Shut Ins
(Saturday Stories about traveling part 6)
Once we decided to brave the cold and get up, it wasn’t as bad as it seemed like it would be when we were lying in bed. The sun was rising, giving warmth to everything, including us. I went up to take a shower while M started prepping for breakfast. Again, a hot shower was a welcome surprise. They shower room itself needed some help. Most of the hooks to hang things were broken off and it made it tricky to figure out how to not get your clothes wet.
We had already made a plan to ride our bikes to the Johnson’s Shut-ins trail head. I had found the bike path the evening before and it was close to our campsite. The gate said it opened at 8 AM, but we didn’t get to head out until 8:30. It was a beautiful ride over through the Mark Twain National Forest. A short uphill, long downhill, and a flat section until we got to the trail head.
When we had been there the day before, late in the afternoon, the parking lot was crowded and there were tons of people around. Sunday morning, though, it was dead quiet and we were the only people there.
What a great hike. The trail was all ours to enjoy.
We learned (from the signage) that the Johnson’s Shut-ins are called that because the land was first settled by the Johnston family. A few generations later it was sold to another man who donated it to the State for a State Park.
The shut-ins are what they call the area where the Black River runs through a section of hard granite left behind by a volcano. The river hasn’t been able to cut through that area like it has other areas so the water is shut it and narrowed. There are some great rock formations out in the water and lots of little water falls. I guess you would call them falls. Nothing dramatic, but the river is shattered into a hundred little rivers and churns and tumbles it way through the shut ins until it reaches the next opening and reassembles itself into one untied waterway again.
At the end of the shut-ins, there is a clear pool of water. I asked M how deed she thought it was. Neither of us felt confident to venture a guess. Clear water is like that. Deeper than what it might appear to be.
I think that is true for people too. The less muddied our lives the deeper they are. Wicked people are shallow people.
There was a turtle leisurely floating about in that clear pool of water. I thought how he/she doesn’t realize how good he has it with all that clean, clear water to enjoy. He doesn’t realize that there are turtles living in scummy algae green covered ponds and some who are in literal sewage dumps. But he has no reason to feel guilty about it. Providence has put him where it put him.
When we came to the end of the Shut-ins, there was a trail marked with blue blazes going up along a ridge line. With a little prodding I got M to follow me up. Not being sure if it was a loop trail or just a trail going on for miles into the wilderness, we got to a high point and turned back and went down and back to the Shut-ins trail.
There were a handful of people starting to show up as we were heading back out. Our timing couldn’t have been better. We hiked back to the spot where we had left out bikes, and rode back to the campground.
It was time to load up and head to our next stop along the way – the Canal Campground, a Kentucky State Park Camp ground in the area known as the Land Between the Lakes. It was a pleasant, uneventful drive.
We arrived at the campground around 4. The signage was a bit confusing as to where you check-in and where you pass through. Nevertheless, not being one to be shy about asking strangers for help, some folks got us pointed in the right direction. I found the camp hosts and they were very friendly and helpful.
Our camp spot was on the Hill Loop, number 81. The pictures I saw of it on the Rec.Gov app were a little deceiving. Or I should say they were taken from the most favorable vantage point. Not that the site itself was bad, but the pictures made it look like it was right on the lake. It wasn’t. Not far away, but not right on the lake either.
We backed in and got set up in no time. We did a little walk-about and then had dinner. There is a little town not far away – about two miles. There is a Dairy Barn eatery there with ice cream and M thought we should walk there and get some.
The walk was uphill both ways. Seriously hilly. And the sun was setting. We got there, got our ice cream which was what we suspected it would be, which was soft serve ice cream served by teens who were not living their best life at that moment.
It was a cute little town.
On the walk in we saw around 15 deer in someone’s front yard right along the road. The owner, we suspect, must be feeding them. They seemed to like that yard because though they trotted off when we stopped to observe, they were back when we returned.
We also crossed a bridge, beneath which it appears to be an abandoned rail line with long stretches of abandoned rail cars on several parallel tracks. M suggested it might make a good picture. I think she was right. I took a few. I think if I could have done it from a different angle, down there on the tracks, but they came out okay anyway.
We are learning as we go about campgrounds. They each have their own character and the type of campers that go to them. This one was populated by older people who it seems spend a lot of time there. I suspect some of them camp there all summer, or a least for many weeks, based on the amount of effort they put into decorating up their camp site. This one is also golf cart heaven.
Everyone it seems brings a golf cart and tootles around on them. They take them into that little town in the evening for dinner or desert. They ride them to one another’s camp sites and hang out together in the evening. It is quite the community.
There wasn’t much else for us to do there. It was just a stop over for the night. Not a bad one, mind you. A pleasant evening, a shower, a good night sleep. And then on to our main destination.
