Deer Creek Lake

I have an interesting place to show you because I know you like interesting places. The sign out front says this place is called Deer Creek Lake. Actually, that is the name of the nature preserve this little place is in. I'm not sure if this meager looking body of water qualifies as a lake. Maybe a creek.

So now after I just kind of insulted the place, what is it that is so interesting about it? Don't worry, I'm getting to it. What makes it so interesting is that I'm not sure anybody else goes here at all.

There is never a hint or a clue of anyone else visiting this place when I visit. The only things I've seen are signs of maintenance on the roads going into this very hidden nature area.

One of the interesting things about this place is the boat ramp going down into the area where the water is. The ramp is actually kind of far from the water. There is also a dock that sits high up on a hill. This all suggests that long ago this was indeed probably a lake with much more water than this.

I think at one time this might have been a popular fishing spot. Today it is mostly abandoned. In a way, that seems like kind of a shame. But I like it because I can come here and be all alone surrounded by nature.

This sign out near the main road is quite a distance away from the lake, or what's left of the lake. The road twists and turns and divides a few times so it can go to a few different places in the nature preserve. I visited those places too.

I've shown you this lake before in the past. But after looking at the old pictures from that, I think this post gives you a little better look. One of these times I'm going to have to get you some video and really show you around the lake. I've really been doing a lot of video experimentation recently. You're going to like the results of that. I'll talk to you later.

Walking Trails At The Park

I want to show you some cool walking trails today. These are located at my latest discovery Bacon Creek Park in Sioux City. You can get directions to this place from the bottom of this post. These trails are made for just about any type of person.

Parks like this with big concrete trails are places that welcome as many people as they can get. My aunt goes here quite often. I never knew this was the place she was telling me about until I discovered it myself.

I usually like places with fewer people, but I also like to mix things up a little bit too. Sometimes parks like these with lots of people have more wildlife for some reason. I have to say though that I've only seen a few geese so far. But I'm not finished exploring yet.

I only have two pictures of these trails because too many of the same thing can get monotonous. (Wait! I've added one more just for fun.) Big everyday trails like these sometimes tend to look the same in too many pictures.

This park isn't the only place to find this kind of trail around here. Sioux City is full of walking and biking trails. The whole place is made for walking and exploration. I read a few years ago that they might try a trail system like this at Detroit's riverfront, but I'm not sure if they were ever able to do it.

I was a few days later than I wanted to be with my post this time because my schedule changed kind of drastically on me. I'm sleeping at completely different hours. So it took some time to figure out exactly when to do my blogging. I think I'm starting to figure it out now.

And maybe my post of the pictures of this new park make it seem like I'm disappointed in this new park. That's not so at all. These big trails aren't all that's here. The big trails are just the beginning. I'll show you what else I found in a future post. It'll be fun. I'll talk to you later.

Bacon Creek Park

I promised that I was going to get back out to the nature parks this month, and so here I am. I found a brand new park, at least for me, called Bacon Creek Park. I found this park with an app on my phone called Alltrails. Wonderful app. It's showing me lots of new places to explore.

Bacon Creek Park is located in the eastern part of Sioux City, not far from where my aunt lives. In fact, I showed her a couple of my new pictures and she told me that she goes here all the time. I should have known. She seems to know just about everything about the Sioux City area.

Anyway, when I got here I instantly knew it was a very good place. The first thing I saw was this big lake. It's only my first visit, so I haven't seen a creek yet. The lake kind of dominates the park at first look.

This was my first visit to this place so I didn't do any serious exploring yet. On the first visit to a place I always just do a little bit of scouting to see if I like it. The verdict for this place is that I love it already. The lake is a big plus. It has plenty of trees, which is a requirement for me. And there are lots of trails.

I'll show you some of the trails in the near future. I did try some out. I couldn't go too far because I had my dog with me. Knowing I wouldn't adventure too far, I thought she'd enjoy the look at the new park. She got to poke around a bit and I got to do my scouting. It worked out well.

The only wildlife I saw this first time was a few geese on the other side of the lake. I tried to take a few pictures of them, but all that came out were a few blurry dots. The zoom on my phone is actually better than I thought, but it wasn't good enough for the geese.

I eventually sat on a bench and just watched the lake for awhile. The dog liked this part the most. She didn't even care about the few people that passed by. Watching a body of water is always relaxing. Try it if you haven't already.

I'll be back next time with either more from this place or another park. I have plans for more adventures very soon. These nature parks are always fun and relaxing for me. Let's see what cool stuff I can find in the future. I'll talk to you later.

