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Last Saturday, the guys from my F3 Group took a day hiking trip to the Bell Smith Springs area in Shawnee National Forest. I had never been to this area, but it was highly recommended by a friend who has spent a lot of time there (thanks, Chris!). It was well worth the visit--it's truly an amazing area. The trip was originally going to be a camping trip, but because of the weather and our desire to get back for church on Sunday morning, we switched it to just a day trip.

The only down side was that it had been such a wet fall that the creeks were all up really high. The normal places where you would cross them were all underwater, and we decided to stay dry and not try a crossing. This meant we didn't get to see what are probably the two best-known landmarks of the area, Devil's Backbone and the natural bridge.

But regardless of these setbacks, there was still plenty to explore. We had a great time rambling around the area, enjoying lots of diverse plant life, and even got to see a couple of deer up close. After a couple of hikes, we settled down at a campsite, built a fire, and enjoyed some fellowship.

The one geeky thing I tried on this trip was geotagging my photos. I didn't have any fancy device, I just left the GPS on all day, and then coordinated the photo timestamps with the GPS track log. It's a pretty crude process, but the results aren't bad. I even threw together a Google map of our two hikes (#1 in Red, #2 in Blue), with photos displayed along the way. There were a few anomalies in the GPS track data, which is why some of the pictures are off of the track lines. I could fix that but I am too lazy to do it right now.

For the non-geeky, there is also just a regular photo album for this entry. You can view it here.

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