Valentines Day Hike, Nickerson State Park, Cape Cod MA

Back in February, we had a friend visting for the weekend and we headed out to Brewster MA to Nickerson State Park.

Someone had set up a special Valentines Day Hike, with paper hearts placed all along a loop of trail.

We walked along the trail and discovered hearts with inspirational words and phrases.

We saw lots of other sights along the trail. Here is the Nickerson State Park amphitheater, which faces one of the kettle ponds on the park land.

We found more hearts as we continued on.

We found an old fireplace and chimney.

A plaque indicates that it was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression.

Further up the trail, we found this oriental bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus) vine growing around a sapling in a perfect helix. Oriental bittersweet is pretty to look at (even more so with its bright red and yellow berries in the Fall), but it's a very damaging invasive weed.

More hearts: Perhaps the mysterious Valentines-trailblazers were Firefly fans?

Or perhaps this next one indicates they're into Harry Potter?

Whatever the case, they certainly shared our love of nature.

The only other possible clue to their identity was this odd find:

I bet you didn't realize that teen fads grew on trees!

The trail continued past a fire tower.

And an historical cemetery.

And, of course, more hearts.

And this bit of good advice:

And finally, here are my wife and I. Sweethearts on Valentines Day. Awww... :)