osage Hills to hike four miles around the Bugle Loop on the Tower/Lake, Cabin, and Falls trails. We admired colorful thistle on the Tower trail and an intricate spiderweb above Lookout Lake. We lunched trailside on my favorite hiking meal, a QuikTrip turkey & swiss sandwich on berry wheat bread, before walking down to the Sand Creek falls. The water was running high from recent rains, and an extended family was enjoying the flow.

The next Sunday we drove to Owasso to have lunch at El Fogon, which was the top-rated Owasso restaurant on TripAdvisor. Wendy enjoyed her carnitas with corn tortillas while I dined on my typical order of steak fajitas. Then we drove east to the 120-acre Conservation Education Reserve at Rogers State University. I had visited it five years earlier, but back in 2009 I did not track my route. Before we left town to drive to Owasso, I’d done an extensive web search for a detailed map of the reserve, eventually tracking down a nice online GPS map created by students at the local vo-tech; I had exported and saved that map to guide our hike.

RSU Day Hike (click image for RSU Reserve slideshow)

This time the tracker was running as we entered the gate near the Terra Lab to circumnavigate the reserve on its Butterfly Loop, Southwest Trail, Wetland Loop, and Weather Trail for a total walk of 2.75 miles.

The butterfly garden was buzzing with bumblebees. Wendy got a shot of the fish and a frog in the pond, and a bloom. We were then driven onto the Butterfly Loop by the approach of grandparents with grandchildren.

Bumblebee

A glade with benches featured a trailside tree which had been fully consumed by bagworms. The trail wound around the southeast portion of the reserve, with another group of hikers in close pursuit. We lost them when we turned off onto the Southwest Trail, which had a profusion of yellow blooms.

Southwest Trail

A muddy pond had a turtle swimming along with only its eyes and snout protruding from the water. A meadow had sumac, while the wetlands featured small cattails and plenty of bugs. The big pond featured a windmill and extensive plant growth in the water teeming with tiny fish. A couple of dragonflies flew by and settled down, intent on, er, coupling.