The Other side

... of THE HILL, that is. I explored the backside of the Swope park area with my mother. It was a warm, sunny few hours- a dramatic change from the past few days spent in Omaha, Ne.

There is a complex system of trails and streams-some of them are marked. We made our from the barn to the Hope building, along a short stretch of railroad tracks and up a stream bank. The visit to the stream was simply a search for arrowheads- We've found them here before, but it was far too wet to explore well.

We did find some cool flint and druzy quartz near the Hope building. Took the "Blue Rock" trail back towards the Barn and had plenty of good opportunities to fiddle with shelf-fungi. Plenty of cool stuff with lavenders and oranges and yellows.

Stopped by the Eddie-Ballentine trail on our way back. Spent some time meandering through the web of trails on the ridge above blue river blvd and made our way down to the Fireman Memorial. Last Night's snow still dusts the shady spots and yesterday's Severe Thunderstorms have flooded parts of the trails and littered others with broken sticks and branches. The entire hike was fairly wet and boots were a few pounds heavier with all the mud. We crossed over the second terrace of the Memorial-its all dark shale and wet limestone- Fossilized chrinoid segments and shells. I even scored a smooth belemnite! Most of the fossils are very detailed and several contain cubic crystals.

Sun set over Mt. Laidlaw- the capped landfill on the other side of the river from us. It was an odd thing- the forest is shrubby and rank in many spots, the sound of traffic is overwhelming and the bald hill in the distance only helps to create a phony, hectic feel to the sliver of woods. They are nice though- certainly better than nothing! The birds are plentiful there.