FMC Park - Scott's Bottom

There is a lot to this park. It's really not the best park for just going and playing, but it has a lot of other things that would make it fun in other ways. 

There is an Archery range that would be fun to go to if we had the equipment, maybe someday that would be really fun to go do.

There is a shooting range that Dean goes to occasionally. 

 

Then there is the park. It would be a good place for a picnic with a large group of people. It has a nice pavilion with several tables, and grills.

The playground isn't all that exciting. A couple of small slides, a couple things to climb on, and a tic-tac-toe game... that's about it. Some of the older kids that came today were timing themselves to see how fast they could play with everything on the playground, and were able to do it in forty-something seconds, half of which was spent playing the tic-tac-toe game.

My kids were more interested in the rocks. They spent a good chunk of the time just playing in the rocks. Deano also found little balls from airsoft guns I think, he had to collect those in his pocket and bring them home with him.

After a while we decided to go for a hike and drove over to another part to begin our hike. 

There is a rock path that we followed today, but on previous trips here, Dean has led us through animal trails and more into the trees and down by the river. There are lots of cool things to discover. 

Along the trail there are these signs giving some information about the plants and animals in the area. 

There were tons of these tall white flowers along the trail. The kids had some fun walking through them. We also saw what we guessed were currant bushes, and milkweed (which apparently are very poisonous). I've never been any good at identifying plants, so it was nice to have someone along who seemed to know what she was talking about. :)

There are other places where we could have gone to get right up to the river, but it was getting late, and kids were getting hungry, tired, and hot, so we called this good and then headed back. I know there are places down here that are supposed to be good for fishing too.

I know this picture doesn't do it justice at all, but I'm pretty sure that's a bald eagle up there. Another one flew up to join it a short time later. Along with these eagles, we saw a few other kinds of birds, squirrels, chipmunks, a plethora of various bugs, a couple horses walking along the trails, and a dog (most of which were earlier on at the park, and not on the hike). The signs along the path talked about several other animals that we didn't see.