Walkin' in a Winter Wonderland

Karmen and I spent all of Saturday morning at Spring Mill State Park near Mitchell, IN.  

Warning: If you aren't in the mood for many pictures, you should probably stop right here.  :-) 

Also, to make things easier for myself, these pictures are "grouped by camera."  That means that Set #1 consists of pictures taken on Karmen's camera and Set #2 consists of pictures taken on my camera.  Thus, you will take our hike twice if you go through both sets of pictures.  Enjoy!

Set #1

Kamela and Fleece are bundled up and ready to go!

We probably could have driven farther than we did in order to get to the trails, but we didn't want to take any chances.  Thus, the first part of our hike was easy enough on the plowed road.

Except that I chose to walk in the snow most of the time anyway

It was less slippery.

More work

But more fun

Thumbs up for the swimming pool!

Beautiful sunshine through the trees

We spot the sign.

Now what do we do?!

Making peace with the fact that we are about to blatantly ignore the sign's instructions

Footprints in the snow

It'll be easy enough to find us!

Spring Mill Inn

They're a bit hard to see in the picture, but at one point we looked up and counted about 14 turkey buzzards in the trees above us.  We put a great deal of effort into looking alive in their presence!

Will this turn out artistically?

You be the judge.

(I moved this one from Set #2 to Set #1 just because.)

The partially frozen lake

More picture taking

Which way should we go?

It was funny to watch the geese struggle through the slushy water.

The photographer

The photographed

(Also taken from Set #2)

Freshly fallen and untouched

But not for long

We contemplate having a picnic.

Karmen stomps out the beginning of my name into the snow.

Another "before" shot

Leaving our mark

Kind of reminds you of one of those Family Circus "from here to there trails"

Who walks like that???

We can see who walks like this!

And then we found a playground...

Swinging

For real?

Maybe not this one

But I think this one will work.

Indeed!

Kamela reads the sign

Fleece is appalled!

Flagrant vandalism

(Knocking off the icicles, if you can't tell)

A tree chair

Fleece changes seats

The village at Spring Mill Park

The Mill

The next activities we did in honor of our little brother.  We know this is what he would have done had he been with us.

#1 - Find a big stick.

#2 - Knock the icicles off of the underside of the bridge.

#3 - Rake the snow off the rails.

We missed you, Buddy!

Heading back

What?!

At this point, the battery in Karmen's camera died, so all pictures on the way back were taken on my camera.  (See Set #2)

 Set #2

Karmen's ready to hike!

Somebody's already been here.

About to duck under the barricade

Rule breaker!

More tracks

The road before us

Should we go on Trail 5?  Into the lake?

Lots o' geese

You gotta get just the right angle.

This adventure gets two thumbs up!

We were intrigued by the raised snowy patches on the water.  Ice chunks covered by snow perhaps?  Anyway, they're pretty.

Another photo op

Do you know how to write with your feet?

Karmen does!

Signing her work

And taking my picture (after I take hers)

One of my favorite quotes of the morning:

Karmen: "Good thing we're not vehicles.  Oh well, I guess it doesn't matter.  There's no grass."

Sunlight on the water

Just a swingin'

What a brave little soul!

I told her I'd do it if she would.  Little did I know, I should have gone first.  On Karmen's trip down, she pushed off quite a bit of the snow.  That left it a bit more slick for my ride.  Other than a dislocated shoulder, there was no lasting damage.  (Fact: The shoulder was not actually dislocated; it just hurt for a few minutes.)

Karmen pretends to get warm by the pretend fire.

Rearranging the holes in her tights

Re-enacting the Calvin & Hobbes comic strips in which Monsters or Dinosaurs or Other Ferocious Creatures smash entire cities under their enormous while terrified citizens scramble to get out of the way.  Revealed in the last panel of the comic is the reality of the situation as we see Monster Calvin fiercely tromping on castles that he has built in his sandbox.

All in all, we hiked about 5 miles that morning.  And we would have gotten farther if we hadn't taken so many pictures.  But then, that wouldn't have been nearly so fun!  And this blog entry wouldn't have been nearly so long!  Congratulations for sticking with it!