Water Loving Dogs At Whippoorwill Corners - Part 3

I was hiking with the dogs along Plumb Brook, in the Whippoorwill Corners State Forest (see also Parts 1 and 2, posted previously), but the time came for us to turn back toward the trail head:

I saw a dirt lane climbing up a steep hill and thought it might take us back where we wanted to go, so we tried it. It was marked as a horse path and probably did go where I wanted, but I didn't want to risk it. So we walked back down the hill and took the same trail we'd come in on:

The extra sunlight on the top of the hill produced a bumper crop of Orange Hawkweed, a beautiful, distinctive wildflower:

 

Soon we were back on the rocky brookside trail, where I remembered once again that going up rocky places is usually easier than going down:

Plumb Brook was now on our left as we made our way back on the trail:

Look, Dad, another place to cool off. Can we go in the water here?

Indeed they did. It was a fine stream for keeping dogs cool and watered on a hot day:


Back on the trail again. There were a few mosquitoes, but not too many:

 I found this clam shell near the water, likely the remnants of a raccoon's dinner and evidence that freshwater mussels live in the brook:

The little dogs wanted to rock-hop out to some rapids, and I didn't stop them. Both Seamus and I were tired and too unsteady on our feet to try it:

In a stretch of quieter water, Daphne got herself so drenched that she looked, as my mother used to say, "like a drowned rat:"

There was a stretch of quiet, shallow water just before the trail head, so we stopped once again for the dogs to explore the cool water of Plumb Brook. Then we all piled into the car and headed for home, arriving before the real heat wave began: