Wednesday December 8th 2021

Once again the day began with fog. It wasn’t as thick as yesterday morning, but it still slowed my start to the day. The sun and blue sky took over the weather by ten. The temperature climbed rapidly across the eighty degree mark, before leveling off when a line of clouds arrived from the north. Another front is passing through the area. The rain is forecast to remain to the north and the warm temperature is supposed to remain for the next few days. (They were wrong. It rained for a few minutes before I finished writing this blog entry.)

Shortly after noon I set out on a hike in the state park. In the past I’ve hiked the area south of the campground on the back side of Hammond Lake. Today I took a different path at a fork in the trail. While I had a general idea where the I was going, it turned out to be much longer than I anticipated. The trail when around Dixie Lake on the north side of the campground. The highlight of this walk was the rental cabins high on the bank along the north side of Dixie Lake. The state park has twenty two bedroom “cottages” for rent. My short walk turned into a hike of almost three hours.

I took a closer look at the “ECO” tents they have for rent on my hike. They have five white canvas box tents lined up forty to sixty feet apart. They are along the side of field that I don’t think has access to power or water. For facilities there are three portable outhouses. They look to be at opposite end of the spectrum from the “Glamping” tents in the campground. The “ECO” tents don’t have electricity, air conditioning or the closeness to activities that the “Glamping” tents have.