Let me tell you, the water coming out of that waterfall/spring/thing is FREEZING.
Oh, yes, here she is:
Your hostess,
The Fox
We even packed a picnic lunch this time. (It was Will's idea, can you believe that?) This is my "Ooh! Aah! IT'S COLD!!" reaction. Let me tell you, the water coming out of that waterfall/spring/thing is FREEZING. Whee, cliff-jumping! I think Christa did a flip off of there...let me check. Oh, yes, here she is: It looks like she's about to do a rather nasty back-flop, but in actuality she was in the middle of the flip. She managed to hit the water feet-first. Thus ends another successful outing--and we didn't get lost on a golf course this time.
Your hostess, The Fox
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The day: Thursday. The place: Wildcat Springs. The people: me, 'Shlee, Christa, and Zachary. The reason: Because we could. Okay, okay, so we went to Wildcat Springs because 'Shlee and Christa don't have anything like this down in Texas. (Seriously, they don't. It's all flat plains and sky. Not that that's bad...but it's certainly not Illinois XD.) This was interesting--apparently the cliff had fallen over and slid into the creek. Ahh, yes, the swimming area...this was about 1/8 of a mile of hiking/wading along the creek bed. The water is about 9-10 feet deep, warm, and clear (I mean, until we muddied it up by walking around, of course). By the way: 'Shlee was taking this picture, and the other person in the picture here is Zach. He pops up in a lot of these pictures. XD Ohh, yes. The cliff. Last time Will and I came here he jumped off of this cliff, into the water. So I decided that I was going to jump off the cliff too. About this time I remembered that I'm not fond of heights. Well, I don't mind heights as a rule. I can climb trees, look down from major heights without feeling too dizzy, etc. It's just jumping off into the open space that's a bit of a problem. So after whimpering and looking down for a while, and letting the others jump first, and whimpering a bit more, Christa did a count-down and I jumped. After the initial shock it wasn't THAT bad...there's a moment of suspension, where the stomach feels left behind, right before striking the water. But in all honesty it was a BLAST. So much of a blast, in fact, that I jumped a second time. XD Zach's job, as a lifeguard (that's his part-time job), was to make sure that we didn't kill ourselves on the way down. And do photobombs. Zach is the master of photo bombing. It has become a game while looking over pictures to find which ones Zach randomly appears in and what kind of crazy face he's making. (...we love you, Zach, really we do...) Random log time! At the end of the lake was this covered bridge--actually part of a golf course, as we found out the second day we walked there--and it was so nifty that we posed and took some pictures on it. (Also: nifty dragonfly bug thingy is nifty.) Please ignore my stunning tan line. Thank you. At this point we headed off across the golf course and spent the better part of a half-hour meandering around. Aaand at this point Christa and I went sprinting down the golf course. *facepalm* We were exuberant, what can I say? Yes, Christa went rolling down the hill. Do not ask why--it was a random moment. JAPANESE BEETLE!! So after Wildcat Springs we went home, bringing Zach along, for some much-needed showers, supper, and a movie. Said movie was 'V for Vendetta'...I had never seen it before, so it was quite an eye-opener. (I tried writing a review after watching it, but my thoughts upon the story were so confuzzled that another viewing is necessary before figuring out how exactly to review it.) As you can tell from our expressions (minus that of Christa--she has a seemingly limitless supply of energy and general glee) we were pretty brain-fried. The fact that it was almost midnight didn't help either. I'm not sure whose idea this was...but the camera timer was involved. Zach may be the master of photo bombing, but Christa is the mistress of funny faces. XD So yes. All in all a most satisfying day, yeilding a huge amount of pictures, sore muscles, and dead-tiredness. (The good kind of tired, that is.) Tune in next time for day 4 of the Texan Invasion...
