By Kismet

It was a difficult week for getting excited about much of anything. My weekend outing was no exception. The most unfortunate thing about visiting a place is the unpredictable factor of the individual and her mood(the same can be said about reading, art, movies, and probably a million other things). I'm not certain if my gloomy week made me lethargic this weekend or if it was the humidity. Neither are normal. It may have been a bit of both. I made a short trip this weekend to Meade State Park which is a little fishing lake with a small swimming beach. I enjoyed the drive, and the landscape as you approach the lake is very pretty. However, I'm not sure that I had as much fun as I should have.

I worked on reading Death Comes for the Archbishop. Betsy appropriately loaned it to me before I began my road trip to the Southwest, and as is my custom with reading, I am still working on it. I decided that maybe Willa Cather demands a faster reader than me. She frustrates me because I know that the writing and descriptions are beautiful, but I never feel like I've read enough of a book to feel like I'm into it and that I want to finish. I am determined this time, in spite of my My Antonia failures.

I swam a little bit. I had brought a floaty ("air mattress" if you like grown up words), but the wind was blowing pretty steady at 20-30 mph so I decided not to bother. There wasn't a single boat on the water, though the park rangers made sure to yell at people who veered outside of the designated swimming area. One observation made by a young girl as she a passed a pair of goggles to her friend summed up this lake "look under water, it's pure green". Not that "pure green" bothers me at all, I am a water-deprived Kansan.

There was a strange, short trail at the park which I ventured. I wasn't really sure what I should be observing on this walk. There were many cottonwoods, and plants unknown to me, but I wouldn't describe any of it as interesting. Many of the trees were charred by small fires, but none of the area looked like it had experienced any extensive damage. A bird guide might have been helpful because I saw some strange looking ones which I thought might have been delightful had I been educated enough to understand why. Just when I was telling myself "this trail is only .5 miles long, I don't care how humid it is, you are making it to the other end", I saw the back ends of two white tailed deer. Of course, this made the humidity more bearable and the strangeness of the trail enchanting. I came to the end of the trail, looked around and went back to my car the same way that I had come.

One of my friends from work had told me about getting water from the artesian well at the park, but I was unable to find this source or where it was I should refill my water bottle. It could be that I was tired, but after a bit of driving around, I returned home, the same way I came: by Kismet.