I finished my teaching duties in the high school music magnet program yesterday in the early afternoon, and Stephan and I hit the road for Delaney Creek Park in southern Indiana. I'd been on a solo camping/hiking trip there back in October (I wrote about that in this post). I've been wanting to go back ever since!We had wonderful weather. About 4:30, we got to the park and set up camp, in the exact same spot I had camped in the fall. Probably because of Memorial Day Weekend, many of the campsites closer to the lake were taken, but we had a view of the lake and a bit of shade and only one other family camping in the immediate area. We thought we'd have a big, loud, group just uphill from us, but they pitched their tent and left. I'm guessing they just wanted to reserve the spot for the weekend and paid for an extra day.
We took a little walk down to the trailhead for the Delaney Loop of the Knobstone Trail, a lovely six-mile walk through woods and up and down ravines that I had enjoyed in the fall, even with all the rain. Then we walked by the lake, scaring off a few Canada goose families with goslings.
Dinner was delicious--real German wieners from Heidelberg Cafe with a can of ranch-style beans and a crusty baguette. We had a nice campfire going for the wieners, but cooked the beans on the compact backpacking stove I got for Stephan for Christmas. Dessert was, of course, s'mores. I think I made the perfect one by putting the graham cracker with chocolate square (Dove, not Hershey) on a rock to get the chocolate slightly molten, then sandwiching a marshmallow so gooey in the center it was about to melt off the stick, and nice and blackened on the outside. Yum!
This was the first time we had slept in the tent together. It was really quite comfortable and we got a decent night's sleep. Our self-inflating ground pads do their job well. I have a bit of trouble getting used to being in a mummy-style sleeping bag, but I wanted to make sure all my gear could be used for backpacking as well as car camping, so that's what I bought.We got up about 6:00 this morning for coffee and tea--the water boiled quickly on the backpacking stove. Then we had some pastries from Heidelberg Cafe. I really enjoyed sitting in our campsite and just listening to and watching all the birds. We saw two robins get into some aerial confrontations. My best guess was that one was the young bird following mommy around expecting to be fed, and mommy was trying to drive it off, but I could be wrong.
By 9:15, we were on the Delaney Loop trail. We took our time and enjoyed the scenery on this splendid trail with deep ravines, high ridges, and lots of old and young trees. For lunch, we spread out a ground cloth and had sandwiches of salami and cornichons. We didn't see anyone else on the trail. It felt great to be out in the woods. I love seeing the different types of trees, hearing the birds, seeing unexpected things like little frogs or chipmunks scurrying away, skirting deep, mysterious ravines, climbing onto ridges. There's lots of poison ivy along the trail, as to be expected this time of year, and since it is tick season, we did a couple of checks of our legs. Last week after hiking in Yellowwood State Forest, I found a tick crawling on my arm, then later found one on my hat. I did find a very tiny tick on my knee support today, which hadn't bitten me. I think it's too early for the ones that carry Lyme disease and we don't get much of that in southern Indiana, but I'm still glad I found it before it bit me.By the time we got back to our camp, about four hours after we had set out, the temperature had climbed into the 80s and we were ready for a drink a little colder than in our depleted water bottles. We got sodas from a machine in the park and hit the road back for Indianapolis. What a fun overnight trip--I can hardly wait to go back.In other news, we finally buried Athena's ashes and planted flowers on her grave and on Varda's. I loved that cat so much that even now it's hard to write about. I haven't finished the written remembrance of her life I had hoped to have done by now. But I feel better now knowing that we've given her what I hope is a fitting memorial in the yard.