One of the coolest things about living in Atlanta is that you’re never more than 10 to 15 minutes away from a hiking trail. You disappear into a wooded path for a moment, and the city ceases to exist.

Clayton County is south of the Atlanta perimeter, but Jonesboro is anything but quiet. Hard to tell, though, once you disappear into the green of Jesters Creek Trail.

Boardwalk

I got off to a lovely start with a boardwalk that snaked into the woods, twisting in and out of leafy greens. Once, I even got a glimpse of a stream.

Concrete & Jungle

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, right? Sooner or later, I was back on concrete.

Concrete defies the entire purpose of going into the woods in the first place. But there was so much green, so many tall trees… it was easy to forgive the paved path.

It wasn’t so easy to forgive the bug that decided to go swimming in my eyeballs.  😐

Mr. Turtle & Mrs. Squirrel

Needless to say, the first opportunity to ditch the concrete trail, I took it. It turned out to be only a dead-end, but it was well worth the adventure.

Why? Because I made a friend along the way.

He was shy at first, but once he had some water to cool him down, he was ready to say hello.

By the time I made it to the end of the trail and back, Mr. Turtle was gone. But I made a second friend along the way,

Rock Climbing

I haven’t gone rock climbing in some time, and didn’t do the kind of climbing you may have in mind. But hey… it’s a start.

It also marked the end of what was roughly a two hour hike in the city.

 

Did any of you guys make it out to the trails this week? Tell me all about it in the comments below. If you blogged about it, drop me a link.

Have a great weekend!