What's the Haps Wednesday {The Louisiana Arboretum}

Last weekend, we visited one of my favorite places.

The Louisiana Arboretum

It's part of Chicot State Park in Ville Platte, LA.
There are several hiking trails ranging from a paved 500 ft trail to an unpaved 1.5 mile trail.

Some of the trails overlap in the wetland area.

Many of the trails offer diverse landscapes such as flat, prairie-like land, hills, pine forests, river bottom land, and swampy wetlands.

That's probably what I like most.  A broad spectrum of landscapes and plants can be found in one area.

We chose the shorter wetland trail this time around, but still had to climb hilly sections and cross through piney woods.

Lots of mature trees can be seen here, like this Sycamore with it's shaggy bark.

The Arboretum sits on land that was once the path of the Red River over 100,000 years ago.  The route the river carved can still be seen on some of the trails.

But if you aren't into grand and elaborate, how about small and delicate?

Of course, the wetland area is always my favorite.  It is seasonally wet.  This time around there was very little water.  But we had fun trying to identify critters by their tracks.

We saw deer tracks, wild hog tracks, racoon tracks...

Oh, and this guy.

A Cottonmouth just waiting.

We seem to end up here in the Fall.

I've always wanted to visit the Arboretum in the Spring when the irises (my favorite flower) are blooming in the wetlands.

This time of year, I'll settle for another one of my favorites: American Beautyberry (Calicarpa americana).

More pictures from the Louisiana Arboretum