Trail Review - Sac River Hiking/Biking Trail

     So I've decided to try and write reviews for some of the places I've hiked. This is a dual purpose in that I get to practice practical observation and writing skills, as well as hopefully if I get into it I'll force myself to go to other interesting locations to write reviews of.

     For my first review I'll be doing the trail that I most recently went hiking on with my usual hiking partner Jonathan. (Go check out his blog)

     To get the trailhead: Take Kansas Expressway (Hwy 13) north, aprox. 3 miles after you pass I44 take a left turn. There are signs, follow them!

     Map of Trails

     There is a nice gravel parking lot at the trail head with a small covered shelter with a table. Useful if you want to sit for a bite to eat or have to wait for friends to show up.

     Now this is primarily used as a mountain biking trail, but I'm more of a hiking then I am a biker so this will definitely be from the perspective of a hiker.

     The first interesting thing which caught my was a cemetery just beyond the shelter. It was very interesting because despite the fact it was all fenced off and even had a sign naming it Wilson Cemetary  there were no visible gravestones.

Wandering off towards the wood I happened to see a white banner through the trees and when we walked over to it found a second unmarked cemetery! While the first one had been a nice square shape this second one was oddly sectioned off and honestly if there had been no fence or sign I doubt anyone would really be able to tell it was a cemetery at all. 

     Finding our way back to the trail we continued hiking, ending up walking alongside the Sac River for a while. Now I'm sure it's not 'allowed' but there were some perfect fishing spots (and you could tell they were well used spots as well) where the river slowed and deepened. We saw several types of fish and some flat shelled turtles. 

     We followed the trail up and around and down and through the woods, wandering on the outskirts of the hiking area on the Blue Trail (4mi.). 

     I managed to find a pretty cool skull of some animal or another (I'm not great at identifying bones). [Sorry about the quality, I took this photo with my phone and not my camera for some reason]

     We also came across an abandoned building which I traipsed all over and even tried to climb the tower in the back. Jonathan decided not to join me for fear of getting covered in bugs. Joke was on him though because in a particularly skinny part of the trail where bushes hung across the path we got covered in itty bitty ticks. Neither of us had been smart enough to put on bug spray, and he was even more foolish in wearing shorts. It wasn't pretty. He refused to show his legs in the days to come because of how horrid they looked. 

     So, ultimately what did I think of it? Despite the bugs it was a nice area to hike. It looks like it'd be fun to bike as well and I may go remind myself how out of biking shape I am and go back over it on my bike. I've only hiked half the total trails so I will be going back regardless. 

     One-line review: With 8 miles of relatively flat land it is an easy hike/ride but is secluded and wooded enough to make for a peaceful scenic afternoon. 

     

     If you liked my review, please leave a comment saying so! If you didn't leave an even longer comment telling me why. I want to improve my ability and I need the feedback of all my readers to reach that goal! 

     Also, if there is anywhere outdoorsy or just plain interesting you'd like me to go check out and write a review about, leave a comment sending me in the currect direction.

~ Tim

Birds of a Feather

Sorry about the witty title.

And sorry this is several days late. I've been busy with work, school, and being lazy.

Feather Texture by Timothy Reid on 500px

Taken at the Omaha Zoo on a 'road trip' with my finacee's family. I loved the texture of these birds.

How Responsible Teachers Ruined My Life

     Responsible teachers have ruined my life. 

     It was my many speaking teachers who taught me that when writing/speaking on a topic on which I'm presenting my own opinion it is safest to start by making sure definitions can be agreed upon. 

     A teacher is any person who has passed on their own knowledge or wisdom for the benefit of a student through any various means such as speech, text, or conceptually through other visual means. 

     The next part is to detail exactly how my life has been ruined by the responsible teachers who've taught me through the years. To do this I'm going to follow a chronological approach. 

     Our first teachers, through not always the most responsible is our parents. And I have a wonderfully responsible pair, who did everything they could to ruin my life. From them I was taught two lessons which have possible made my life the most difficulty. 

     The first lesson was to question everything. Children are naturally inquisitive, any parents reading this will know this as the "Why/What" phase, as in 'What's that?' and 'Why do I have do do that?'. Responsible teachers promptly stamp this inquisitiveness out. My parents not only failed to tame it, they downright encouraged it! 

     When I asked my mother if Santa was real, she told me the truth that he exists as the spirit of Christmas (not literal spirit but more like the 'joy' of christmas). When I asked my father to explain divine intervention he had to pull the car over and stare at the sky for a while in an attempt to find a way to answer his far too curious son. 

     The second lesson they gave me which may possibly be as bad as the first is that in life I needed to follow my passions and do what made me happy regardless of money, because as long as I could dream it I could find a way to make it a reality. They taught me to chose happiness over money. Who does that!?!

     These two were the first of many teachers who failed me.  

     Now we move down the timeline of my life through the schooling system, the realm of certified teachers. Luckily for myself and those many students around me society has done its damnedest to eradicate responsible teachers in the school system, and to keep the responsible ones so focused on test scores and pushing kids up through the cracks that they cannot afford to be responsible. 

     But responsible teachers are a resilient bunch and a few continue to manage to survive. Generally the teachers who I personally can think of which collectively worked to ruin my life had one main lesson they were trying to brainwash the masses of innocent children with:

     Ignorance is not bliss, its a bias.  

     These people taught countless children to not only question the world around them but also to question the answers they received. They continued the dastardly education provided by responsible parents! 

     Unfortunately for myself my teachers weren't content with simply ruining reading or watching the news, but wanted to go further and try to open the eyes to the fact that there is always another side of the story in all walks of life. 

      For example in any food establishment it never fails that in the last minuets before the doors close that someone will show up hoping for a meal that a capitalist society cannot help but serve. And while those saved from the burden of responsible teachers are free to despise those people I cannot, knowing that their side of the story might explain that 8:30 was the earliest they could get the entire family together because both parents worked until 8 that night and they really just want to have one family dinner where no one has to worry about cooking or cleaning. 

     Now I'm in college, sinking further in debt because I was taught to follow my passion and worry about money only as far as I need it to accomplish my goals. I'm majoring in Anthropology and minoring in History and Folklore, all fields I shouldn't expect any money in, because I was taught to question all things and to actively seek out the story of those who have not had their stories told. Worst of all there are even more responsible teachers training me how to do it. 

     Perhaps now I'm a responsible teacher for having taught you how responsible teachers can ruin our lives. 

The Worth of a Photo

     Hope ya'll enjoyed your labor day weekend. I did too, which is why this post is a day behind when it's usually been put up Monday.

     I had quite a few idea for what I wanted to do with this particular blog post having gotten the introduction posts out of the way. But I decided something that would perhaps be less wordy and more picturey would be fitting. 

Rain over the Desert by Timothy Reid on 500px

     Over the summer I went on a road trip with my then girlfriend's family to Colorado. This is one of the many pictures and stories I gained from it.

     The day began with the howling of wolves from the valley across from where we wer camping on National Forest land. After trying to get some nice photographs of the wolves we were crammed back into the FJ (a car with a subculture all its own, story for another day) and were off to the mountains.
   
     The FJ is an off road vehicle and it turned out Sam's parents were into off roading so we crossed a mountain range on a washed out rocky path that could only loosely be considered a road.

      While not the smoothest of rides it was worth it for the amazing views which only those with monster trucks for cars, or hikers of course, could see. The valley on the other side was a massive birch forest, which unfortunately had suffered a forest fire but was growing back and was still beautiful.

     The most amazing part of the journey was rounding the last foot hill of the mountain to see a sand dune. A massive sand dune right at the base of the mountain.

     The Great Sand Dunes! It just looks so out of place, but there it was. We parked the car at the base of one of the sandy mounds, to stretch and get lunch. The plan was to go into the park from a different angle and drive around on the sand, but the challenge of climbing a sand mountain was too strong and all male members of the car, myself included, were soon competing as to how high they could go.

     I started at a running start, and made it perhaps 1/20th of the way up before I was out of breath. One cannot truly appreciate how steep it was until trying to climb it. I quickly over took the two others who were carving their names in the sand because I had to reach the top.

     It was high altitude and, lets face it I'm not in the greatest of shape. I was dying. Absolutely dying. I had to stop ever four or five meters just to catch my breath. But I made it all the way to the top. Of the first dune. To look up. At the next dune.

     I might have tried to keep going, if not for the fact that there was a strong breeze at the top of the sand dune. Now I don't know if you've ever been pelted with shards of glass repeatedly, but that's sorta what it felt like when the wind kicked the sand up.

     I managed to slide back down without face planting and after a brief lunch we drove away. It was at the edge of the dunes that I managed to snap this shot as the storms which were keeping the sun from searing up and the sands wet enough we could walk on top without sinking terribly far.

     So the moral of this story is if you ever get the chance to climb to the top of a sand dune, do it. It's worth the view, even if you can't take your camera for fear of sand.

~ Tim