Saturday was a beautiful day for a hike. The temperature topped out at 80 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. You would think lessons learned on the trail come on days of challenging weather, but today we learned a hiking lesson on a gorgeous day.
Today’s hike was a new (for us) section of the Horse-Shoe trail. We parked at French Creek Elementary School on Conventryville Road and headed south. We hiked for 3 miles and passed one couple headed north. The only other people we encountered were a couple of fisherman at the Rodebaugh Dam pond. We were mostly isolated which is usually what we are looking for.
On the way back, Suzanne got stung. We didn’t see the offender, but it left behind its stinger in her arm. While searching the med kit for a wipe, I realized we should probably be carrying Benadryl. Earlier in the week, my next door neighbor disturbed a bee’s nest with his lawn mower and was stung multiple times. Even though he is not allergic, the amount of bee toxins was enough for a serious reaction. He spent the night in the hospital for monitoring.
My neighbor is fine and Suzanne is fine as well. Her arm was swollen in the morning and doesn’t feel quite right, but it could have been much worse. A couple of Benadryl doesn’t add much to the pack and is definitely something we will be carrying on future hikes.
Allergic reaction is not the only lesson learned on this hike. The trail ran next to a farm. Our black lab Theo was bounding ahead of us as he normally does when he veered off toward the farm. He let out a sharp yelp and we rushed up to see what caused him to cry out.
We didn’t see anything at first and then I realized he must have hit the farmers fence. I initially thought the fence was electrified, but just yards away a tree had fallen across the fence and taken every wire to the ground. Theo probably just didn’t see the wire and ran with pace into them.
In the future, we will remember to proceed with caution near farms.
So those were our trail lessons we learned on a beautiful summer day.
Our route and pictures are published on Outdoor Active
