A Soggy Month

Life at McCormick’s Creek this month has been damp, to put it mildly. We have had more days with rain than without. Friends, Mabel and Benny Smith, are camp hosting with us. We had planned to hike all the trails throughout the month, but there have been few days when the trails were not too muddy to walk.

We’ve enjoyed several visits with the family, though, and were able to walk on a couple of those days.

Chris, Jeanne and Cameron brought Dakota with them.

Chelsey and Alyssa climbed the fire tower. Grandpa and I decided our legs couldn’t handle all those ladders anymore.

A few of the rains have come with hard storms. A few days ago, lightning hit several trees in the park. This one was split from top to bottom.

Just a few feet over, the bark was blown from the tree in the right photo in a random pattern, throwing bark even across the road into a site there.

We did manage to hike the trails a couple of times with Benny and Mabel, but on this one, Ron and Benny had to lay additional rocks in the streams for us to be able to cross. Benny and Mabel will leave at the end of this month. Ron and I will stay through July.

The rest of the way

We left Belton on May 17, and made our way toward Indiana, a little quicker than we normally would, knowing that the end of the week was bring Memorial Day weekend, and full campgrounds.

We traveled through northern Arkansas and were surprised to learn that it is a major rice producer.  Somehow, you don’t think of Arkansas when you think of growing rice.  Field after field was green with the tiny shoots.

We saw the brand Riceland on many of the storage buildings.

 

As we traveled on through Missouri and Tennessee, the rivers we crossed were swollen with flood waters.

 

More surprising was the appearance of the trees.  The destruction was similar to that caused by straight line winds, but continued on for hundreds of miles.  We learned that night that the trees were destroyed by a winter ice storm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We spent a night at the John James Audubon State Park in Henderson, KY, a favorite campground of ours.

The next two days we stayed in a small campground in Corydon, IN, to give us time to visit with family and friends in the area.

On Friday, we moved to Dania’s driveway, near Bloomington, where we spent the next 10 days.

 

Chris, Jeanne, Cassie, Cameron, Dania, Chelsey and Alyssa were all on hand for a cookout our first day there.   Chris prepared a delicious seafood boil.

 

 

 

 

 

We spent the remainder of our stay visiting, and relaxing, with lots of walks through Chris’ housing development, Foggy Morning Glen.

 

 

Pictured on the right is the site of Chris and Jeanne’s planned home.  The trees were cleared from the site just days before we arrived.

 

 

 

On Sunday, we made our last move for a while, to McCormick’s Creek State Park.  We will be working as camp hosts for the park for the next two months.  This is our third year to work here.