Family Trip

Downy Rattlesnake Plantain

Water Horehound (Lycopus)

Hog Peanut

Scary bridge!

Devil's Trumpet fungus

Ragweed, with merely toothed leaves

Gorgeous campsite

Yes, there were fish in the pond!

Last week the family and I took a two-day camping trip to Lamping Homestead, a Wayne National Forest site just south of Graysville in Monroe County.  My oldest daughter's boyfriend had never had a primitive camping experience, so we thought we would educate him.  For our family, the site was a little more developed than our usual camping outings since there was an outhouse on site!

Lamping Homestead, as the name implies, is the site of an old homestead established by the Lamping Family in the 1800's.  The site had a two-acre pond, a couple hiking trails, and even a family cemetary, although we did not learn where the cemetary was until we were actually leaving and stopped to chat with a forest service employee.  For camping, there were a few sites under some white pine next to the pond, and there were some other sites tucked away in a pocket of deciduous hardwood.  We chose the sites next to the pond as they seemed less buggy.

The Lamping Trail made a loop starting from the east end of our camping area.  Not very far down the trail, hikers were taken over one of the most bizarre bridges I have ever seen.  I could not decide if it was intended to have a curvy nature, or if it was just that rickety.  We all crossed it and it seemed adequately stable, but was kind of scary to look at!

On the trail we came to a point where the "short loop" intersected with the "long loop".  Considering the knew problems I have been having the past couple months, I lobbied for the short loop and was glad I did.  The short loop was 1.5 miles and plenty far for my knee.  I discovered later that the long loop would have been 3.5 miles, and probably farther than any of us were prepared to handle.

The trail took us up a fairly steep, muddy climb onto a bench just below the ridgeline.  The soil was acidic and therefore home to some interesting plant life such as Spotted Wintergreen and the Downy Rattlesnake Plantain pictured above.  I sincerely thought I had missed my opportunity to photograph this small orchid, so I was quite pleased to find it, although I had a terrible time getting the lighting quite right.  The forest was quite dark and since I had several other people with me, I did not want to make them all stand around waiting for me to try a bazillion flash settings.

Made an another interesting find after the trail had descended and was heading back toward the lake.  Ragweed!  I know, normally ragweed is not exciting, but this one was different.  I am accustomed to ragweeds having deeply lobed leaves.  This one had no lobes.  I later learned that ragweed living in marginal habitat will sometimes exhibit this lobeless leaf feature.

Some of the other things we saw along the trail were Hog Peanut, Aster, and a very odd looking mushroom apparently called Devil's Trumpet.  Back around the lake I also found Water Horehound.  Or at least I think that is what it is.  Water Horehound and Field Mint look very similar.  The teeth on the leaves are not quite as robust as I would expect for Water Horehound, but the leaves had virtually no odor, whereas Field Mint is very aromatic.

The species total for the year currently stands at 493, with a few things still needing identification or confirmation.  Planning to make a swing down Clear Creek Road today in search of milkweed seed (Poke Milkweed) and Gaura biennis.