In the last two weeks, the forest floor has, finally, come alive with splashes of color: carpets of delicate white spring beauties, patches of starburst white chickweed, bursts of purple periwinkle, flashes of yellow green-and-gold.
The spring show is in its prime, but it won’t last forever. Here are five spots where you’re likely to find the season in full flower for at least the next couple of weeks (longer in the high country).
Tag Archives: Jockey’s Ridge State Park
This weekend: Lit kites, loaded hikers, wily weasel
There’s no time like Thanksgiving break to get moving. So … get moving!
Coast
This sounds pretty awesome. Head out to Jockey’s Ridge on Saturday, hike, cavort in the sand, explore. Then, at 4 p.m. get out your kite, get out those extra Christmas lights and that super long extension cord, and participate in Kitty Hawk Kites’ Kites with Lights celebration. Watch folks experienced in doing this kind of thing — including someone with a 19-foot delta kite — light up the night in zig-zag fashion. Extra enticement: Free hot cider, free cookies.
This weekend: A Labor of fun
Tradition rules at the coast (a last beach blast of the summer) and in the mountains (kicking off the fall hiking season). Meanwhile, somewhere in between a paddle trip beckons.
Coast
Labor Day weekend, you’re at the coast, you’re looking for something different to do, something to relieve the tedium of frolicking in the surf. Tedium? OK, perhaps that’s overstating. But certainly a little relief from the beach is a good thing. And you and the kids can find it at 3 p.m. Monday at Jockey’s Ridge State Park, when you’ll join a park ranger for a romp over the dunes in search of Tracks in the Sand. Yes, search for the footprints of the various critters who call the park home, then make a plaster cast to take home as a souvenir. Beats a hermit crab nightlight from Wings.
This weekend: Don’t retreat, get out and beat the heat
The first summerlike weather of the year has descended, but don’t let that keep you cooped up this weekend. Beat the heat with a coastal retreat, by doing the vampire thing and coming out at night, or hitting the high — particularly high — country.
Picture a great weekend
Can a camera lead to fitness? Is paddling in winter as cool (not cold) as it sounds? And whitewater racing? Really?
Coast
Sometimes all you need to spur you on to an active lifestyle is the right motivation, a motivation that, perhaps, hasn’t yet occurred to you.