escape yourself and gravity

Had a pretty nice Mother's Day, and Mom says she did too. She woke up with a migraine, and Dad and I both woke up with a headache. Weird. But anyway, skipped church, slept in, and had a casual lunch. Then Mom and I headed to town. We stopped by the library, where I picked up a couple of books about Linux, and then headed to our nearest state park, Prophetstown.

We've always been a bit disappointed by the park, mostly because there's not much in the way of hiking. It's a prairie habitat park, with some river flood plain. Not a lot of trees, and very flat. But they did a very nice job making it a family-friendly park, with miles of paved bike trails and several nice playgrounds and picnic shelters. It's just not a great place for gung-ho hikers the way we are.

Today, though, we were pleasantly surprised by some changes to the park. They've expanded a trail into some woodlands, so we were able to see some new parts of the park. The new trail goes down along a small stream and boggy area. At the furthest developed part of the park, there's a nice viewing platform over the slough. Between that and our hiking in the prairie area, we were able to add some lifelist birds today.

We did a day-trip up to the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore Friday (and one last Friday as well--they're taking off scheduled snow days at her work) and this past Friday I saw a Common Yellowthroat, but Mom didn't. Today, she got a very good look at one, so she was able to add that.

We also saw a Great Crested Flycatcher, which I have been wanting to see for a while now. Gorgeous yellow belly and cinnamon-colored wings and tail, with a gray crest. He gave us a very good look and did some hawking for bugs while we watched him. We also saw a couple Brown Thrashers and a Gray Catbird, both of which we have at home, but love to see anyway. There were Eastern Bluebirds flying around. We've had a couple of those at home too, but we never seem to get them to stick around. This weekend we put up a second bluebird box (the wren moved into the first one we have) and are hoping the pair will nest here this year.

Other birds we saw were American Redstart (both male and female), and a pair of Dickcissels. They are striking birds. At first we thought they were a type of sparrow with yellow on the head, but then they turned and we saw they were bright yellow underneath with a black bib. Gorgeous little things, and I got some very good shots with the long lens, I think. We also saw an Eastern Meadowlark, Indigo Buntings, Mallards, a Great Blue Heron, and a bird we're tentatively calling a sandpiper. We're wavering between Solitary Sandpiper and Spotted Sandpiper, but until I get the pictures downloaded to the computer and we can compare them, we won't know for sure.

Then our last bird, after we left the park and were driving back towards town, was a gorgeous adult Bald Eagle that flew right over our car. That was exciting! We know they're growing in number and even had one in our own back yard once this winter, but it's never any less exciting to see one. It's good to have such proof they're coming back so strong from the DDT crisis back in the 70s and 80s.

Over the past two weeks, I've added probably a dozen birds to my life list, including five migratory warblers. I honestly think our trip to Trinidad & Tobago taught us to be better birders. We're more willing to take the time to really get an identification. I'm doing a better job at learning to bird by ear (though for whatever reason the Northern Cardinal fools me a LOT). My Audubon iPhone app has really helped, too. I still use my books to flip through for a tentative identification, but what really nails it for me is being able to listen to the bird calls on the app and compare them to what we're hearing. Seeing witchety-witchety-witchety in the bird book is one thing. Knowing for sure you're hearing it is another (the Common Yellowthroat, for instance, says witchety, but I think the American Redstart's teacher-teacher-teacher also sort of sounds like it.)

Anyway, we finished up with ice cream from Coldstone Creamery, and then came home to watch the Baskerville episode of Sherlock on PBS. A pretty good day, for sure!

I owe a lot of comments, and I'll get to them, I promise.  I just got home about an hour ago from a fast and furious weekend excursion with the parents.

Dad's birthday is this coming week, and for his birthday he wanted to go to Fort Wayne to do some genealogy.  Mom and I, not being so keen on the genealogy (though interested in the end results), went along but dropped him at the Allen County Public Library and hit Chain O'Lakes State Park.  We rented a canoe for three hours and proceeded to paddle about two and a quarter miles in one direction, swap ends of the canoe, and paddle back.  It's amazing how, no matter how long I go without being in a canoe, I always get my groove back about 10 minutes after getting in the boat.

Someday I want to own a canoe and have a quiet little lake I can paddle around on.  Definitely a great place to go, and we're going to go back sometime when we can either camp or stay in one of their cabins.  I did get a little sunburnt, but not too badly, and my butt actually hurts worse from the aluminum bench seats than my shoulders and arms do. LOL

Today we all three did a couple of short hikes at the park, then drove down to Oubache (say "Wabash") State Park.  It isn't too impressive, especially after Chain O'Lakes.  We didn't stay there long, just drove around a little and headed out.

We went to Geneva, Indiana, from there and stopped at the Gene Stratton-Porter house, which is amazing.  It cost them $5000 to build in 1895!  Of course, this is the woman who, at one point in her career, was selling a book a minute.  I'd say she was the 1900 version of JK Rowling! *G*  She also built a 22-room mansion out in Bel Air in 1924, but sadly was killed in a streetcar accident before she ever lived there.  Mom and I want to go back up there when we have time to hike around at Loblolly Swamp and look at some of the old Italianate buildings in Geneva.

I'm worn out and would love to go to bed, except if I go to bed at 9 pm then the weekend's over and next thing I know I'll be waking up and going to work.  Bleh.  Darn those Sunday-night blues!  That's the only problem with a weekend-long excursion -- no time to rest up again before work!

I think I'll go to bed, though, and do some reading until I fall asleep.  That would be okay.