Hills So Steep

I recently visited a new nature park, kind of. This new park is actually the back entrance of Five Ridge Prairie Preserve. I've visited the front entrance several times over the past few years. The reason that it is new is because this park is so big that I've never been anywhere close to this end of it.

The park is very hilly and even if I was still in my best shape I'm not good enough to hike through the whole thing. The hills just about kill me. And that brings me to the good and bad points of this mostly new nature park.

First of all, this end of the park is beautiful. It's almost exactly what I've been looking for in a nature park. The trails are only just wide enough to walk through, and there are lots of trees. The trees are the important thing for me. I love being surrounded by trees on a good nature trail. And this park doesn't disappoint with trees.

But now comes the part I didn't like, and it was unfortunately a deal breaker. This main trail goes up a very steep hill. Take a look in the picture above. You can kind of see it. Pictures never show hills properly for some reason.

I said before the hills just about kill me, even at the best times. My back has become weak, and I can't seem to fix it, so I do the best I can. Surprisingly it wasn't my back that was the problem here. It was my legs. I went as far as I could before I was in agony, and I had to turn back.

It's hard to see it in the picture above, but from here I could just see the top of the hill. I couldn't walk any farther. At least I got a picture. I had to turn around and make my way back down the steep hill. It was a much easier journey on my legs, but going down the hill was much harder to maneuver. I had to be very careful not to slip and fall.

After awhile I made it back down to the bottom and to the beginning of the trail again. I knew I wouldn't be back here again for quite some time, and I was regretting it because the trails are so nice looking. I really wish they were flatter. It would become my favorite park if that were so.

So now my next plan is to visit the other end of the park. I can walk much farther there. That end is good, but the trail looks like an access road. I like the small forest trails better. They make me think of hidden secrets to explore so much more than others.

So I guess I'm done here until my next adventure. This one was a little more serious this time. That's sometimes good. We'll see what my attitude is next time. And until then, I'll talk to you later.

Dorothy Pecaut Nature Center

It took me awhile to do this post because I lost my camera. It was somewhere in my house, but I couldn't figure out exactly where I put it. I finally saw the strap poking out from under my living room computer table. I guess that's what happens when you leave your things just lying around.

I guess I would have found it earlier if it hadn't been raining for the past several days. I would have dug it out so I could go back out to one of the nature parks. And I don't know why I was so careless with my camera this time because I usually take much better care of it. But let's get on with what this post is really about.

The dog statue in the picture above is what greets you as you walk in the front door of Dorothy Pecaut Nature Center. I like that dog. It's in the same spot that it was when I visited this place on vacation several years ago before I lived here.

A while back I would have taken you on a careful guided tour of the nature center. Today not so much. If you want the tour you can check out the link I gave you in the last paragraph. It's a nice link. You might enjoy it. Maybe you'll want to visit your nearest nature center after you follow it.

The nature center isn't the biggest in the world, but it shows some of the critters and natural features you might find in the area. I haven't seen any real caves around here, but I kind of like this little cave in the nature center.

I took this picture above from the front of the nature center. I thought it might give you a good idea of what it looks like there. I guess I should have thought to take a picture of the big windows in back where you can look out at the forest trails.

I've never felt comfortable writing about inanimate objects. That's why in the past I used to show pictures of mostly animals. I still do if I can, but I don't get as many picture opportunities of them here. Maybe I'm just not looking in the right places. I'll have to keep looking.

I've been experimenting with my picture at the top of the blog. See, it's different. Oh, so you've never noticed it before? I look at the sidebar of yours. Maybe now you might be wondering what the T stands for in my name. Maybe not, but I bet you assumed it was The. Nope, it stands for Tiberius. My full name is Rattilla Tiberius Adventurer. So now you know.

And with that new knowledge an old important fact that you greatly needed has been pushed out of your brain. Don't worry, you'll never remember what it was. Now that we have all that out of the way, I'll talk to you later.

A Little Look At The Park

I think it may be good to give you a little peek at my new favorite nature park. I don't know why I let the hills here drive me away before. When I first hiked this park a few years ago I was immediately in love with it. I remember thinking how much it was like my old Michigan parks. Then I began looking for something different for some odd reason.

I found several other parks that I like just fine, but all of them are very different from my old favorites. I've been a little lost without the animal sightings I once had. I just haven't really been sure what to do these past few years without all that so I kind of withdrew a little bit from it all.

Now I feel as if my excitement for nature has returned. I'm actually wanting to go out hiking in the middle of winter again. You don't do that unless you really enjoy it. This park is part of the Dorothy Pecaut Nature Center, which is part of Stone State Park in Sioux City.

I decided to focus my first pictures on this one trail because it has this wonderful bridge on it. I've told you time and time again how much I love bridges, especially this kind. This isn't the only trail going into the park, but it does show you that there are lots of trees here.

