Lake Somerville is so large, it has two state parks on its shores. We are staying at the Birch Creek Unit, but across the lake we can see the Nails Creek Unit. Connecting them is a 13-mile trailway, that weaves around the lake through the forest. So our project for the next couple days was to ride our bikes on the Lake Somerville Trailway. This well-traveled bike path started just a half-mile from our camping spot.
It winds its way through forests that keep the trail nicely shaded.
It also winds its way through beautiful spring wildflowers.
This slows our progress, as Denisa thinks she needs to take pictures of some of those wildflowers. This one she calls "spring fireworks."
Sometimes she even talks Mark into being in her flower pictures.
Even though some of the trail is nicely flat, other sections are hilly. We noted that it felt a little like an interval workout--with times that you were working very hard pedaling uphill, and then getting to rest while enjoying a nice downhill ride.
At the top of one of those hills was a well-deserved covered rest stop with benches and shade and wildflowers to admire. It also made a nice place for a snack.
This used to be a continuous 13-mile trailway, but this bridge was closed after a flood damaged it several years ago. To tell you the truth, we thought that the seven-mile ride to get here, and then seven miles back home, was as far as we wanted to ride on this hilly dirt trailway today.
So we celebrated getting to our destination, and then turned our bikes around to head home. Have we mentioned how pretty the bike ride was with all the wildflowers?
By the time we got home from our 14-mile ride, we were pooped! But it was definitely a home-run day with such a nice trailway and interesting things along the way. In fact, we had such a good time that we wanted to do the other half of the trailway. From that closed bridge where we had to turn around yesterday, it took a 20-mile drive in the pickup to get us to the other side of that bridge.
On the second day, we parked the pickup and unloaded our bikes. Now we are off on the last six miles of the Lake Somerville Trailway.
Today we have three destinations, based on the advice that the ranger gave us. Our first stop was on the Alligator Loop. We made several stops, looking up and down the banks of the Yegua River. But we never spotted even one alligator. "Strike one" for today's bike ride.
We continued down the trail, because the ranger told us about an eagle's nest with hatchlings inside on the Waldo's Loop section of the trailway. We were excited when we found that big nest, in the crook of a dead tree close to the trail.
We waited and watched, and zoomed in with the binoculars, and watched from both sides, and waited some more . . . No signs of life from the babies or the eagle parents. That would be "strike two" for this bike ride.
Disappointed, we continued on to Flag Pond. The trail description pointed out that this was a place for flocks of migratory birds of all kinds. With our luck today, you might guess that the lake was eerily empty. 
The only sign of life on Flag Pond were a few of these interesting ducks. You can tell from the blurry picture that they were very far from us. Certainly not the flocks of migrating birds that we had ridden our bikes to see. "Strike three" for this bike ride!
Lake Somerville State Park is divided into two units, and we were planning to ride our bikes all the way to the Nails Creek Unit. But this half of the trailway is obviously less traveled. When we got into tall grass that made pedaling twice as hard, we decided to turn back without making it to our goal. Does that count as a "strike four"? After our "home run" bike ride yesterday, this side of the closed bridge on the Somerville Trailway just wasn't as fun. The good news is that we still found beautiful wildflowers along the way.
Since we didn't make it to the Nails Creek Unit on our bikes, we decided to drive the pickup there. Even though we didn't find flocks of migrating birds on our bike ride, we did find huge flocks of birds from the viewpoint at Nails Creek. We watched this flock through the binoculars, and Mark estimated over 1,000 white pelicans were grouped together on the far side of the lake.
We also saw hundred of ducks on the shore closer to us when we hiked the Overlook Trail. They were standing feather-to-feather, and covered the shore.
So even on a "four-strikes" bike ride, we can find beautiful reminders that we are still wandering God's wonders. Sometimes we hit home runs, while other days seem like a strike out.
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