Meador Manor

A change is gonna come

Posted on April 18, 2016 by Granger Meador

April 18, 2016

Sam Cooke’s old song, “A Change Is Gonna Come” is playing in my head these days. Not merely because of the struggles our nation still has with race, but because of the remarkable progress we have made in our treatment of gay people and other minorities. America grows ever more inclusive even as it struggles with political polarization, income inequality, and other troubles. But this post is about different sorts of changes that are most certainly gonna come.

A digital, rather than a political, revolution

Cell phones are often a distraction in the classroom

Change is also quite evident in the impact of modern digital technology on our lives. The smart phone’s tremendous computing power, coupled to the mobility enabled by the cellular phone network, puts the world at our fingertips almost anywhere. But despite ingenious and powerful instructional uses, cell phones are still more of a distraction than an instructional tool at school. Their size and design promote content consumption, not content creation, and they are ill-suited for guided instruction. A larger screen and keyboard are vital to harnessing digital tools for instruction.

Meanwhile, I am dismayed to see my students lugging around bulging backpacks packed with huge textbooks in an era of e-readers and tablet computers. We should be providing our students with personal digital devices designed for school, but I recognize that our woefully underfunded schools could never afford to provide every student with an tablet or laptop computer, let alone support thousands of them. Or could they?

Even amidst our current school funding crisis, with its daily drumbeat of woe, there is hope for positive change. Inexpensive and very-low-maintenance Google Chromebooks could guarantee all students, even ours in Bartlesville, equal access to digital tools that are truly useful in almost every school subject. Our district is being forced to make the same deep cuts as others around our state, but we can still make things better for students and teachers using bond issue technology funds our patrons have already approved. It is illegal to use those funds for salaries, but we can certainly use them for student technology.

Chromebook

So next year we’ll be piloting Chromebooks in the 10-12 English courses at Bartlesville High School as a prelude to a multi-year rollout of a 1:1 computing initiative. Eventually each secondary student in our system will have his or her own Chromebook, taking the place of the traditional textbooks and putting a powerful content consumption and creation device in every student’s hands, all day long.

I’m going to be a part of that change, but not in the way you might expect. While next year I’ll be helping direct and support the Chromebook pilot project at our school, I won’t ever be using the new Chromebooks in my classroom, because after May 2017 I’ll no longer have a classroom. Change is gonna come…in fact, it is already here.

Curtailing my classes in 2016-2017

District newsfeed

Earlier this month budget cuts led to the district not filling the Community Relations Coordinator’s job when she resigned for a job closer to her home. That propelled me into a new job role of District Communications, distributing district news via the district website’s newsfeed and social media. I’ll continue in that role next school year.

Folks have told me for years, “I don’t know how you do all of the things you do in the district and still teach.” They would be right to question how I could still teach four physics classes while I chair two departments, direct a $1.7 million grant to build STEM labs with additional courses at each secondary school, lead our union’s bargaining with the district, create and manage over a dozen websites, and now take on district news and the pilot project of Chromebooks.

The answer is that change is here in the form of a shrinking physics enrollment, the victim of continuing demographic changes. The decline may also reflect the success of the wonderful new STEM courses which I’ve facilitated but not taught. In 2016-2017 our district is going to change that downturn in physics enrollment into an opportunity to focus my physics teaching on three morning classes and free up my afternoons for the new initiatives and all of the other work I do outside the classroom.

Leaving the classroom in May 2017

Looking ahead to 2017-2018, when the 1:1 computing initiative will be taking off, I will have left teaching to occupy a new district administrative position in charge of both Technology and Communication. That position is highlighted on the third slide in an online presentation of district organizational charts for 2015-16, 2016-17, and 2017-18.

So in August 2017 someone else will be teaching physics at Bartlesville High School, ending my 28 year tenure in that role. Fluffy won’t be in the classroom anymore – but she’s often missing anyway, thanks to treacherous catnappers!

2016-2017 will be my last year of teaching physics

Teaching in my old classroom back in 1991

Teaching electrostatics back in 1996

District rally back in 2000; pay has always been a problem for Oklahoma teachers

With Fluffy back in 2000

Having nerdy fun with students

With the Van de Graaff generators in 2013

I’ve had a good, long run teaching physics in this town. I will have taught over 2,600 students by the time I leave the classroom. When I graduated from college and was looking for a teaching position back in 1989, I turned down multiple job offers, holding out for a job teaching physics most, if not all, of the day. My dream came true when the job in Bartlesville opened up, where I could teach five classes of physics using the same curriculum I’d trained under at the University of Oklahoma.

