Traveling Again

After a long period in West Virginia, we’re back on the road. Our first stop was at Alum Creek State Park. I loved sunrise. The fish were jumping at the end of the pier. One boat just circled in the area and kept catching fish.

As we were driving near Van Wert Ohio, we saw LOTS of wind mills. It looked like more, but the sign at the rest area says there are 152 2-MW wind turbines. It is an amazing view. Lots of energy being generated without CO2 formation. Very cool!

Today we visited Indiana Dunes National Seashore. It is our 40^th state and 123^rd national park/monument/etc. The trail had a lot of stairs. But the stairs were the best part. Walking in the sand was difficult. We walked in shoes for a while but decided that walking barefoot was better. That worked until we left the trees. The sun and sand were VERY hot. No wonder so many people were swimming in Lake Michigan. BTW, we could see Chicago in the distance.

 

The Secret Trail of Coopers Rock

When you get to the campground, the rangers give you a map of the trails. Plus, there are signs at the trailheads with maps of the area trails. However, there is one trail that isn’t marked on all these maps. In asking the “old-timers” (the people that have come for years) and even asking the rangers, no one seems to know about this trail. And I think it’s the best view in the park!

A guy stopped me one time and asked me if I knew where Haystack Trail and Haystack Rock was located. I had never heard of it. But on a map posted near the campground bathrooms, it was listed. This map can’t be found anywhere else but the map is rumored to be occasionally for sale at the campstore every few years. It took some scrambling in the wrong turns off Underlook Trail, but I finally found it. It has no trail signs. Matter-of-fact, the beginning of the trail is where the sign points right for Underlook Trail but you have to go left and downward to be on Haystack Trail.

The trail isn’t well maintained (duh, if rangers don’t even know about it!). The steps that used to be there are shifted and full of rocks and debris.  But the view at the end is gorgeous!

Lazing Around

Since we stayed for several weeks at Coopers Rock, we were able to relax and enjoy ourselves. The campground can be interesting. There were several groups of these mushrooms around the campground.

This black snake showed up. All the kids (and adults) were fascinated as it climbed a tree and hid in a hole normally filled by a chipmunk. It eventually left us and traveled safely across the road. BTW, there have been numerous stories of sightings of rattle snakes at the park!

Milkweed

A movie of a wood pecker

I thought this was funny. We were out geocaching (4 for 4 this time!). The hint on this one was "guardrail". We drove past the area since we didn’t see any guardrail along the road. Turns out the guardrail was in the woods!

Sometimes Life Happens

The plan we had when we started out this summer was to visit Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana. These are all states we haven’t visited before and would take a major chunk out of our states we have left to visit.

Then life happened. Between issues with the computer, air conditioning, dentist visits, and eye surgery, we’ve had to change our plans. Our biggest event we now have planned is a visit to the RV factory in Indiana to get all the RV problems fixed.

Our stay in West Virginia is much longer than expected. The good part is that Coopers Rock is a great place to stay with some wonderful hikes. Recently, I had another issue. As I was doing a morning hike, I pulled a muscle. Wasn’t bad for the next mile or so. Then it got to a point where I was standing at the Clay Iron Furnace and working out the closest method to getting to a parking lot. John got a call to come pick me up. The good part was that after a day in bed with ice and a few rest days, I was back to hiking.

The cicadas are now mostly dead. Now we have the aftermath. Branches in many trees and bushes are dead where the cicadas cut a groove to lay eggs. There’s a LOT of dead leaves and branches on the ground.