Taylor Dune trail; trail buggy ride; Honeyman park exploration

On Wednesday the kids once again enjoyed bacon, waffles, and television in our hotel room before starting the day's adventure.

Our first stop was a short hike at Taylor Dunes - the hike went through forest, open dunes, grassy dunes, and some marshy habitat - really cool. We saw 34 of these tiny critters (salamander?) in the forest near Carter Lake.

We had expected to hike until the trail dead-ended at the ocean, but were thwarted by deep pools of water lying across and surrounding the trail in a low-lying spot. We couldn't see a way to get through or around the marshy water to the ocean, which was probably less than a half a mile ahead. So we turned around and took a loop back, and it was fine.

Next up: a dune buggy adventure ride! Sebastian was leery; Liesl was excited. It turned out to be really fun, not scary or motion-sickness-inducing, and a great way to get out into the dunes and see everywhere. I can see the appeal of ATVs in this terrain. Our guide was great and very informative about the vegetation, the animals, the sand and wind patterns, the history of the area. We went across the open plains, through the forest and swamp water, and along the open beach. We went down a couple of really steep hills - I would guess a 70 degree angle - which made us all screech a little in fun terror. It was great.

After the trail ride, we headed to Honeyman State Park for a picnic lunch and some on-foot exploration of the dunes. We ran up, we slid down, we tromped around, we got tired and sunburned. It was a grand adventure.

We came back down to Cleawox Lake, where we tried (unsuccessfully) to get Jasper to swim by throwing a ball into the shallow lake. It was fun to see him try, but he was clearly nervous - kept trying to paddle at the water with his paws to bring the ball closer, but with his back paws solidly on land.