On May 13th, Nathan and I took the kids to Caddo Lake State Park. It was an easy day trip from our house at just over an hour and the park was hosting an “Incredible Edible Hike.” I saw the event advertised on Facebook as an under 1 mile hike guided by a ranger who would show us at least 10 different plants you could forage from the wild! Ashlyn, especially, had taken interest in eating dandelions from our yard lately, so we figured what better way to mark a park off our list while adding some extra interest to the trip!

We took some time before and after the hike to take in some of the sights of Texas’ only natural lake and the “world’s largest cypress grove.”

There were canoes available for rent and they stayed in constant use. The section of lake that the park is located on is more like a channel, but there were dozens of advertisements in the area for boat tours.

The hike really was fun, informative and considering there were over 70 people(!) involved, very organized! Ashlyn was really excited about the hike and came prepared with a notebook to take notes so that she could create her own field guide book. She jotted down the name of the plant and what the ranger said about it while I took pictures with my phone. We sampled appropriate plants along the way and got to see some CCC work.

The only real stressful part of the event was the fact the 3 ft max wide trail was COMPLETELY surrounded by poison ivy! Agh! Nathan was constantly playing guard herding me AND the kids away from the edges. We also learned once we got home that we all got ate up in chiggers. Rookie move not spraying some Off.

Ashlyn’s book turned out pretty cool! She took great notes and was then able to write complete paragraphs on each plant. I made sure to scan the pages onto the computer so we can print future copies 😉

My all in all take away from this park is while it is very worthy of a visit for it’s distinct features, I really have no desire to camp here. Between poison ivy, chiggers and I’m sure the onslaught of nightly mosquitoes from the swampy environment, I don’t think we would get much exploring done. Y’all know I’m down to “rough-it”, but I’m not a glutton for punishment. 😆

-Lindsay