Thursday, May 08, 2008

We awoke to the sound of a light shower this morning. The morning was cloudy, overcast and extremely breezy. I worked on the travel journal this morning and Frank read his Louis L'Amour short story book. He eventually fell asleep and I finished the journal entries. Frank had awakened with a bad headache very early in the morning, so he really needed the nap. I snuck out and walked around for about 30 minutes or so. On may way back to the trailer I got trapped in conversation with our neighbor. She and her husband are from Tuscaloosa. She trapped me last evening too... she is very nice, but very talkative. She talks in a normal voice for a while and then she lowers her voice and I have to strain to hear her.

We had meatloaf, mixed vegetables and the last of the potato salad for dinner. It is one of my better meatloafs. I'm glad I cooked enough to bring on the trip.

Around 1:30 pm (GA time) we had a heavy down-pour of rain with a few rumbles of thunder and some lightning and lots of strong wind that shook the trailer. Tornadoes hit Tupelo Mississippi just to the north of us.

Later on in the afternoon the skies cleared for the most part. There was still a good stiff breeze blowing.

We went for a nice walk on the hiking trail. The trail is cement, so no muddy shoes. There are Eastern Pondhawk dragonflies everywhere. There are also Common Whitetail dragonflies and a couple of varities that I can't remember what are. We saw a Zebra Swallowtail fly over the water at an overlook area of the trail. There was another swallowtail that I wouldn't be still long enough for us to get a good look at... a Pine Swallowtail maybe. I got pictures of a couple of other types of butterflies that I will have to I D later. I almost brought my insect and widflower guide books. I only brought the bird guides. I was running out of nooks and crannies to put stuff :-) I got pictures of some type of red wildflower and Frank took pictures of a pink bloom that was on a tree growing in the leaf. I haven't edited all the pictures yet and will post just a few of them.

The park has mostly hickory trees. There are also oak, sycamore, sweet gum, ironwood and a couple of maple trees. We didn't see any pine trees in the park.