June 23-24: Not much the first day, more the second

[mmegaera]

Yesterday was pretty much a driving day. I had anticipated it only taking me a couple of hours from Decatur, Illinois, to Indianapolis, Indiana, and had called listee Kevin Kennedy (who is in rehab for some health problems) to arrange to come visit her yesterday afternoon. When I was still only on the outskirts of Indy at 3 pm, and still anticipating a grocery stop, plus rush-hour traffic, I called her back to rearrange things for this morning.

The drive across the rest of Illinois was flat and corny and soybeany, which was fine. Big skies, making me feel tiny again. But as soon as I crossed into Indiana, three things changed. First was relatively minor – Indiana needs to spend more money on their roads. Tooth-jarring is an exaggeration, but not by much. Second was even more minor – I lost an hour going from Central to Eastern time, which was another reason it took me longer than I expected to get to Indy (also, Indiana now observes DST, which it did not when I lived here in the late 80s and early 90s – I’m glad they came to their senses about that). The third was bizarre. No sooner than I crossed the state line, the landscape went from flat as a pancake to hilly — not just rolling, but hilly. It was like there was a reason for the state line to be there. Very strange.

Still, there wasn’t much to take photos of. As a matter of fact, I only took two photos yesterday, and here they are.

Right before the road got curvy.

Hemerocallis fulva, or orange day lily. I saw literally thousands of these alongside the road in Illinois and Indiana. They’re feral, not native. They come from Asia.

Last night I spent my first night of the trip in a hostel. It’s called the Indy Hostel, and it’s on the north side of Indianapolis in an old craftsman style house. It was nice and clean and quiet. I like hostels, but there simply aren’t very many of them in the U.S., especially outside of big cities. I’m hoping to take advantage of more of them when I get to Canada (they have a lot more hostels up there).

This morning it was much easier to find where Kevin is doing her rehab than it should have been, and I even found a parking place right out front. We had a good hour’s chat (or at least I did, and I hope she did, too), which wasn’t quite as far ranging as the one I had with Jim the other day, but every bit as enjoyable. She also called me right after I left to let me know Lois had posted on the list that the new Penric novella is now available (I bought it this afternoon [g]).

Then I drove down into the hoots and hollers of southern Indiana. Not directly to Bloomington, because I wanted to stop at one of my favorite places when I lived here, McCormick’s Creek State Park. It’s Indiana’s first state park, and it, like the National Park Service, is celebrating its centennial this year.

It’s a beautiful little park, with a lodge (restaurant, rooms, and cabins, like a proper eastern state park) where I ate lunch – a delicious pork tenderloin sandwich (an Indiana specialty). It also happens to be where my second husband and I told my parents we were getting married, so that was kind of weird.

Then I drove the winding road into the park and wandered down through the dense green woods (I don’t know why I always think of evergreens as the forest and deciduous trees as the woods, but there you go) to the little canyon and waterfall. Southern Indiana and large chunks of Kentucky are karst country, similar to what I saw near Jasper Township in Jasper NP, Alberta, last year. That’s why Mammoth Cave and so many other caves are around here.

This is native. It’s a species of hydrangea, and it was growing near the waterfall at McCormick’s Creek.

The waterfall at McCormick’s Creek. Lots of people playing in the water below the falls. I’d have liked to do that, except I was worried about the footing. The last thing I need to do is hurt myself again.

The falls via zoom.

I don’t know what he is, but he’s cool. He was near the falls.  ETA:  I am informed that this is some sort of damselfly.  Thanks, azurelunatic from DW!

The stairs going back up to the parking area, through the lovely woods.

It was cooler today (80 something instead of 90 something), especially in the shade, even if it was humid enough to need to drink the air instead of breathe it, so walking around in the woods was actually rather pleasant. And the waterfall is beautiful.

The park has a nice nature center, too, with a glass-walled room lined with bird feeders on the other side, so you can watch the birds in air-conditioned comfort [g].

A phlox! This one was near the nature center.  I love the lavender and white combo, but then I love phlox just on general principles.

I’m not sure what kind of birds these are, but it was so much fun to watch them from inside. There were squirrels and chipmunks all over the ground eating fallen seeds, too.  ETA:  I am told by my birder friend Katrina that they’re house finches.  It’s always good to know what I’m looking at [g].

I’m pretty sure the fellow on the left is a downy woodpecker (you can’t see the red, but he had it), and the guy on the right is a goldfinch.

After I left McCormick’s Creek I drove on into Bloomington and did a little exploring around. I lived here for two separate years, once (1986-87) while my ex was in library school, and once (1991) while I was in library school. But I hadn’t been back since. I found some landmarks – the apartment where my ex and I used to live, way out in the country, and the bar where my friend Heidi from the library school library and I used to go to drink Long Island Iced Teas and Blue Hawaiians on the occasional Friday night and then weave our way back to the dorm [g].

And now I’m ensconced in a Motel 6 here for a couple of nights, because I have more that I want to do in Bloomington. It’s good to be here. This is the one place, where if someone put a gun to my head and said, “you have to move back to the Midwest,” I’d say, okay, send me to Bloomington. I have a lot of good memories here.

Mirrored from M.M. Justus -- adventures in the supernatural Old West.

Comments

[azurelunatic]

The insect is some kind of damselfly, a particular favorite of mine.

[mmegaera]

Thanks! It was enormous, well over an inch long, and just posed there for me for forever (otherwise I wouldn't have gotten the shot [wry g].