A little bit o' Saturday

So we took off early Saturday, about 7:40.  And it worked!  No joggers, no socceristas, no (de)construction.  Just me and a doofy dog, and a really beautiful morning.

Now I guess before I get to the nature part, I should show you this kickin' 442 we saw on the way.

Blue muscle cars, my friends!  Anyway, we went across the "soccer desert" where the geese were somehow finding something to do...




The geese were that gray line center at the tree line.

Going down the woods, it was nice to see that even IPFW, cross-country kings of the universe, can't take all the primeval-ness from things..

We went down a ways, where you longtimers know there's a trail on the east side that winds along the big ravine.

Kinda hard to tell here, but that's a quick 20-30 ft drop, loaded with Scrappy's favorite dens and holes.  Towards the outside end, we heard a lot of popping and cracking.  We hadn't been put in a big bowl o' Rice Krispies- we were getting bombed by these things-



I believe it was a shagbark hickory that was pelting us.  Somehow we never got a direct hit, but I think I got grazed in the arm once.

We moved on over to partially retrace our steps of Friday.  First we crossed the southernmost bridge over the feeder, which in opposition to the four modern bridges up towards the Plex, is kept just rickety enough to seem rickety without being unsafe.



"Cahmahn, take da pichure, I gots things ta do!"

Anyway, I got to thinking on how I said the trail behind the IPFW main field was pretty remote, but never gave you a picture to show how remote it is.  Therefore, here's 2 of 'em.





"I ain't goin' thru that crap again!"



And that pretty well wraps it up... except for as I was getting ready to post this, we got some of that rain that rainbow's been prayin' for.

As I say around here, the cow stepped up on the flat rock for about five minutes, kicking it off with ant-size hail and leaving behind around a quarter-inch with more still coming down at a much lighter pace.  Rainbow, I sure hope you get some of this too!  (She's in Texas, and they need it bad!)