Blackberry Lodge - Day 3 - Dreaming Out Loud: Laura Griffin’s Blog

Blackberry Lodge - Day 3

August 21st, 2007

On Day 3, mom cooked a great pancake/bacon breakfast and we got everything packed up to leave. Not wanting to head out of town just yet, we decided to go to the local Beaver’s Bend Nature center & ride the train that runs through the park. The area is quite beautiful.

Beaver Bend’s Nature Center is a small building. It is full of live snakes, turtles, a stuffed bobcat, some shark jaws, and a few other critters.

I’m not the snake kinda gal - so I chose to head outside & spend some time with the birds of prey. It was surprising how close the center let you get to their cages. I’d imagine some curious fingers could meet their doom there!

Next, we headed to the park train depot. Apparently, it is also a popular place to go for horseback trail rides. As we waited for the train to return, we saw this guy grazing…

Our ride rolled into the station…

And we were off on these tracks leading into the woods for about a 20 minute ride. The conductor told us that they had seen a number of animals on the protected park preserve land…including bobcats, deer, & even small black bears occasionally!

We kept our eyes open & were able to see 6-7 deer during our short trip. Poor Mia (my niece) was upset that she missed them since they were so far away. She was in luck, though, because on the way to lunch… a huge buck crossed the road right in front of the car! Funny that he wasn’t frightened of the cars or people at all. Obviously, the animals feel safe in the park environment. Is nice for them to have that security considering most deer elsewhere would have been gone in a flash.

After eating at a local diner…we headed home. This time, no rain…and no near-death electrocution experiences. All in all, a great trip…and we look forward to returning again in the future.