hidden trails of Wenonah...nature girl strikes again!

(backdated)
nature girls & their fearless leader, Meadow











After a long journey in the car to find the "hidden trails of Wenonah" (who knew there could be trails in flat south jersey?), we parked the car at South Princeton & East Willow St* alongside someone's home and ventured out. There appeared to be a pathway (the entrance perhaps?) through the woods, so we went, Katie & I following our fearless leader, Miss Meadow. Alas! We found some steps, dangerous steps, but we proceeded onward...you would think the steps would lead somewhere, right? We get to the bottom of the steps, and it appears as though we have lost the path. Yes, we have lost the path already, map in hand, and we've been at this less than a minute, minus the hour car ride to the destination that should have been 10 mins away. So, as Katie & I are looking at the map, our fearless leader explores. All of the sudden she sinks into the ground! Quicksand, I think! I start pulling on her leash, yelping Meadow, c'mon! Katie is dumbstruck as well, thinking quicksand. Why would there be quicksand, we aren't anywhere exotic...

>>>>honestly i was thinking " great vanessa's gonna jump in and then i have to jump in after vanessa" <<<<<

so, we get the dog out, but she is now half black and half blonde. She looks similar to the victims of the Exxon Valdez oil spill tragedy, and she STINKS!

So, to recap: in the middle of nowhere, one hour car drive, 2 minutes on the path, one stinky dirty dog, and I am ready to quit. Katie and I are puzzled over the map and what to do with the dog, and these people emerge out of the trees. They explain how the trail goes...well, I guess all I heard was that you don't go down the steps b/c I don't remember what they said, so we started off to the right...Meadow in the lead, of course. The next point of interest would be the house that we came to where we tried to decide if it was a "real" house or if it was somehow part of this escapade --> real house. So we trample through what seems like their backyard, yet what also seems to be part of the "hidden trails of..." That is when we saw the sign: "BEWARE of snakes in rocks!" Yes, indeedie, that said snakes IN rocks.
And we also discovered that the quicksand like mud pile that Meadow sunk in was part of a lake:


The rest of the story is that we walked in a giant circle, met some more people that seemed to appear out of nowhere & continued to explain that the trails actually went somewhere other than around the lake. When we got to a certain point, I asked Katie where we were, and she said we were where we started (apparently).

...the Prize of the day was this "Tea House:"


**Wenonah Trails to be supposedly attempted again in the "spring" when you can actually see where you are going. I think there will be much better places to venture to & adventure through!

This is a copy of the map I printed from some website explaining the trails: