(+8 insets) (cool at full size!) (Please scroll down to "Today's Image" for photo info)

Back to a Favorite Park!
From Harris Beach State Park, we drove up the coast for 2.5 hours and landed in William Tugman State Park, hooray! It was so nice to be back at this lovely place again. Our stay would only be for seven days but we'd be back in a couple of months for another five days, so we were very content. Also, there's a big difference if you've been to a place before. Fewer days is acceptable because you've already become familiar with it.

I wrote about our stay here back in April with two different posts which you'll see as inset pictures. Please take a look for more pictures and some fun stories about our trip! I'm also posting a picture of our trip map so you can see where we went!

Current News: We Got Our Moderna Boosters!
We've been keeping an eye on vaccinations with the hopes we could get our boosters soon. We got our first shot in April--just two days after becoming available--and the follow-up in May. Just like before, the boosters were first granted to those in most need. But unlike the months it took to wait for our initial shots, it was only a couple of weeks before the gates were lowered for everyone to get their boosters. We'd wondered about that because Moderna was a bit behind the others for getting the go-ahead but in the end it was no problem!

Instead of making an appointment, we decided to go to our local fairgrounds where they have a drive-through clinic. We imagined it would be a 20-minute affair…drive up, get our shots, wait for 15 minutes to make sure we didn't explode, and then off to continue our day. We're such silly rabbits! There was quite a long line when we pulled into the queue, and it moved very slowly. We spent over an hour slowly creeping forward in line but it went by quickly. The folks there prepared everyone beforehand by handing us forms to fill out and checked identification, etc. And of course we had our phones with us to amuse ourselves with on the internet. Before we knew it, we pulled up to the clinic and got our shots…YAY!

What a relief. It's no guarantee, of course. Plenty of you here have confirmed this with your stories of getting Covid despite full vaccination. But it does make a difference, and even if one is unfortunate enough to get the virus anyway, the symptoms will usually be much milder. With this new variant we were bouncing up and down with our desire to get our booster.

Since the numbers of infected began rising again, we reverted to our most careful habits of masking up and disinfecting. It's such a bummer though, and I'll admit that I'm feeling a lot of anxiety about the future. I have a difficult time refraining from my mental chess games but there isn't anything more we can do so I'm

Today's Picture
There is a gate into William Tugman State Park which I've never seen closed, but every single time I've walked past it, I wanted to take pictures with my macro lens. You can see why…what's not to love about a rusty, dangling chain, padlock, and the edge of a fence with an interesting gate closure?! I was so happy when I finally got out there with my camera. The moody images were such fun to mull over!

Today's Insets
Insets 1 and 2 are clickable and will bring you to the posts I added back in April when we began our trip. You'll find more images and lots of information about our stay!
Inset 3 is our trip map so you can see where we went!
Inset 4: There's a beautiful grassy meadow which looks out onto Eel Lake with a path that leads through it from the campground down to the dock, boat launch, and to the trails that I love so much. Walking through the meadow, there are always American Robins there, hunting for tasty tidbits and I love to watch them as they charge around and stop to turn their heads and listen for movement to jump on!
Inset 5: I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw a perfect family of geese and goslings! I was lucky enough to get bunches of pictures and this is one of them! (there are others if you click on the first inset picture)
Inset 6: While I was watching the robins one day, I spotted this couple walking their old Great Dane across the meadow. They were so sweet. I would later encounter the fellow and his dog on the short nature trail and pointed out some mushrooms to him, something that totally enchanted him! :)
Inset 7: Have you ever seen shelf fungus that looked like this? The shapes are so interesting!
Inset 8: I am always fascinated by the dew that you can find on fungus, and learned that it's an excretion that happens with the fluctuation of temperature from evening to morning!

Thank You For Stopping By!
I hope you guys are all getting your boosters too. Please stay safe and don't take chances--the consequences are unthinkable! I hold all of you close to my heart and we've had some tragedies in our community and some other close calls too. Let's do what we can to keep this virus at a distance!

Explored on 12/03/21; highest placement #1.