ismo

It was another beautiful sunny day, too rare to spend incarcerated in a hotel room, which I hate anyway. After much poring over the maps, we decided to go see Pyramid State Park. We kind of wished we could go to see the "Little Grand Canyon," but the trail, while said to be really pretty, was also said to descend the river bluff rather precipitously, following which of course you would have to get back up again, and we were not sure we were up (or down) for that. Pyramid Park was built on land reclaimed from surface mining operations. It's out in the nowhere, such that we turned down something called Mountain Lion Road, which was more of a one-lane, really, and had a sign on it that said "Watch for Bob Cats." As we rattled along between a woods and a field, the GPS announced "You have arrived." Okay . . . We found a campground/boat launch kind of place, and there was a sign saying "Park Office -->." Silly us, we parked the car and thought we would stroll along to the Park Office and get a map. We followed the interior drive for quite some time, egged on by those tantalizing "Park Office" signs. Finally, we came to a tempting trailhead, but by then, the Sparrowhawk had kind of come to the end of his walkability period and was moving very slowly. As we paused to consider our options, a big brown bird soared over head and landed neatly on a nearby branch, and scrutinized us. It was a young bald eagle in its immature plumage!

We decided to go back to the car and find this mysterious Park Office. We had to drive all around the park on a little roller coaster road. Whee--it's a very big park, and we were glad we hadn't pressed forward on foot! It would have been dark by the time we got there. At last we got our trail map and had a good look at it, but we didn't feel inclined to drive back and start over. We found a very nice little picnic spot next to a lake, where we could sit and enjoy the day without any more hiking. Since I had all these emergency rations in a cooler in the back, I was able to make us a restorative ham sandwich. The sun sparkled on the water, birds sang in the trees, and butterflies and dragonflies fluttered around. It was a nice afternoon. When we got back to the hotel, the Sparrowhawk took a nap.

Then we went to church. Somewhat to our surprise, there was a great little choir. The priest was an African, which is not uncommon in rural churches these days. His name was Father Iuvenis. He gave a really beautiful sermon. We went to meet him afterwards, and found him a lovely human being. Timothy thanked the choir leader for the inspiring music, and made her day. So a good time was had by all. I was feeling pretty dubious about food selections in these parts, but we took a chance on the barbecue place up the road, and got some very decent brisket, ribs, and potato salad. If it doesn't kill my stomach tonight, I will be happy.