Sunday Afternoon in the Park

Sunday I was starting to get a bit stir crazy in the apartment since we didn't go out on Saturday, so we decided it was too cold for the beach, but it would be nice to get out and do some walking. So we headed off to the Orange City Park.  It was later in the day, a bit on the cool side, and the Santa Ana winds were keeping things breezy enough that most people stayed away from the park.  I've seen this park packed to the point where the Parks Department didn't allow any more cars inside.  (This park is also one of the ones that you have to pay to enter! Gasp!!)

At the Orange City Park you can go horseback riding, visit the Orange City Zoo (been there several times), picnic, ride the train, walk on nature trails, feed the duck, ride the paddle boats on the pretty big pond, and in general just get out and commune with nature.

There are lots of wild mallards and wood ducks that have migrated to the ponds at this park. I took lots of photos of them and was trying to catch them as they flew into the area and landed on the pond.  Apparently, I needed to have a faster shutter speed because all I got were lots of photos that were pretty blurry! Need to pay attention more to what I was doing!

Mike and I walked most of the time we were there, finding a nature trail we thought would take us to the top of a very high hill that I thought would give us wonderful views... the trail didn't go that high, so I didn't get the shots that I wanted to get.  Beautiful hike though!

Along our walk thru the park, we ran across four wild peacocks strolling down the side of the road.  I got ahead of them and took some photos as they approached. Beautiful birds but pretty stupid. They walked out into the road several times causing the drivers to slam on their brakes to avoid hitting them!  Silly birds!

As we walked around the park the late fall afternoon was fast losing it's light and the park lights began to flicker on. As we neared the pony ride area, the trees all of the sudden lit up with Christmas lights! Although its a bit hard to see in these photos, the lights really were quite pretty!  By the time we made it back to our car, the park was pretty well emptied. We enjoyed the solitude of the duck pond for a few minutes, watching them glide across the still waters as they began to settle down for the night. 

 

 

Last train ride of the night.