Vacation 2019 - Week One Post script - Surprises from John's camera

I remembered last night that I still had not looked at John's pictures from our vacation. They are well worth the look! He definitely gets the prize for the most varied wildlife (and the most turtles)!

 Turtle crossing the road near our campsite. 

I was about to pass the next picture by because I thought it was the same as one I included in my last post. Then I spotted a second turtle poking his head up out of the water near the one on the stump.

A closer look.

Raccoon trapped in a dumpster. Rangers said they would put a branch in to help it climb out.

Coon Creek Lake, the smallest of the three lakes at RCSP.

Looking down on Lake Wayne Wallace from the Mountain trail.

John saw lots of spiders when he was out walking at night. He said it was particularly creepy to shine his light into the woods and see millions of tiny spider's eyes shining back at him.

This spiders was in our RV one night. It looks like the one that I saw in my bedroom when I got up in the night to use the toilet. At least I thought it was in the night. The time on this photo says this was taken at 8:30 a.m. so maybe it was later than I realized. Anyway it looked the same as this one. I decided to let John be the hero and woke him up. I do remember now that he got his camera and took a picture before dealing with it. I guess he wanted a trophy :-). 

A much more appealing critter!

Picnicking at Lake Carlton

Our first picnic at Lake Carlton was actually dessert--mandarins and chocolate! 

I know I also had a picture from here in my last post, but like I said I really like this place! It's one of my "happy places." I get into vacation mode faster here than most places. 

It wasn't always that way. I remember one of our first vacations at RCSP sitting on a blanket and feeling distracted and tense. I was worrying about my job or something else back home and not getting much good from being on vacation. Finally by God's grace and sheer determination I got control of my thoughts and kicked worry out of my mind and focused on the beauty around me. And the result was bliss! For a little while I was in a timeless vacation zone of peace and rest. It was like the still waters and green pastures of Psalm 23. 

Naturally after a while the ground felt hard and I had to get up and do other things. But I have carried that experience with me ever since. Being there again brings back some of those feelings. Even just memories from there can do it. (Of course wherever I am if I trust God and reject worry I can feel peace!)

It also helps that we have layers of happy memories from our other times there. That's one of the advantages of returning to a place several times for vacations. Over time happy memories have accumulated. So even though there are less happy times, the happy memories outweigh the bad.

When I wondered what kind of bird this was and John said "it's Bird #5." 

I thought it was a wren but after looking at my Merlin bird ID app just now I think it might be a young male Eastern Bluebird. The blue color is more apparent in the next photos.

After it flew from the disc golf basket to a park bench John got the next pictures