June at McCormick’s Creek State Park

We spent the month of June camp hosting at our favorite Indiana State Park, McCormick’s Creek.

Usually when camp hosting at the park (this is our 5th summer), we are on A Loop, but this year were parked on  B Loop, which is a little more wooded and shady. 

Although we had more rain than we would have liked, there were days when we could hike the park trails.

         

                 

The site had an area that traditionally stays muddy, but with the help of park employees, we mulched the area and added a little color.

 

We had several hummingbirds feeding daily.

The month became like a retreat for us.  I enjoyed catching up on reading, and Ron began carving another wooden chain.

 

This is the 6th chain he has carved.  One hangs in the Nature Center of the Park. 

It’s amazing how many visitors this year stopped to tell him they had seen the one in the Center and wanted to see how it was fashioned.  He especially enjoyed showing his work to the youngsters.

In addition to several visits from family members, we enjoyed visiting often with fellow camp hosts, Bennie and Mabel Smith.  Some evenings were actually cool enough to enjoy sitting near a fire.

We took a weekend off from the month to celebrate Christmas In the Summer with our family, traveling to brother Gary’s cabin in eastern Kentucky.

The location is beautiful, with the cabin overlooking the Daniel Boone National Forest.

                                      

Seventeen family members spent the night in the small cabin, making for a lot of fun.  (We even had a Charlie Brown Christmas tree!)

June was a good month for us.  We left the park at the end of the month to spend a couple of weeks with family, but will return to camp host for another month starting July 15.

June at McCormick’s Creek

This was our 4th year to host at McCormick’s Creek. In 2007, June was great; each of the years since, the weather has been less than perfect, either rainy or oppressively hot and humid.

One of the activities we enjoy most when at McCormick’s is hiking the many wooded trails. With the wet weather though, the trails stayed muddy much of the month.

There’s always a few interesting incidents when camphosting. Perhaps the neatest one this year was the couple who unwittingly brought 3 baby kitties with them. Shortly after arriving, they began to hear the mewing and several hours later had found all three kittens. They began feeding the little ones (who barely had their eyes open) with an eye dropper. The most unique part of the story is that this had happened to Carolyn and Ron once before, different camper, different mama cat.

Our granddaughters really enjoyed meeting the couple and their kittens (I failed to get pictures) as did camphosts, Benny and Mabel (pictured).

With all the hot weather, much of our time was spent indoors.  Several afternoons, I curled up in a chair with my needlework and Ron enjoyed playing computer games with a grandchild during their visits.

We cooked out with Dania and the girls and Chris and Jeanne a few times (again, I’ve gotten lazy…no pictures).  Dakota enjoyed a romp in the creek.

Throughout the month, the storms just wouldn’t let up.  There was one stretch of 5 days when the warning siren at Spencer went off each day.  The first of those storms brought a tornado 5 miles west of here, and topped one of the tall locust trees in our front yard.  It just barely grazed the 5th wheel on the way down, not even scratching it.  I snapped this photo through the rain after Ron had already removed the larger part touching the trailer. A real treat came on Father’s Day when we got to hold our first great grandchild for the first time, Grace Elizabeth.

Arts in the Park is an annual event at McCormick’s.  Many local artists display their work while local entertainers provide music.  I always enjoy browsing the booths to see the new ideas is crafts.  The one that intrigued me this year was ornaments covered with polymer clay squiggles. Very unique, and something I’d like to try someday.

Benny and Mabel invited us down for a special treat the night before we left McCormick’s.  Benny cooked beans over the open fire for us, and Mabel made cornbread and fried potatoes.  I contributed apple cobbler, and we had a feast.  What a great way to end our stay. 

We moved back to Chris and Jeanne’s the next day, but returned to McCormick’s on July 1 for a visit.  Benny and Mabel picked up a new fifth-wheel the day we left.  We wanted to see it, and Diann and Rick Pickard, also McCormick’s camphosts (May), who were in the area.  We had a great visit while enjoying cherry pie with coffee.  The weather may have been less than perfect during June, but the companionship of the Smiths, Pickards, and Connie McCain, our coordinator, more than made up for the weather.

Fort Worth to Bloomington

  Although there were several stormy days and nights, the rest of the trip back to Indiana was uneventful.  We spent a couple of nights at Heyburn Lake C.O.E. in Oklahoma.   Despite the beautiful location, we spent our time indoors as the wind was too strong to take walks.

The weather cleared up by the time we reached Carlyle Lake C.O.E. in Illinois.  We had spent time here a few years ago.  This time we parked one of its smaller camping areas;  the second night, we were the only campers there.

We felt like we’d arrived home when we reached McCormick’s Creek State Park in Indiana.  We spent 2 nights at the park, visiting with friends, Diann and Rick.  We will return to McCormick's in June to camp host for a month, as we have for the past 3 summers.

Time to Move On

Here, it is, the end of July and our summer stay in Indiana!  We’ve had a good summer, if a little soggy.  It has rained so much, more often than we’ve ever seen for June and July, but that’s helped to keep the heat down, which has been great.

We’ve had many enjoyable visits with family and friends and a few square dances.  The local library issued us a library card for the first time this year … we’ve made good use of that!

Each Saturday, Spencer, two miles away, has offered fresh produce at their little farm market.   We’ve had fresh green beans, cherries, peaches, etc. every week.

Our stay at the campground has been busy, but relaxing.  Ron has been able to sit outside in the cooler weather and carve on another chain.  I have worked on quilt blocks and beading.  My biggest project however, was to organize and back up all our digital photos (6 years worth) and I accomplished it with one day to go!

Sunday, we celebrated “Christmas in July” with our family.   The crowd was lower in attendance this year, but we had a great time, and it was a good way to say good-bye to everyone at once.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We will leave McCormick’s Creek tomorrow morning, Thursday, July 30.  We’re leaving two days early to help granddaughter, Cassandra, move into her new apartment in Muncie.  We’ll visit son, Tom, on Sunday at South Bend, and nearby relatives on Monday.  Then it’s really time to hit the road, beginning up through Michigan.

I’ll try to keep the blog updated as we travel… depending on how often I find an internet connection.

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.