Our longest walk to date and there were 2 pop-up thundershowers while we were out!
This time, we parked just off 31 on the other side of the river bridge from Decatur and walked down White Springs Dike, taking a 2-mile side track that lead nowhere. Back on the main road, we walked to the Interstate bridges and then kept going, intending to loop around by Arrowhead Landing and come back along the river, but the bottom fell out. We cut back across a field road to the bridges again and just as we reached them, the rain stopped. We spread out our soaked stuff and had some tuna and crackers and sat a while, resting up and drinking some water.
It was about 5 miles back to the van from there, so we started out, taking the shortest route we could. The rain kicked in again after the first mile and it poured. I did not want to leave the trees for the next long stretch of open fields, so we hunkered down about 20 minutes in a small grove with some good cover. Matt called Gina, who looked up the weather for us. They decided we needed to get moving before an even bigger cell with worse weather hit, so we loaded up and started walking again. About a mile from the van, it stopped raining again and the sun came back out.
We were soaked through, except Matt, who had a waterproof jacket. My feet were dry thanks to my leather hiking boots, but the kids were in trail shoes with canvas tops and their feet were wet.
Once we got home-with a stop at Aldi for food and Taco Bell for more food, I kind of remember putting away the cold foods and getting out of my wet stuff. I checked feet and discovered a blister on my foot, but the kids were fine. I put on my footie pajamas and laid down on my heating pad and that was it for me until around midnight. I woke up a couple of times, scared Matt with a near-fainting spell. I have no idea where that came from, maybe from being so soundly asleep and then getting up so fast? I fell asleep with my contacts in. Ugh. Those had to go!
This morning, I feel fine, my foot hurts, but I am not sore. I slept 7 hours straight after I took out my contacts, that's a new record in itself!!
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| Ah, how deceptive the sky is! |
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| Jake had an awful Charley horse and allergy attack. He was pretty miserable, but a good rub-down from Dad helped. |
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| mayapple |
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| crossvine |
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| tree frog |
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in the awesome news category, my blue scarf has returned home
And, it helped as Chan had no hat! |
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| Jake wanted to hotwire this guy and drive back to the van |
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| more clouds are brewing... |
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| And, just after the last round of rains. It was really pretty! |
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| on the way home, we got to see some of the sunset colors |
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| And, a double rainbow! The second rainbow is very faint. |