You can also see the hills in the background of the pictures. You won't be able to see them when the leaves are back on the trees. I've been to the top of some of these hills, but it will take some time and effort for me to get back there.

The last time I was in this park I had my dog with me. She really loved this and all the other parks. But now unfortunately my poor dog has developed a bad case of arthritis. I've noticed her having a little trouble for awhile, but I thought maybe it was just because she had become a bit overweight.

She's not very old, but the vet told me it can be common for her age. I'm giving her medicine to try to help her recover a little bit. I'm hoping she can recover enough to come to the flatter parks with me once in a while. She seems like she's getting a little better already.

It may be kind of difficult to see in the picture above, but it gets kind of steep going up these stairs. Stairs like these cover half the trails here. I'll tell you what, if you want exercise then this is the hiking trail for you. I should be able to get back into good shape in no time if I keep going to this park.

There are flatter trails here too so I won't have too much trouble. I'll probably be sticking to those most of the time at first. Maybe I'll find some good new areas here while I'm exploring. I really haven't been through here enough to know about everything yet. That's a good thing. I'll talk to you later.

Endless Grass

I only recently discovered some of the nature trails at this little nature park down the road from where I live. This park, Dunham Prairie Preserve, was one of the first parks I visited when I moved into my current home. I thought it would end up as my daily park because of the interesting trails, but there became one problem.

Some of the most interesting trails here ceased to be maintained. There is one trail in particular that went down to the Big Sioux River that I really liked a lot. Now it's gone, so there is no more access to the river from here. That took away from much of the attractiveness of this place.

I still like the park, but most of the trails are like the one you see below. They're mowed into the grassy prairie land near the highway. That closeup highway is really a turn off for me. And there's not much else to see except for endless grassland. But it's not all bad.

I just recently discovered that there are more trails of this park on the other side of the highway from the parking lot. Even if it is just grass, it's still a new place to explore. And I live for new places to explore. The other thing is that this is where I discoverd all of that milkweed growing that I wrote about in a previous post.

Seeing that much milkweed gives me something to look forward to other than endless grass. The grass would be fine, but it's not really very exciting to me, and I don't really know what to write about it. But I can come up with all kinds of things while I observe the growth of that milkweed throughout the year.

And who knows? Maybe they'll open up access again to the river one of these days. I don't really know why they closed it. I don't know many people and I'm not very talkative with strangers unless we get into an argument or something. I'm glad not many people in this area of the country are very argumentative.

The sign above says Fire Walk. That's the name of the trail here on the other side of the road. The trail is a loop from where you can still very much hear the sounds of the highway, and most of the time see the cars go by. I'll only come back on occasion, but I will be back to look at the milkweed.

I do like this place because it's the closest nature and hiking park to home. I guess maybe if I came here more often then I'd discover more desirable features. Does anybody know of some good things I might find in this grass that I'm probably not thinking of?

The river trail was really nice because it was isolated from the highway. Now that it's gone I'm looking for other advantages to this park that I've missed. I've seen so many things in nature over the past several years, but in many ways I still understand next to nothing. I learn something new with each new adventure, and I want to learn something here too. I'll talk to you later.

The Village

The pictures I have for you today were taken last summer. Right now it looks very different around here. There are no leaves left on the trees and everything is covered in snow. Also the temperature is much too cold for me to do much of anything other than wait till it warms up just a little bit to go out.

My first trip when I do go out will be right back to this very place, but maybe not to this village in the woods. The nature park where this village exists is a big one with many different features to explore, and there are many that I haven't seen yet. But today I want to talk about the village.

This village is one of the features of  Adams Homestead And Nature Preserve. I can't say I know much about it yet because I've only visited it once so far. I do know that this house above was built in the 1880s. That's pretty old for this part of the country. It's called the Shay-Adams House.

There are several buildings in this little village with signs like the ones above out in front of each one. They give a nice little description of each building and maybe go into the history of each one. In a future post I'll maybe give you a better look at what some of them say. I'll be back here many more times.

The cabin above was built in the 1860s and is called The Brusseau House. The door was open, so I went inside and took a few pictures. I'll feature them in a future post, I'm not sure when yet. I'm not sure if the door was meant to be open or if I was supposed to go in, but I did. I'm an outlaw. Fear me.

This red building is a school house. I never went closer to it than this. I don't know why. Onew of these4 next visits I'll have to go up close and examine it better. By the time I got this far I was eager to explore other parts of the nature park, and I was hunting a geocache, which I found.

The only thing we had like this back in Michigan near me was a big place called Greenfield Village which cost quite a bit of money to get in. It was worth it, but this little place gives you a similar but very much smaller experience, without all the flash, for free.

I hope I can keep these more frequent posts up, but the very much colder weather is going to make it difficult. It's been cold and windy around here. The cold is fine, but that wind just about kills me. I'll be making a point of going out on warmer days, and there are a few inside places I'll be visiting as well. I'll talk to you later.

Adams Homestead And Nature Preserve

I found a nature park that reminds me of my favorite little nature parks back in Michigan that I used to visit almost every day. I actually found it several months ago but I haven't really had time to explore it or post about it until now.

In this post I can only really give an introduction to the place because I like to limit each post to only a few pictures at a time. That way you don't have to spend too much time here in any one post. It's just the way I like doing things.

Because of this I'll probably be writing posts quite a bit more often, at least for a little while. I really want to be able to take you through this park all the way. There are quite a few things here to share, and I'm not quite sure where to begin yet.

One thing I like about this place is that it's flat. Most of the other parks around here are so full of hills. Walking up and down all of those hills just about kills me. I still like them, but it's really hard sometimes. This flat land is so much easier to hike through right now.

The thing I loved about my Michigan parks was all of the trees. Unfortunately there aren't as many here. That's just thew way things are around here, so I'll just have to live with that. But there are areas here that are just fime for tree lovers like me, so I like that just fine.

Let me give you at least an idea of what there is here. The first trail splits in two directions. If you go to the left you really get trees, but that's not all. Back within all of the trees is an old village. It's like being able to explore an outdoor museum.

If you go to the trail on the right then you go past a lake with special viewing areas where you can observe several different types of ducks and other similar birds. You'll have to see them to really understand what I'm talking about.

The trail goes on quite a bit farther but I had to turn around to give my dog a bit of a break. She has become incredibly out of shape because I don't walk the hills much. Now that I have some flatter land to hike I hope to fix her. You wouldn't believe how glad she was to see my truck when the hike was over.

Maybe now I can do some of my older style posts where I explore the trails instead of showing pictures I took from my truck. I'm always excited when I find a place like this. The good thing is that it's not the only one. I hope I get to see some of those ducks one of these next times I visit this place. I'll talk to you later.

Scenery From Ponca State Park

I took quite a few pictures at Ponca State Park, so I thought I'd share a few of my favorites with you. I took a couple of these hoping they'd come out good. I don't usually get my wish, but I think I did with these. I took all of these in HDR and I think it really shows.

I took this one above because I was looking into the Sun. It was behind the clouds, but you could really see the outline of it in the original picture. When I reduced the size of the picture to put it on here, it kind of lost something. You can see it as that brighter spot in the middle of the clouds. I like the dramatic look of the clouds.

This picture above doesn't really look very special here for some reason. I took the picture to show how high the hill in the background really is. You don't really get to see it here. The hill goes straight up on this side and it's huge.

Even though everything is frozen solid here, I get the impression of crashing waves when I look at this last picture. I was disappointed by the cloudy day when I was there, but I think the bit of gloom they added made the pictures come out better than they would have on a sunny day.

I guess this post was all about the pictures. I might have just shared them with no writing, but I always have to say something. I hope my short descriptions helped a little bit. These pictures were kind of fun for me, even the one with the park sign. I always take a picture of the park signs. I'll talk to you later.

Falls Park

This will be my last post for now from Falls Park in Sioux Falls. I don't have a video this time, but I have a couple of interesting pictures. These pictures didn't really fit in with the videos so I thought this separate post would work well for them.

Whenever I visit a new park I take a picture of one of their signs at whatever entrance I'm at at the time. I like to show these signs but I'm not always able to do it. I don't think I did last summer so I decided this post was the perfect place for a sign. 

If you look very closely you can see a man standing there on the ice below the falls. He was down there taking pictures. At first I was kind of annoyed that he was down there in the way of my pictures, but then I realized that his presence would give you a good idea of the actual size of the falls. That wouldn't happen without the ice.

That guy being down there made me think for a second that maybe I could go down there and get some pictures like that. But it took only part of another second for me to remember how afraid I would be that the ice would break under me. I would probably have been just fine, but the thought of falling through the ice still terrifies me.

My last picture shows a nice wide view ofr the falls. You can see that the snow isn't very deep. Most of the white you see is really ice from the falls. Water comes out on the right side of the picture, but it's not nearly as much as from the main part of the falls on the left.

I wish I could linger on these falls for even more posts, but that would get boring after too many times. So I'll move on to something else in my next post. Falls Park has become one of my favorite places. I tell anyone who will listen that waterfalls are one of my favorite things, and these are the only ones I've ever personally seen. I feel lucky to live so close to them. I'll talk to you later.

