Meadowbrook Nature Preserve

https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/indiana/meadowbrook-nature-preserve-trail-1

https://www.strava.com/activities/5643516656

Erin had a family reunion with her husband's family all day, so I was alone again.  I kept busy, though.

I walked the dogs around "the square," local lingo for a walking path nearby that is a block mile, encircling a pond and more wetlands.  Local artists display some of their work along the eastern street.  There were many other dogs along with the owners.  Both of my dogs barked at all of them.  I'm getting tired of this aggressive behavior and an thinking of using shock collars on them.  (I thought the same thing last year with Hansel and Gretel and they eventually outgrew their aggression.)

Erin and the boys left for their reunion at 10 and I left her house an hour later.  My destination today was Meadowbrook Nature Preserve, a former Girl Scout camp.  It's on the north side of Valparaiso.  I found out about it via Alltrails.com

The trails are well-marked.  I started out with Trail #1, the perimeter trail.  I didn't pay attention to the signage (no surprise there) and ended up on Trail #3, so I just walked the perimeter a second time and made sure I followed directions and before I knew it, I had walked two hours and 5.24 miles and did just about every trail in the preserve.

It's easy to get lost in thought while walking.  The sounds of nature always soothe me.  This morning it was the sounds of the various birds and the smell of the flowers.  I walked past fields of Bergamot and purple coneflowers (my local favorite) and ripe bramble berries, of which I picked a few.  There were "No Foraging" signs at every trail intersection, but I wasn't foraging...the berries were right on the trail!

The abandoned camp sites that the Girl Scouts used are still standing.  The immediate area was overgrown.  The boardwalk across the dried pond was covered in vine, the outhouse was also left to nature.  Picnic tables were getting swallowed by the native flora.  The main camp house seems to be used still as a storage and work area. I took a rest here on a shaded back patio facing the ravine.  I could hear distant traffic but we were all alone in the middle of an old camping ground.  How cool is that?

Sahne cried out suddenly near the end of the walk. What had hurt her?  She kept on crying loudly but didn't give me any hints of where an injury was.  And then I saw it.  It was one of those biting flies that had embedded in her ear. I quickly squashed that fly.  Sahne continued crying for a while.  Oh, the drama never ends!  She calmed down when we got back to the car.  I checked her over.  There were no other hitch hikers on her.

It was just past 2pm when we got back to the car.  Holy coneflower, where had the time gone?  I told Carol I'd come by her place at 4pm.

I met Carol's family at her old home.  All of her belongings were in the garage.  John, her brother, gave me three boxes of my dad's stuff.  This is stuff meant for Iris and me and our kids: home videos, awards, VHS tapes, photographs.  I can't possibly take all this stuff back to Arizona with me.  The car is now overloaded with little room for the dogs to stretch out in.  I will need to ask Erin to go through the stuff and take out what she wants.

The day ended with good news: I'm going back to the classroom July 30th.  Students return August 4th.