Burr Oak Bluebird of Happiness- Day 81

  Here's the Burr Oak bluebird of happiness. We had nice sunshine, but the wind was like knives of ice. We were almost always too hot or too cold depending on the shelter from the wind, but it's impossible to be unhappy with a cheerful bluebird beside us.

The Burr Oak Reservoir is formed by damming Sunday Creek. It has numerous narrow arms and the trail goes 3/4 of the way around the lake. Lots of small arms.

We'd received good information from the Buckeye Trail Association office. We were not surprised that we had to leave the trail and go higher into the woods to get around this section. It wasn't difficult. There were a couple of other places where we had to do something similar. The dam is for flood control, so when the water is being held behind the dam for later release, it rises and floods parts of the shoreline, including some of the boat docks and parts of the trail.

The really funny thing is that both times I've hiked here, it's been flooded!

The park has rock walls and caves. Not on the scale of some nearby places, but nothing shabby either.

I don't know what caused these odd brown icicles. I wonder if there was a decaying fungus in the log that was incorporated into the water as it dripped. It had to be something with a different viscosity from water to create the odd shapes.

It was a day for great finds- an empty painted turtle shell, more orchid leaves (Crane Fly and one of the Cypripedium), we watched geese land on the ice and go sliding all over the place- I laughed and laughed, Denali walked into a bar, something had dragged a deer skeleton into the road. (Denali and the bar? She walked into a barrier bar while watching some other geese!)

And at the end of the day, a pair of bald eagles entertained us! Not such a good picture, but proof.

We walked 15.5 miles, and 13.1 of them were on natural trail. We are feeling awesome! And it feels good to be back on the track of the number of miles I hope to do.

Miles today: 15.5. Total miles so far: 1023.8

Bonus Section 1: Needle Ice

I learned about a new phenomenon today- Needle Ice (sometimes called frost flowers, but I find this confusing, since there are flowers with this name). First, we were noticing rough patches in the ground that were sort of like low rotting tree stumps.

But the vertical parts were not wood, but pillars of ice with dirt on top of them! Here are some of the needles broken up.

This is caused when there is flowing water under the surface of the ground, or in this case under layers of leaves and/or silt and mud. When the air falls below freezing, like at night, the water becomes supercooled and grows these pillars of ice. Since the actual temperature never really warmed all day (some partial sunshine warmed things from time to time, but it was cold), we were still finding these in the afternoon.

Isn't the world a wonderous place?

Bonus Section 2: Obstacles

Not too many tree obstructions today, but here's a fun one. Also a big one- the trail is directly under me.

And near the end of the day we had to get from the flooded steps at the end of the bridge to the puncheon with 3 good bags between us. This is like one of those puzzles about how to get the wolf and two sheep across the river in one boat, but you can only take two animals at a time and never leave a sheep with the wolf.

And then walk the frozen plank! We debated taking a long road walk around, but Denali finally asked me what I would do if I were alone. I unequivically said I'd go ahead. So we did. And we made it- all dry feet!

See Flooded!