The North Turkey-trots

With some time off, it was time to get in a day trip for me and faithful Indian companion Laurie.  (Insensitive remark to native Americans?  Sue me.)  We chose a State Park in Ohio called North Turkeyfoot, a wilderness area that is part of (despite being on the other side of the Maumee River from) Mary Jane Thurston State Park.  Basically a public hiking and hunting area tucked into a river bend, just on the far side of Napoleon.  It was on a road that was "Closed, local traffic only" due to construction, but we found a little tucked in parking spot just before the road actually closed, and off we went.

If you follow the little yellow line from here, you'll see the path we took- a path I looked at on this very map last night, but failed to memorize EXACTLY....  As you see, shortly after we took off, there's a creek you can cross, and an old steel truss bridge to cross it on.

Look a little sketchy to you?  Well, one side was marked, "Bridge unsafe", and the other had this nice instruction...

So we wisely deferred, heading on down the trail towards what I then thought was the "chin" of the "smiley face" that the trail system made.  Little did I know we were still in the "cheek."  Within a couple minutes, we hit a spot where a big tree had fallen on the trail, and you had to take a "walk-around" to keep going.  Just on the other side of the walk-around, something moved...

It was a dozen or more TURKEYS!  They ran ahead and peeled off into the undergrowth, never to be seen again.  So on we went, enjoying the cool air, the usually shaded sunshine, and the nicely kept trail... that began to get a little shabbier as we went.


We then reached the point where the creek joins the river, which I thought must be the bottom of the chin (and was actually the corner of the mouth).  So we went on, figuring we were headed towards the road, checking out the river, watching a pair of big hawks circling above (hawks, not vultures, BTW), and fighting through ever-growing amounts of spider webs across the trail.

Then, when I thought were weren't far from the road (and were actually still heading for the bottom of the chin, the trail just stopped.  As in, "went from 8 inch tall weeds to 4 1/2 foot tall weeds".  So we turned around.  But I was still reasoning we were about "bottom chin" at the unsafe bridge, so we then took the "Redfox Trail", which I thought would lead us right back to where we parked.  Scrolling back up to the map, you'll note that it was actually going to take us TO the bottom of the chin, i.e. exactly the opposite way I thought.  And of course, by this time Laurie had to go pee, and it was getting critical I get it right.  Ooops.

About halfway up (down?) the trail, I spied something I had to check out.

If you can't read the top, it says, "Byth Anna, wife of David Edwards- died May 5, 1859- aged 35 y, 2 mo., 23 d"  Until I posted this, I had misread wife and not seen 35 y, so thought it was the grave of a 2 month old child.  In fact, the woman interred here was the mother of this brood of children:

  Jesse

John

Euphemia

Sarah

Hannah C.

Infant

It wasn't a graveyard, it appeared to have been a lone grave, marked off by rocks, once in a garden on the property of David Edwards, but now in the middle of a jungle.  Further up, a trail led to a post which I took to be the remaining gatepost into the garden.  

Soon after, I caught sight of a small well.

Shortly thereafter, we reached the end of Redfox Trail, and I learned that I was totally messed up in my direction.  I assumed the left trail was the other end of the trail that died, (correctly) and figured that the right would have to lead eventually to our car, ( as it turns, it would have took us to a trail that would have, had we took it).  But after a couple dozen yards of ever increasing weeds (and exponentially increasing spider webs), I took the better part of valor (listening to Laurie for once) and retreated back down to Redfox trail, and thence to where we KNEW where we were at.

(BTW, the Laurie going to pee problem was resolved at the T... and I don't think it was a very popular decision on my part for her to do so.)

Thus it was that we were soon back to the car (after what Laurie estimated was just over two hours), and we went to go have lunch in Napoleon.

Me and Bobby G's son.

After a meal that would have been an excellent dining experience HAD the guy that seated us told our waitress we were there in plain sight, or IF any waitress would have looked up from the two tables that they served or the four they bussed to see us sitting there with menus, before a little old lady who hadn't even looked our way the entire seven minutes finally grabbed a waitress by the shirtsleeve and headed them our way (just as Laurie was grabbing another dumbfounded waitress, who had not only spent most of those seven minutes working at a register station in our direct line of sight, but walked past us twice bussing one of those four tables.)  Still, a mushroom and swiss burger that juicy covers a lot of sins.


And that's the story- until I started trying to put up pictures.  You see last night, I got a notice from Google, that they had tried to pull my autopay 2 bucks for picture storage but my card had updated.  No prob, just let me change the expiration date.  But whenever I tried to log in, it would just send me to a "Your browser is outdated page".  So I updated my I.E. to the latest one- through the link on Google's page- but oh, no, that wasn't good enough.  They weren't going to let me change my card, the lady I called told me, unless I downloaded Google Chrome and did it from there.


You who know me well know that is not the way to make friends with me.  I let her know that, sighed, and downloaded the damn thing, figuring it would thence remain just an obnoxious reminder on my status bar of an obnoxious way to get what you want.  Problem solved.

Well, almost, as Hank Jr. used to sing.

I learned as I began to tell you this story, that Blogger (Google's incestuous lover) won't let me post MY pictures to MY blog anymore, unless I do it on Chrome.  It will co-operate right up to the time you hit the "post selected" button- even act like it is posting the pic- but then, the post photos screen will NOT go away.  And no amount of begging/bitching will make it.

So there's TWO things I will have to do henceforth on Google Chrome.  A-holes.  But don't expect there to be any more things done on it that I can help.  Because, I don't like being forced to do stuff that I shouldn't have to.

C'mon, Chris, it's just Google Chrome...

(BTW, downloaded off the internet on IE.  So there!