Your hostess, The Fox Remember Wildcat Springs? From last week? Good. Just checking. :D Last Monday, on Memorial Day, Will and I arranged to go swimming here. Initially Will had invited a couple of friends but they dropped out at the last minute...so it was just me and him, traipsing off through the woods/creeks. Whee. XD This swimming area was about another half-mile upstream from where I had been last time...the farther one goes upstream the more deep pools and bluffs one encounters, and Will said something about rapids another three or four miles up. (We didn't go to see the rapids, but someday I shall...) As you can see, it's pretty deep here. I think in one spot it was over Will's head. O.o And because I'm a weenie and the water was cold (not bad, but uncomfortably so) I walked around snapping random pictures. XD Oh dear. *snerk* Okay, so there's a place to jump off into the water here. Some intrepid soul attached a rope to a tree, presumably to swing out. Will decided to be brave and jump off into the water. *ahem* I said, he's going to jump off into the water. Jump...off...into... Oh fine. He decided to be cautiously brave and lowered himself down to a more comfortable height. (I really can't blame him--it was really muddy and slick up there and he almost fell a couple of times. That would have been nasty.) Success! Beware the fearsome Willi-gator! O.o Anyway. XD So after skipping rocks, flailing around in the water, and deciding that swimming wasn't quite all it was cracked up to be, we headed upstream, through deep waters and shallow streams alike. This would be an example of 'shallow'. XD At a few crossings it was almost up to my neck--I was much perturbed. And my jeans were SOAKED. This is significant only in the sense that the trip home was rather uncomfortable from wearing a dress (I was wearing the black dress from here just for a layered look) that was just a wee bit too short. Ugh. In the end, the wading and fear for my poor camera's welfare proved to be worth it, because... ...THIS was on the other side of the deep water. Eee. :D So apparently this is the mouth of a stream that has a spring way back up in the woods. As a result the water was VERY cold and clear (as opposed to the water in the stream, which was a little warmer and muddy XD). This would have to be one of my favorite shots from the entire day. I'm just sayin'. XD Oh yes. Monsieur Grenouille (that's 'frog', by the way...'crapaud' is 'toad' and therefore doesn't work in this situation XD)...I thought he looked awful pretty for a frog. Will tried to catch him and failed epicly. XD
So yes, that was our afternoon of swimming at Wildcat Springs. Afterwards we drove by Dairy Queen for some nommage (I swear never to consume coffee products again--they make me twitchy and wired in a bad way O.o) and stopped by one of Will's friends' house. Due to my twitchiness I did dance moves outside in his backyard. It was great. XD Your distracted hostess, The Fox Yay for nature!! XD But seriously, folks...nature shots would have to be my absolute favorites to take. I've been meaning to go out to this park for quite some time now, and yesterday things were the perfect combination of sunny (it's been raining on the weekends) and a spare block of time. Spare time is rather hard to come by these days. I'm learning to grab it as it zooms past. XD Wildcat Springs is a park/campground about 20 miles from where I live--I drive past it every Friday on my way to clean a house, so I always think that I ought to stop by, but never do. Until yesterday. XD The park is a combination of bluffs, natural springs, trails, streams, and camping grounds. I stuck to the area that dealt with the bluffs and streams (after you've seen one campground with a generic playground and campers you've pretty much seen 'em all). A lot of the rocks here have been worn down from the streams' water until they're smooth (and once they have some algae on 'em they're slicker than snot too XD) I have many memories of learning to skip rocks here... There's a trail leading up to the bluff here...I remember it being much steeper than it turned out to be. Must be that 'distortion of memory' or something. I dunno. The trail isn't very clear, but the little row of tree roots make it slightly visible (they act as 'steps' in the side of the hill). Looking down from the top of the bluff... This path leads down to a small cave and spring on the face of the bluff... ...and looking back up the root 'steps' I thought the lighting was really cool. ^-^ And now: THE CAVE!! Dun dun duuuuun! It's actually really small--about 2 1/2-3 feet across and the same in height. I'm rather claustraphobic so I just planted myself outside and used the zoom and flash to get pictures on the inside. XD It's probably a good thing that I didn't go in, because it had a really low ceiling and a spring bubbling up along the floor. *shudders* And now I'm going to be quiet and let the pictures speak for themselves. XD Okay, I DO have to comment on this one...I was standing up by the spring looking down at the water and saw this thing floating around in the stream. So I used the zoom on my camera to look at it it...and it turned out to be a huge maple leaf. The water was so calm that I could see a perfect reflection. It was awesome. I climbed my way along the bluff for quite a ways--there was a slight trail--and only slipped on the loose rocks once. XD A few hundred feet along the bluff the trail petered out to some dangerous-looking loose rocks, so I climbed down and crossed the stream. It was about ankle-deep, hence the taking-off-of-the-shoes approach. XD This was an experiment in seeing how fast I could get my camera up--I threw a rock to skip it, and tried to snap a picture before the ripples faded. After about a dozen shots this was the best picture I got...XD RAWR MONSTER DRAGONFLY!!! ...actually, he was only about 3 inches long. But he still looked pretty cool. Yay, butterfly...he's a little ragged-looking. He was flapping his wings occasionally, but this is the only picture I got of his open wings. I'm not sure what kind he is, but he's pretty. ^-^ I crossed the little island that I had been on and wandered back via the trails...it was humid, with lots o' bugs and spider-webs strung across the trail (I should know--I ran into a bunch of them *shudders*)...all in all, it was a most successful photo shoot. And I plan to do more in the near future. :D
Your picture-happy hostess, The Fox |
Molly Rose
Multifacted obsessionist and all-around randomosity generator Journal
March 2011
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