Looks like housework: laundry, cleaning, dusting - the least said about this, the better.
And that’s how we spent our day until about 3:30 when the clarion call of exercise made its announcement. Today we decided to walk through a local state park. Seems that we travel all over the country finding state and local parks in every state but ours. Well, no, actually that’s not true. Back in 2007, right after we had gotten the RV, we decided to take a tour of the ‘east coast’ of Iowa, along the Mississippi. We started out in Backbone SP, headed on up to Pikes Peak SP, on over to Maquoketa Caves SP and then down to a private campground in Davenport. We had a great time both learning about our RV and learning about camping in state parks. We also enjoyed seeing lots of things in Iowa we had never seen. I remember that we took a walk through the campground at Backbone after dark. We had our flashlights but weren’t using them because we could see, barely, by the light of the moon. We obviously watched out feet so we didn’t trip over something or fall into a pothole but we did spend a lot of time looking up at the sky and marveling. There were stars up there. Wow. I remember how numerous and how bright they were and saying to Gary: ‘we’ve lived in the city too long.’
So, yes, we have traveled through Iowa State Parks but not for a while. Today we headed off for Walnut Woods State Park checking out the trails and the campground. Both were really nice and we’ll possibly stay there sometime. The trail was about 2 miles long and circled around the park skirting the river. The campground had several full hook-up sites and more electric only sites. It was mostly full over this Memorial Day weekend and everyone seemed to be out hiking, or sitting talking, or tubing or picnicing or - whatever - they looked like they were having fun.
As we were walking through the campground, a car passed us pretty slowly and the guy leaned over to tell us: ‘you two look really cute.’ Huh? What did he mean by that? On the other hand, we both had our hats on, our hiking shorts and white wicking shirts on. He probably meant that we looked like twins. But, cute? I’m 65, I’m not cute. But he’s young and thought we looked like a cute old couple. ‘Do you think we’ll ever be that old, honey?’ he probably said to his wife later.
There was also a really neat birdwatching blind with a shed with varnished benches in it. You could sit on the benches and look out the 2’ high, 10’ long window in the wall. They even had bird charts on the walls and a place to lean your elbows as you looked out, or to rest your camera so you could zoom in on birds with little movement. In front were several trees with at least a dozen different kinds of bird feeders with different kinds of bird food in each to attract different kinds of birds. We saw woodpeckers, wrens. hummingbirds, cardinals and several other types that we couldn’t identity.
Did I have my camera? Of course not.
We also learned that this park has the largest stand of black walnut trees in North America. They provided a canopy for the whole park and we were able to walk in the shade for much of our walk. But, did I have my camera to record this beautiful stand of trees? Nope.
After our walk through the park, we headed home with a decision: ice cream now, when it was 4:30, and a garden salad for dinner or head home for a Napa chicken salad and skip the ice cream. Well, guess what? Ice cream and a garden salad. This is certainly not what my mother would have served.
When I got older and had my own housing, I quickly decided that being adult meant that you could eat what you wanted when you wanted. My mother’s rules were: 3 squares a day. And, she hid the potato chips, which I dearly loved, on the top shelf of the hall closet in back of her hat boxes. By the time I could climb up to get them, she had heard me and was johnny on the spot, leaning nonchalantly on the chair I was standing on, asking me what I was doing. ‘just checkin the hats, mom, making sure they were still there. They are and I think I’ll go upstairs now and read a book.’
Yep, and her next phrase was something about ‘eyes in the back of her head.’
The ice cream was delightful and we sat out side enjoying the sunny day and the light breeze. Some ‘dial for dollars’, Gary and I ‘hike for ice cream’. Ya gotta have goals.
The salad was good also.
In the evening we checked up on the robins which are nesting on a rafter under our deck, on our lower level patio. When we got back this spring we noticed that we had a young family growing and, by now, they have outgrown the nest. There are three of them and they more than fill the nest. Poor mother robin is hard pressed to keep these little mouths fed. In fact, we’ve noticed that they sleep with their beaks pointed up, in case a juicy morsel of worm comes their way. Here they are on the rafter looking so forlorn and below is the mother with one of those aforementioned morsels.
Believe you me, a salad looks much tastier.
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