Hike 4: Beaverdam Park

This past weekend, my husband and I went for a quick weekend getaway to the Tidewater area of Virginia.  I've been traveling to this area of Virginia my whole life.  My family has property there that has been in the family for generations. Even though we were on a mini vacation, I still wanted to get a hike in.  I found Beaverdam park located in nearby Gloucester, VA that had several different trail options.
Once again the weather was on our side.  The temperature reached 60 degrees and the sun was shining.  There are several trails at the park of varying mileage so you can really tailor your hike to your needs.  There is a trail for hikers only and trails that are considered multi use meaning horses and bikers are also permitted on the trail.  We opted to start out on the hiking only trail which is about 3 miles.

Most of the trail runs along the edge of the Beaverdam Reservoir.  There were quite a few boaters out fishing.  Beaverdam is apparently the only freshwater fishing hole in the Middle Peninsula of VA.  I'm used to the saltwater fishing on the rivers and bay in the area.  Unlike the trails at home in Pennsylvania, the trail here had very few inclines, and the ones it had were short and not too steep.  There were no rocks either, but there were areas where the tree roots stuck up across the path.  I think I almost prefer rocks as those roots seemed to pop up out of no where under the leaves.
When hiking the hiker only trail, you can either return on the same trail, or you can choose to return on the multi use trail.  My husband and I decided to take the slightly longer multi use trail return since the weather was gorgeous.

As the sign says, take caution on the multi use trail, there might be poop.
I've hiked trails that are considered multi use, but I've never encountered more than one or two cyclists.  On this trail, we actually encountered 4 different horses- and 2 of them more than once.  There were also many people on bikes.  I'm going to take this moment to mention a PSA about courtesy on the trail as it seems to be something a lot of people need help with (here anyway).  The rule is: Everyone yields to horses
Bikers and joggers yield to hikers and downhill hikers yield to uphill hikers (unless I'm the uphill hiker then I use the moment to catch my breath and let the others pass).  I want to stress the horse thing.  I know there are a lot of people who do not have horse knowledge.  If you are hiking or biking and come upon some horse back riders, step off the trail to let them pass.  Be visible and ask the riders if you're in a good spot.  Some horses spook at the strangest things, and if they haven't realized you're there and you scare them, it could cause a situation where a rider is thrown or someone is kicked.  Cyclists- this means don't ride up on a horses butt.  I saw a family out riding bikes that rode right up on a horse.  The kids were lucky the horse only picked up speed because if the horse had kicked, it would have surely hit one of the kids.
Anyway, it was a very nice hike.  It was warm and it smelled like earth and pine.  We were actually pretty tired from the hike, though we are pretty out of shape.  This one completed one of my hikes to a body of water.  I have 1 more left of those, and I already have an idea of where I'd like to go for that second one (it involves looking for shark teeth fossils).  I've completed 2 of my 5 waterfall hikes as well.  I still have a bunch of challenge objectives to complete, but we have 48 more hikes to go!
On a side note, Beaverdam Park is a great place to visit for the day if you're in the area.  It has very clean bathrooms, boat rentals, picnic areas and of course the trails.  Our family will definitely be visiting again!.

The funny thing about this, my husband's name is Ernie.