Thanksgiving Hikes at Weymouth Woods

This Thanksgiving, Sandy and I headed to Southern Pines to visit family for the holiday.  On the way, we stopped for a hike at Weymouth Woods-Sandhills Nature Preserve to work up an appetite.  First, we went to the Boyd Tract and parked outside the Weymouth Center.  Passing through the gardens, we saw some beautiful Japanese maples with bright orange foliage.

There was a pretty fountain here as well.

The gardens were very nice, but we decided to stroll through after hiking.  We continued across the open field and picked up the orange-blazed Round Timber Trail.  The trail follows an old roads and makes a one-mile loop around the tract.  The oldest known living longleaf pine is along the trail, but it's not marked so I'm not sure if this is the right one.

Just before the trail ends back at the meadow, we hiked a short ways on a service road to the second largest longleaf pine in North Carolina.  This tree didn't need a sign - it was a lot bigger than any other trees around.

After some pictures of this enormous tree, we headed back to the gardens and enjoyed the lovely views of the Boyd House and gardens.

When we were finished, we made the short drive over to the main section of Weymouth Woods.  We had some time to kill so we tried to hike every trail in the park, excluding the service roads.  It was such a beautiful day and the weather was just perfect and we had a very nice hike.  Along the Equestrian Trail, we saw a box turtle along the trail.

Hiking along Lighter Stump Trail, we could tell where prescribed burns had occurred recently.  Many longleaf seedlings were sprouting up in this area.

At about 330, we finished up our hike back at the visitor center and drove to Vass to visit family and eat lots and lots of turkey.