Minnewasaka State Park Preserve

Sara and I found a couple of friends who were up for a day road trip to 

Minnewasaka State Park Preserve last weekend. Now that I am a member of a 

car share program, we reserved the car for a full day. We prepared how we 

would like our day to go and planned on meeting nice and early to get the show 

on the road. 

I picked Sara, Tucker and Matt up from Sara's apartment in Brooklyn Heights at 

8:00am. After stopping for some bagels, we headed to Williamsburg to grab 

Michelle and Ruxpin. Thankfully, with Matt on the GPS and myself driving, we 

were lucky to get out of the city without making any wrong turns or exits. 

After roughly two hours of driving, we were finally there and ready to stretch 

our legs, and paws. The dogs were extremely excited. We were not really sure 

how our day was going to go so we packed some food and water, towels, dog treats, 

bug spray, and bathing suits and hit the trails. Unfortunately, the maps we had were 

not that great and decided to just wing it. The first trail we picked was Upper 

Awosting which lead us to Awosting Lake, the first destination we had planned 

on visiting.  

About halfway into the hike, just off of the trail was a large flat rock 

formation with little streams of running water. The dogs went nuts running 

around, laying down, and slipping and sliding all over the place. It was a 

perfect place to take a little break and cool off. It was a hot one! 

Occasionally we would try to get all three dogs together for a puppy portrait 

but as you can tell, we were not very successful. The little dudes were not 

having any of it. 

These are the best shots we got. 

Over halfway to the lake, we came across a large rock formation. Below 

the formation, all over the place, people had stacked rocks. We were not 

sure what this symbolized and decided to pretend that the rocks just fell 

that way. It sounded more fun to us. 

Finally, after 3.1 miles of walking, we arrived at Lake Awosting. No one was 

happier than Rux. He had a ball, literally, for almost half an hour. 

We had a blast watching how entertained he was with a little water. 

Tucker even took a dive in after Rux but decided it wasn't a 

good idea and came swimming back in a panic. 

After our little break we decided to walk around the lake. Why not? 

We had made it this far. When it seemed like we were more than half 

way around the lake we were all getting hungry and tired. It was time for 

a second break. When we finally made the corner on the leg back, 

we were keeping our eyes open for a little rock beach we had 

spotted from the other side. 

And we found it! We unpacked our things, grabbed our food and all 

went our separate ways. Matt took a nap after a sandwich. Rux did not 

stop playing with his ball in the water. Sara snacked and kept her 

eye on Tuck. And Oliver and I sat in the water and snacked.

I mean, we literally sat in the water. Note, the water was not that 

shallow. He was standing on a rock I had placed him on. Don't worry, 

I was sitting with him the whole time. Plus, the little dude could swim 

to shore if he really wanted to. But, why would he? I had food! 

After almost an hour of relaxing, eating, sunning, swimming, and resting up, 

we headed back out on the trails towards the car. When we reached the fork 

in the trail and ended back up at the same trail map we had turned right 

to go around the lake before, a couple of older gentlemen had mentioned 

that we had walked four miles around the lake. All of us looked at each 

other and realized why we were so tired. We had just walked over seven 

miles and had another three to go. 

No wonder this little guy was exhausted...

Thankfully, dead weight and all, he only weighs nine pounds and in the 

positon he was in, with both my arms, I was able hold him for a long time.

 He did not fight, he did not move and he did not care about anything. 

After ten miles of walking, we were exhausted and starving. We were not as 

prepared as we would have liked as we did not know we were going to end 

up walking ten miles. We came to the conclusion of people who run marathons 

are nuts. We could not imagine walking two times the amount we had just 

walked. Lets just say, the car ride home was a lot quieter than on the way there. 

My ankles and hips ached, I was sunburned, tired and cranky. We only had 

a two hour drive home to get through before I could throw everything in the 

wash, give Oliver and myself bathes and pass out.

All in all, it was worth it. We had such a great time. It was truly beautiful. 

I can't wait to do it again one day.