Nice weather and bear sighting along with nature trail walk - fabulous long weekend. Add to that the whole no traffic thingy and I'm liking this odd days to vacation thing more and more. The place was probably about 75% full on Sat-Sun and we had the whole middle area to ourselves of Monday--very nice and quiet.
After Jim Royer had a bit of a challenge working the trailer into the site #32 that we had reserved he figured out that some prankster switched #30 & #32 so, before it was completely set up he was able to move it to the right site. Whew!
We were in the middle section of the park and I have pics of the back of the site which is a lovely tree filled cliff. I only have a few shots of the digital variety so, you will just have to wait for any others. Maybe Jim will put up the few shots he took and you can see the wee little bear that came to visit on our last full day. Don't know how the pics will come out as he was a skittish little guy and it was dusk so, we shall see. **update- Jim put up info also!
Not a whole heck of a lot in the animal variety but, not completely absent either. Saw the Turkey grazing in the field. Hummingbirds were flying around down on the lower level of the campground. There were little and just a bit bigger than little fish in the water. No raccoons or skunks (always nice to not have those). No porcupine up in the tree. Momma Duck at the frog pond had like 7 little ducklings travelling behind her.
I don't know what's going on with the Honey Locust Trees down on the nature trail but, they are in bad bad shape. Just the slightest of scents (a bit early for full on scent anyway) and they seem to have died. Probably 90% of them had just a few branches with leaves on them and just looked like they aren't going to make it. Very sad. They are my favorites. No Forest Rangers around when we were checking out to ask either.
Abby ( Jim's dog) had the best time as she always does in the woods and she was the great Toad hunter on the last night so, that was interesting and new hunting abilities she hadn't shown before. She jumped all over the water as usual as well but, was more concerned half the time where I was to do a whole lot of it unless I was right down on the boulders as well. She was pretty darn brave though and jumped right into one pool where I thought she might start swimming but, she hasn't done that around me so far. She did get to see lots of other dogs and even got to play with one friendly fellow called Maxwell from Springfield who was just a great dog too. The Advanced Black Bear Yelping (ABBY) system was however not engaged when the black bear came up the cliff. BoyScoutJim saw it first. Once she figured out she could watch in from the trailer she growled and yipped her little head off. Funny dog.
We had a fabulous grill that Jerry gave us for Christmas and it was the coolest thing ever. 
We also had lights and hot water, our own toilet and shower and I gotta tell you that sometimes it's the little things that make it even better. I so much enjoy not going out into bear area in the middle of the night to do my business. Having a radio and lights is a wonderful thing too. The shower is great since we found out that the two bathrooms down in the camping area that say they have showers don't have any. Odd. One area say's it has water too and it doesn't so, if you go you should watch out for that. BoyScoutJim is I think going to work on more details on sites, etc. Maybe he'll even do a whole camper review. We'll just have to see.
So, I have 3 whole digital pics from the wee little digital camera. One of the site, one of Jim grilling and one of Jim and Abby in the trailer. More to come! Enjoy!
http://pandafan.tabulas.com/gallery/a@62375/
On my own personal front I was able to do a few short walks and I may have even been able to do the whole dang Nature trail if I hadn't been an idiot and gone skipping through the red pine forest to try to get pics of the ducklings. Still, I think I did okay considering it is the most walking I've done for months and the freaking sparined ankle is still bothering me. No big time swelling, just the intense pain in the nature trail and after soaking in the river for a while that was better. Didn't spend the night with throbbing or wiggly nerve thingy's either. A bit of ankle soreness and a bit of soreness in general by the time I got home but, nothing like previously so, it may just be time to keep it up and start strengthening things up here.
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