Monday — never an easy time for the outdoors enthusiast. After a weekend of adventure, returning to the humdrum work-a-day world can make one melancholy. To help ease the transition, every Monday we feature a 90 Second Escape — essentially, a 90-second video of a place you’d probably rather be: a trail, a park, a greenway, a lake … anywhere as long as it’s not under a fluorescent bulb.
Tag Archives: weekend
This weekend: Look for spring, Run for Roses, hike in … snow?
North Carolina’s diversity shows this weekend. At the coast, you can look for signs of spring, in the Piedmont you can run a venerable 5K and in the mountains, you can take a hike — possibly in the snow!
Coast
This is about the time the natural world starts to awaken from its cold winter nap — or as much of a nap as you can work in with temperatures in the 50s and 60s. Most people assume that wildflowers such as the hepatica and trout lily represent the vanguard of spring, showing, typically, at the beginning of March. But knowing that spring is on the way is really a matter of knowing where to look. Under a log, for instance, which is where they’ll be looking for harbingers of spring on Saturday at Dismal Swamp State Park. Take a hike, find a log, flip it and see what scurries about. (Salamanders, millipedes and assorted insects will be your likely subjects.)
Celebrate the weekend at an N.C. State Park
In honor of Celebrate North Carolina State Parks weekend, which is this weekend, we cull our recommendations from this weekend’s State Park offerings.
Coast
1. Ever see “Little Shop of Horrors” (either the 1960 Roger Korman original or the 1986 Frank Oz remake)? A man-eating plant! How outlandish, you likely thought.