Hugh S. Branyon Backcountry Trail System

View from Catman Road

At Good Haven House we're lucky to have the Hugh S. Branyon Backcountry Trail system just 16 miles/25 minutes down the road. The Backcountry Trail System is made up of a dozen square miles of wooded and marshland habitat mostly contained within Gulf State Park in Orange Beach, AL. Six trails among six distinct ecosystems make up more than 11 miles of the complex that's just made for a days biking and hiking.

The trails are a bird watcher's paradise and other commonly seen animals are armadillos, racoons, deer, coyotes, otters, foxes, wild boar, bob cats and American alligators.

Snowy Egret

Click HERE for lots more information about the Hugh S. Branyon Backcountry Trail.

The entrance to Gulf Oak Ridge Trail is located next to the Orange Beach Sportsplex north of Gulf State Park

click on the map above for trail maps and directions

1st, 2nd, 4th photos and map from joeybike.com

Happy (and peaceful) Friday

Arlo Guthrie during a 1969 show at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts

Photograph by Bettman/CORBIS

A new National Geographic book, Peace: The Biography of a Symbol by photographer 

Ken Kolsbun and journalist Michael S. Sweeney, takes a look at the famous sign.

The peace symbol was the brainchild of a British designer, Gerald Holtom, seeking an emblem for an anti-nuclear-weapons march in London in 1958. It superimposes the semaphore signals for N (nuclear) and D (disarmament) and has become known the world over.

The book is interesting and the pictures, as always from National Geographic, are stunning and thought provoking. A timely reminder for our world right now.

See more pictures from the book and

buy it here

☮

Oyster Season

What's one of our favorite things about staying at Good Haven House? 

Getting to eat lots of fresh oysters! Celebrate oyster season with 

Garden and Gun's Southern Oyster Guide. 

Check it out at http://gardenandgun.com/oysters

New Year

“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.”

 

T.S. ELIOT