Canoeing in Explore Park

This past weekend we went searching for some brilliant fall foliage to photograph...wow, that's a tongue twister...but none was to be found. Instead, we wound up at Explore Park to see what was going on there. New to me was the visitor center, which was very nice, but I was disappointed that all the other buildings that I had visited with the children during numerous school trips, were shuttered. There's still 14 miles of hiking and biking trails for those who love the great outdoors, but they are of little interest to me.

As we were getting ready to head back out, we stumbled upon some folks carrying a canoe out of the woods so figured something was going on in the river down below. Yup, there was...

He made it!

Roanoke County is still deciding what to do with the park and is offering citizens a chance to let them know what they'd like to see up there. Until October 31 you can complete this survey to give your opinions. Since the only thing that would interest me is re-opening the historic Brugh's Tavern restaurant, I'm not going to bother, but if you're an outdoors enthusiast you might want to weigh in. Let me know if one of the options is to put a casino up there...