Tales At Brushy Creek State Park

After our wonderful time at the Grotto, we headed back home with the idea that we would break up the trip for the young'ins by stopping off somewhere roughly halfway home that had hiking trails. 

I had done a little research on the fancy, hi-tech world wide interweb thingymabob and found Brushy Creek State Park.  Perfect.

So we got there, sorta thru the "back door" as I'm not one to take familiar roads.  I like to see "stuff" I have not seen before, even if most of the stuff looks very similar to most of what I've seen before.

Kind of a nice looking area not at all unlike the Des Moines areas own Saylorville Park.

Have a look:

This was on top of the dam with the spillway roughly behind us.  I'm standing on the highway, which will not be the dumbest thing that I did during this visit.

China boy is already sad because Robby, still a hippie in these photos, set out leading the way and wouldn't you know it?  That's EXACTLY what RongBo wanted to do!  Go figure...

I had to stop and "water a pretty plant" that I had found so I fell behind the group a bit.  Little did I know that people on bicycles would come flying around the bend with little to no notice!

I catch back up with the group as they have been placed in a conundrum.  The walking path had been washed out in the earlier Spring rains.  How do I know?  Because if you zoom in on this area with satellite, you can still see it. 

Now all that's left is some oddly placed rocks and a rotten log that is none to sturdy or steady. 

Me?  I'm not going to use no stinkin' log to get across, right?  No sirree.  I'm going to hop rocks like a person a third of my age.  Just below the center of the photo is where I began my journey. Just a little to the left of that is where one of the rocks I placed my bulky little foot on, upended, sending my left foot into about 1 foot of water and causing me to lose my balance completely.  I twisted my leg, fell backwards onto the rocks friends damaging my knee slightly but getting some really deep bruises on my left thigh and elbow.  Not too mention the fact that I had a bit of a wet butt as well.  I hiked a bit further and decided to turn it around as the leg was really binding up on me.  I took Caleb back with me (I crossed at the friggin' log this time!) while Momma and Robby went on further.

Then there were these two guys...  If you're thinking to yourself, "that guy looks like he's on the wrong side of the fence!", why you'd be correct in your thinking.  He crawled up and over the fence, shimmied down the other side, still facing the fence.  Bubba, the guy on the "right" side of the fence, slipped a belt harness thru the fence in which Butch, the guy on the wrong side, put it around his waist and buckled it.  He turned around and then cinched it up tight.  When properly cinched, that's Bubba's cue to pass the cross-bow and matching ammunition over the fence.  He then leans out over the water and probably a 35 - 40 degree angle and commences fishing. The arrows are attached to a rope so in the event he does indeed pierce a fish, they can just simply pull it up.  Did they catch anything in the time that I was watching?  Nope.  But then again, neither did any of the others who fished by more conventional means.

Daddy and Calebber RongBo getting our picture "tooken" at the top of the spillway.  To my right  in the photo, you can see Butch starting his lean-out while Bubba carefully surveys the proceedings.

And mom snapped this photo of "graduation practice picture" of the former hippie whilst he was still a hippie.

And that was about the extent of it.  Now all I had to do was be able to stand up after another 1.5 hours in the truck on the way home.  

Turns out it really wasn't that bad considering what could have been!

Until next time, if you do something stupid, document for all to enjoy!