A Good Nature Rest Area

Some of the places I go that look wild at first aren't really completely wild. I showed you some landscape pictures in my last post that I took from right in front of these two benches. This is also kind of deceptive though.

These benches and the sign are the only things around here. To get to them you have to squeeze through a tight entranceway in the fence. There's really nothing else around here for miles. The sign is the only thing that tips you off to this place from the road.

You can stop just about anywhere on the long country road that goes by here and get good pictures. But this happens to be my favorite place there. This is where I go to search for buffalo. I really look for them as I'm driving up and down the road, but here is the best spot.

It looks like this could be an ideal place to relax and view nature from, but it's not all wonderful. The first time I came here one summer, I sat on the bench on the right and ended up with several ticks running up and down my leg. I guess it pays to be careful with that.

I stopped sitting on the benches partly because I'm now paranoid about ticks and partly because I just don't feel a big need to sit here. I move back and forth to finds a good spot where I can take my pictures. I don't usually move too far from the benches here though.

Mostly, even with the threat of ticks, this is a nice place to go to get a few pictures and watch for buffalo. I've seen evidence that they've come right up to where the benches are. One of these days I'll come up here and find them waiting for me. One of these days.

Five Ridge Prairie

I went to Five Ridge Prairie nature preserve the other day. I've been there many times now, and it has become my favorite nature park around here. But I have to tell you that it wasn't an easy place to find.

This park is at the end of a long and hilly dirt road that is kind of hidden when you're on the main highway. It took me about six months to find this place. I drove by it many times but I never could find that dirt road.

Finally I found it, and it's now one of my favorite places to visit. I don't come to this place nearly as much as I want, but I hope to change that now that I'm a bit more mobile than I was. I forget how much I love these kind of places until I finally get back to them.

That long absence can sometimes be a problem too. Five Ridge Prairie is not the easiest place to hike. It's all hills and valleys. It's pretty easy getting in there a ways, but getting out is kind of hard. I have to say it's all worht it though because the place is beautiful.

When I don't go to these places for a long time I can get kind of out of shape to be doing this stuff. I knew that would be a problem this time, but I hoped to pace myself a bit so I could minimize the pain. I've learned that no amount of pacing really helps all that much here.

Going in is mostly downhill at the beginning. And then you get to this beautiful place where there are all sorts of birds and other wildlife. You don't always see them because there are plenty of places to hide, but they're out there.

I decided before I even got there that I wasn't going to go very far into this section because I knew I'd wear myself out while I was still inside this huge place. But while I was in there I learned that I was more out of shape than I had hoped.

After a short rest I turned and began to maqke my way back out of the park. It was okay at first, but I was already tiring out much too fast. With my dog Isabella wanting to pull her leash in every direction at once while she explored, it wasn't an easy journey.

As we got to that hill we had to climb to get out of there, I was already to tired to really keep going. Still, I had to get out of there somehow, so I kept right on going. The farther I went up that hill the more I ran out of breath. Isabella wasn't doing very well either, so I had to stop and rest several times.

I did finally make it out of there, even though I thought I was going to die trying. I gave Isabella a nice big drink of water, which she needed badly. The good thing is that I got all of these pictures and some other good stuff. And now that I've made the journey once, I'll be going back as soon as I can.

I'll talk to you later.

Broken Kettle Flowers

I sometimes forget that simple things can be some of the most enjoyable things. I've been driving by Broken Kettle Grasslands a lot, and I've been seeing that it's just full of these yellow flowers. I never really paid much attention to them until now.

Broken Kettle Grasslands is a huge place. It's the largest open prairie in the Midwest. There are wild buffaloes in there. The only problem is that it's closed off to the public most of the time. This place is kept specifically to preserve the area.

There are a few places where you can go to observe it from the outside, but you can't really go in. I've been to a place where I've seen evidence of the buffaloes, but they weren't there at the time. So I'm still searching for them.

You can see the flowers in the picture above. It's the closest I could get because the fence in the picture is electrified. It's there to keep the wild animals in and safe, and to keep humans out. But this close is all I really needed to be.

What attracted me was this field of yellow. I didn't need to get close enough to find out the identity of the flowers. I know some of them are sunflowers and some of them are goldenrod. There is a third kind that I don't know about though.

That third kind will probably remain a mystery. Seeing that field of yellow all the time is the beauty of this place. Individual details are irrelevant. The picture really doesn't do this place justice. I wish I could have done better. Oh well.

I'm still looking for the identity of the birds I mentioned before. I'll share them as soon as I have it. I'll talk to you later.