My local bucket list encompasses all of the Delmarpa region, however I realized that all of our hikes had been taking place in Delaware, so we headed to Maryland for our most recent adventure at Tuckahoe State Park and Adkins Arboretum. I like to make myself seem super organized, but with two kids, sometimes you just fly by the seat of your pants. It would be more efficient (and wise) to do a few minutes of research before heading out the door to your next hike, so don’t do what we frequently do by just picking a place and going without looking up the trail map. I vaguely knew what to expect on this trip (the arboretum and playground) but we ended up being a bit confused when we got there.
The address on the website for Tuckahoe State Park leads you to their maintenance sheds and offices so we had to follow the signage to figure out where to go. We headed to the arboretum area first, but the whole time I was confused as to what was the arboretum and what was the state park. Since my kids are early risers and we try to be home by nap time, we arrived well before the visitor’s center opened at 10am. The sign outside said the grounds are open dusk until dawn so we just bypassed the building and made our way to the trails. Because of that, we were not able to look at a trail map ahead of time so we had no idea exactly where we were going but it all worked out. They do have a children’s garden there that we missed, so we will make sure to see that next time!
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| The green line shows the two areas that we went to |
The trails here look very much like most other trails that we hike on, except with these great informational placards and ID signs. This is awesome for those of us who need a refresher course from college plant science classes (always!!) or for the newest of naturalists. If you visit here, take advantage of this learning opportunity! I wouldn’t expect you to remember all of the species they have identified, but start with a few of the more distinct ones. If you have older school aged children, challenge them to pronounce the scientific names on the signs. Quercus michauxii (Kwerk-us mish-show-ee-eye) is probably one of the harder ones!
This will be a great place to go for in the next two months because they have a large stand of mountain laurel and signs posted for other spring bloomers, including orchids. Despite the fact that it is still winter, spring is definitely upon us and the forest is awakening! I saw many signs of life here including skunk cabbage, blooming red maples and spring beauty flowers.
After hiking around aimlessly for over an hour, we decided it was time to locate the playground. We pulled the park map up on our phones and discovered that it was near the lake area. Unfortunately, it was still before 10am so the park rangers had not opened the gate to the parking lot at the playground so we parked a little farther down near the lake and walked over. It was definitely worth the trouble of finding it because it was super cool! I love seeing recycling in action and this was the first time we had ever been to a playground made entirely of tires, complete with some chipped rubber mulch. This area also had picnic tables, a bathroom and some nature trails which we were too tired to check out.
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