John Reynolds (Big Daddy) Fell
November 22, 1931 - May 24, 2014
Although he was born John Fell in 1931, he became "Big Daddy" on February 9, 1979 with the birth of his first grandchild, and remained so until his final hour earlier today. He was much loved and will be missed by many. So with my toast tonight...RIP, Big Daddy.
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Now on to the more standard (and much happier) fare...After our Thibodeaux crawfish boil, we packed up the 5th wheel the first week in May and headed to Illinois to spend some time with Chris' family
We had the campground to ourselves outside of Turkey Run State Park, Indiana. The weather was very nice, and the state park was on a very scenic section of Sugar Creek...I had no idea such places existed in Indiana.
We spent an afternoon at the park and took a hike down to the creek.
Of course Maggie needed to dip her toes in the water, and Daddy gave her a helping hand down to the creek.
Bea was content to stay on the hike (with the ever-popular Gran).
They enjoyed looking at huge old-growth trees...
and riparian zone flowers.
We also hiked up a side canyon...very cool with forested remnants of the glacial age.
Chris enticed the girls to pose for pictures.
Well all that hiking was dirty work, and the next day when Chris and Gabby took Maggie on a short canoe ride through the park, Gran decided to see if Bea would tolerate a bath in the trailer sink. What do you think?
Well when the water started to get cold, we had to pull her out...that's when the squalling began! (I made a quick exit at that point and didn't get to snap a picture).
We spent another day at Shades State park, just up the creek and off the beaten path from Turkey Run. We had a nice picnic and hiked down to the river to look for rocks in the stream. It was another gorgeous early spring day in SW Indiana.
Maggie and Chris got quite a haul of assorted rocks, including some cool fossils.
Maggie is just fascinated with rocks...geological sciences are not that bad of a field these days...maybe this is a glimpse into her future - a geology princess? I don't know.
We also enjoyed our camp area with short hikes, trips to the campground store, and nice little campfires every night.
We came back to Champaign after four nights to let Chris and Gabby get back to work, and we took advantage of our proximity to have Maggie spend three nights camping with us. It was a nice close park with a bonus of a really nice fishing lake of which we took full advantage.
We had a great trip, and drove back to Longville in a single day to try and beat approaching severe weather. Other than a 5th wheel blowout in Missouri (BTW, a pretty impressive release of energy), the trip was uneventful and we made it home by 7:00 pm. I was worried that the newly planted vegetables may have suffered in our absence...judge for yourself. The before and after around our two week vacation.
My closeout item for the blog is a return of the trailcam highlight feature (I just re-commissioned the camera when I refilled the feeder following our trip).
This may also explain some of Buck's mid-day barking.
Tibo...out!
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