Birthday Adventures

First of all, as some of you already know, in a couple of weeks, I will be getting a new kitten from my good friend, Rebecca, who lives in Iowa. She has sent me pictures of this adorable gray and white kitten, but sadly, the pictures have yet to inspire any good ideas for names. So I am soliciting your assistance. While the romantic in me likes the dramatic, beautiful names, I will concede that I now generally prefer Beckie's idea of choosing a comical or ironic name. So, whatever you come up with, please comment on this post (or e-mail me) with your name ideas (oh, the kitten, she believes, is a female kitten...)

Anyway, I know that many of you might not consider this to be an ideal way to spend a birthday, but I have never been to Turkey Run State Park. Having heard about how beautiful it is, and having practically the whole day free, I decided that I wanted to spend my birthday exploring a part of Turkey Run.

Yes, my friends, I spent my birthday hiking. And what an adventure it turned out to be. The trail Juli and I took (classified as "moderate/rugged") happened to be blocked by a tree! As we walked along the trail, occasionally hampered a little by muddy and marshy spots, we came to a point where the trail seemed to just end. We could not tell where it was supposed to go. At first we thought we just took a wrong turn. Nope. As we soon discovered, the trail had been blocked by several trees (and one big one in particular) that most likely had been blown over by the severe storms that have hit Indiana over the past month. Not to be deterred, we crawled over and under the limbs and trunks until we found the trail again... Despite the temporary mishap/setback, though, we enjoyed an absolutely lovely hike (and even managed to have absolutely lovely weather) in an absolutely lovely state park... well, see for yourself:

Hacking through the fallen brush:



The Bridges of Parke County (where Turkey Run is located):



Some of the scenery and wildlife of the park (including a tiny toad, and then an even tinier one!):

Here's a really cool moss-covered cliff:

An impressively deep, tree-lined ravine:


The tiny toad:

the tinier toad (though it's hard to tell because it's a close-up shot):

and the Lusk mansion (supposedly open for seasonal tours- it looks like those tours might actually be haunted mansion tours, with all the dirt and cobwebs hanging everywhere on the outside...):

So there's my birthday in a nutshell of photos!
(look for my google tag -or Gag, as Steven calls it- soon!)