Went hiking with Mom today. Dad rode along and read in the car, and was supposed to pick us up at the other end of the trail. Instead Mom and I ended up hiking twice as far as we meant to because he never showed up and his phone was going right to voicemail without a signal. Oh well, had fun. The modern equivalent of the CCC (I can't remember what they called them this year) has obviously been installing signs, and it was fun to discover all of them. They have history of the park as well as natural features and wildlife. Some of those are pictured behind the cut too.

( Clickable thumbnails behind the cut )

My weekend was pretty good, despite illness running roughshod over the family. Friday night, Mom & Dad picked me up after work and we drove down to Spring Mill State Park, where we stayed in the inn. I'd been draggy and sick to my stomach for a few days. Friday I barely ate anything, skipped lunch, and mostly just ate mashed potatoes for dinner when we got there around 7. By 8 I was in bed and asleep, and I didn't get up until 8 the next morning. I did feel better, finally, though, except for a headache. Mom and I went for a hike after breakfast while Dad napped, then Mom started feeling sick, so she lay down in our room for a while before we checked out. Then we did some more hiking, watched the mill demonstrations of grinding corn meal and cutting boards, then hiked a little more.

Mom and I explored Donaldson Cave without Dad this time. There are times being a fantasy writer can really be a detriment to one's peace of mind. When one is standing at the mouth of a very small, long, dark passage with only a Maglite in one's hands...that would be one of those times.

We stayed in a hotel in Edinburgh Saturday night, just because none of us felt like driving another three hours to get home. We were home by noon yesterday and Dad and his brother went to visit Gedna, only to discover she'd gone out with her sisters. So they came back here instead. It was a nice, long, relaxed visit with my uncle, minus his wife and kids, which was a relief.


Other stuff:

I need to start making a list of two productive things to do after work every night. And then sticking to it.

Embarassingly enough, World of Warcraft is sucking up a lot of time these days. >.> This is not what I meant to be doing with my time. Then again, as long as Dad is buying my subscription so I will play online with him, I will keep playing. I still think Guild Wars is prettier.

I realized tonight that I have a Snupin fic that I've never posted. I'll have to see about getting that betaed and posted. I also really need to finish Redemption. I have been drifting out of the fandom for the past several months, aside from a couple of collaborative works and my RPG, but I still want to finish Redemption.

I have another three days to get my novel submission packet put together and sent to the first agent on my list. This is a self-imposed deadline, but I'd better make it. It's bloody hard turning a 110,000 word novel into six paragraphs. Honestly, the one-paragraph "back of the book" part was loads easier.

I am so sleepy I'm going to fall out of my chair. Time to kick the cat off my bed and sleep.

The last time I was at Spring Mill, I was about 10 and we were camping there. We did a LOT of camping when I was younger. We only had one car, and Mom didn't work until I was in fifth grade, so a lot of times we would take Dad to work on Friday mornings, then spend the day getting ready and packing the car. Then we'd pick Dad up from work and head straight to Shades or Turkey Run or some other state park, and spend the weekend there. Of course, back then it was like $6 a night to tent camp in a state park. I think it's a little more now. Anyway, when I was about 10 we spent two weeks of Dad's vacation driving around the state, spending a day and a night at a different state park. The night we were at Spring Mill, a terrible storm came up--the sort that comes with winds so ferocious they kick up a lot of dirt into the atmosphere and cause red lightning. In fact I think Mom even took some pictures of red lightning during that storm. In any case, we felt it was prudent to sleep in the car rather than in the tent, because of the weather. Our car was a two-door Mazda hatchback, way before Mazda's were all zum-zum and cool. I was by far the most comfortable person, as I had the whole backseat to myself. Right at the height of the storm, a group of people on motorcycles drove into the campsite next to us and started frantically setting up tents. Poor guys.

We'd been looking forward to the caves, of course, but as you can see in the pictures, Donaldson Cave and the Twin Caves all have water running through them. When we got to the Twin Caves, the boats were docked, filled with several inches of water in the bottom. I specifically recall the naturalist telling us there had been six inches of rain, but I'm not sure if it was all during that single night, or if there had been some rain the day before. We went to Donaldson Cave, hoping that would be better, since there's a boardwalk and part of the cave is dry, but the boardwalk was under a couple of inches of water as well. The creek was positively roaring out of Donaldson Cave with incredible, awe-inspiring force. There are some rocks in the creekbed (my childhood memory was of them being car-sized, though yesterday's trip suggests they are probably more the size of...erm, shopping trolleys.) and when the water hit those rocks, it sprayed up into the air in huge white fountains. Trail Four goes along the creekside, and I remember we hiked along it, though we had some difficulties since the actual trail was underwater. I also vividly remember all the pawpaw trees along the creek, and I did see them yesterday. Finally we realized we couldn't follow the trail route any longer and still be safe, so we cut up the hillside (a very very steep hillside) to get up to the road.

Mom took lots of pictures that day, but we have an entire box of pictures that have gone missing, probably in one of the attics, though I'm not sure. (I did find one box of photos this summer, so instead of my entire childhood being missing, I now have before my birth through about age 8 or 9, but 9 through 16 is still, sadly, missing.) I've been yearning to look at those pictures, and after yesterday I definitely want to compare them to the ones I took. Dad told me that we went back to Spring Mill a couple of days later on our trip, and that we were able to take the boat ride in the Twin Caves that time, but I have no recollection of that--you can tell it was the first trip that really made an impression on me.

Then again, this was also the trip where we meant to end with a night at Brown County State Park...but we went to the nature center before getting our campsite, and there we saw a copperhead that had been caught in the campground that morning. I got to watch it eat a mouse, but because Dad is terrified of snakes, we ended up going home that night.


( Several pictures from Spring Mill )