Lots of dogwoods in the woods...previous turkey hunts around this time, I'd go out well before dawn and seeing the white shapes in the distance down the trail made me wonder if my eyes were playing tricks on me...looked like ghosts until I realized they were flowering dogwoods.
We went down to where I hunt and went down the "peninsula" as I call it and worked down and up a ravine. Gretchen excitedly found a deer hide and feces. Not much to forage this time of year (I'll pass on the deer droppings thank you).
I had chained my two bucks from last years hunt to a tree so the beetles would do the hard work for me in cleaning it up for a European style mount. They aren't quite done, still a bit of fur and skin to clean off yet. It's rather a macabre sight so I'll show this flower instead.
Then we had pizza for dinner (with the large amounts of dessert the kids have come to expect when at grandpa and grandma's) and went to bed early.
Next morning, up early for an early departure...I had been battling with a stye (or chalazion, I dunno) on my eyelid which had been heavily inflamed and quite painful. I woke up with it hurting extra, like I had slept on it, and in the mirror I saw it was finally coming to a head. With a little encouragement it burst, which after several days of pressure and mild pain, was "a consummation devoutly to be wished". Because I am not without concern and care for my dear readers, I did not film the sequence to upload here in high definition.
Grandpa made breakfast, pancakes and sausage. I forgot to get coffee, and came to regret that. The others all took Bonine because we knew the roads to the south were going to be hilly and winding, and they got rather loopy on the road. I eventually cried uncle and we stopped at a Kum And Go to get coffee and breakfast pizza (because you have to, Kum and Go breakfast pizza is amazing). Eventually a bit before noon we hit our destination, Johnson Shut-ins State Park, within the path of eclipse totality.
Plenty of parking still, as we were over 2 hours early, but it did fill up. Got a kind of festival atmosphere.
Walking down to the Shut-ins trail, we left Debra with Odin near the park store...dogs not allowed on that trail. I took the kids first to the Shut-ins.
The river, before it gets into the rocks...
I had been to this park on a church camping trip in 7th grade...first time back for me, first time at all for everyone else. It's a great little state park. When I was here as a kid I swam and clambered around the rocks like a crazy / unsafe kid would love to do.
The kids mostly just climbed on the rocks but that was enough. I thought about swimming but I would have to walk probably 20+ minutes to get back to the car and get my trunks and I figured, wading is good enough.
I remember thinking it is like a natural waterslide, the way the water snakes through the rocks.
But yeah, I just found a spot and the kids went to explore.
They had worked their way a good way down there...
I motioned for Pete to tell Gretchen to come on back (we had to go relieve Debra from dogsitting).
Shoes back on and heading back. It was in the upper 70s, quite warm.
I then found a quiet out of way place to hang out with Odin. It's very cute the way little kids (particularly the little girls who adore him) love corgis, and I was leaning a little more towards less social interaction so we hung out away from the crowds while Debra went with the kids back to the Shut-ins.
When they got back, the kids got in line for a $1 snowcone. I went into the park store, which was a little tiny bit weird, but in a fun way.
This line lasted FOREVER. The eclipse started during, it was that long.
But they liked their snow cones, and they were relatively cheap. We headed back towards our car and the rock field to the north.
Cattails in the marshy area, the dog waiting for the rest to catch up.
The dog misunderstood the "Please Donate Here" sign and lifted his leg to make his donation here.
Gretchen, to the left under the tree in the distance, asking about a dog...the thing that will cut through any social anxiety, animals.
We hid under the gate of our car to eat cheese and crackers and cupcakes. You can see the eclipse working its way, and the weird thing was...stepping out from the shadow and realizing, I can't feel the sun burning my skin. So we went to find a rock to park ourselves on...
I realized, yeah, the glasses work, but the phone doesn't really work. And that's fine.
It was really weird...shadows were still very vivid and defined, it still looks bright, but things start to get desaturated. It reminded me of the weirdness in some of the old movies where they filmed outside to be at night, but with filters to make it look like night. Just not...normal.
A plane trying to add redundancy to the eclipse, I guess. Bet there were a decent amount of people in that plane who booked it just to see the eclipse.
I mostly took video though, and mashed them all together into this. It was a lot of fun!
Once the eclipse was over, we didn't stick around to watch the remainder of the "uneclipse"...the way I see it is like the 10 days preceding Christmas with building anticipation/excitement, vs the 10 days after Christmas...not as exciting. So we headed out because we had, well, many hours to get back to Kansas City. Debra started out driving with me taking up my childhood naval ambition of navigator role...no internet meant there was no mapping the most efficient route so I had to just estimate and make a guess. But I at least have GPS...which is a bit far removed from "give me a stopwatch and a map and I'll fly the Alps in a plane with no windows".
Kids were conked out. A long day, but a lot of fun. We got back a bit after 7pm. Worth it, and we'll make a point to come back to this place.
No comments:
Post a Comment