Over the years my physics classes have fluctuated from 4 to 6 sections, with from 78 to 138 students in a given year. For several years our physics enrollment has not been enough to fill out a teaching day; the last year we actually had enough physics enrollment for five sections was 2011. I have avoided having to teach chemistry as a third science course by filling my time with many other duties, primarily the 20 years I have served as the chair of the science department for grades 6-12. But I’ve taken on many additional roles over the years.

The call to serve

Chuck McCauley

I have immense faith and trust in our new superintendent, Chuck McCauley, who I’ve had the pleasure of working with for 15 years in his various administrative positions. He has a vision for change and has asked me to help with two aspects of that vision. With his assurance that he is here for the long haul, I’ve decided to invest the remainder of my career in helping him make those changes happen.

I understand when parents, former students, and my colleagues tell me that my leaving the classroom to become an administrator is bittersweet for them. They know how I have served so long in so many ways, heeding the call to teach while working beyond my classroom to bolster our programs. I can assure them that the call to serve is still there, but now I need to heed a call to serve at another level.

Change is gonna come, because it has to

My work has kept me a very busy bachelor for over a quarter-century. But after this summer I will be 50 years old and married, and I recognize it is time for me to restructure and refocus my career. As I have contemplated my future with Wendy, the changes in our school over the past 27 years, and my retirement in 12-17 years, I realize that I cannot keep doing what I’m doing. I need to allow my professional life to evolve along with my personal one.

Even when I’m thinking back, I’m looking forward

When the end is coming, it is time for a new beginning. There are lots of reasons, admittedly both positive and negative, why I have agreed to leave the classroom after 28 years of teaching. But I am genuinely excited about the new opportunities to come. I know that I can make improvements in how our district communicates and how it uses technology. I know we need to change, and that change is gonna come for us whether we are ready or not. I want to help us to be ready for those changes and help make them happen. Change is gonna come, and I’m gonna be a part of it. The best is yet to come.

Posted in education, physics | 6 Comments

The Super-Deluxe Home

Posted on April 10, 2016 by Granger Meador

April 9, 2016

The clean-up of Meador Manor continues as we race toward the city’s annual Spring Clean-up and Operation Clean House. Our friends the Hendersons will be loaning us their pickup truck in a couple of weeks so that we can haul items to the Phillips 66 parking lot and the Washington County District 2 Barn where Operation Clean House will rid us of accumulated lawnmower oil, a gigantic old CRT computer monitor and old printer, and possibly an old dishwasher. We are grateful to the city, county, and several environmentally responsible companies for making this possible.

Goodwill lets us pay it forward

Then we plan to haul to Goodwill several huge bags of gently used clothes, valances, and bedding, along with various oddball items and unwanted small appliances. Wendy’s family benefited from thrift stores as she was growing up, and she sincerely believes in paying it forward.

The foyer is filling up with items to be donated or disposed of

The Super-Deluxe Home

A second closet has been cleared

Wendy opted to use two standard bedroom closets when she moves in, with me using the walk-in closet off the study for my things, a portable bed, and our luggage. So we cleared out one bedroom closet last weekend, and this weekend we cleared out the other one.

Legos I will pay forward

I had a bunch of Legos I wanted to pay forward, but Wendy did me a favor and let me work elsewhere while she gathered them up into a big bag for Goodwill and disposed of the old beat-up boxes. When I was very little, my parents got me hooked on building things with TOG’L Blocks. Later, my aunts had some old Legos, and they gave them to me after noticing how much I enjoyed playing with them. My parents augmented that with the 135 and 145 Lego sets, so I had perhaps 1,000 pieces which gave me countless hours of enjoyment. After bagging them up, Wendy came to me and asked, “Did you notice the instructions typed onto one of those boxes? Was it for some sort of game?” I had no idea what she was talking about.

So she brought to me what she had found taped inside one of the boxes: Building Specifications for The Super-Deluxe Home. It says a lot about me as a child that I had carefully typed out and taped to the box detailed requirements I had devised for a high-quality Lego house. The architects and contractors who have worked with me over the years on school additions will not be surprised at what follows:

My youthful specifications for The Super-Deluxe Home

The End of Analog

I’m disposing of all of my analog recordings

I’ve written at length before about the evolution from analog to digital storage. I had crammed all of my old phonograph records and cassette tapes into that bedroom closet. We junked the cassettes, along with the last two cassette players, and boxed up all of the vinyl records to give away. At school I have a selection of 78, 45, and 33 1/3 rpm records which I use with old phonographs to illustrate circular motion concepts to my physics students. But at home I will have no more analog sound recordings.

Wendy decided to repurpose the old stereo cabinet, which was also stored in that bedroom closet, for her crafts area in the study. We reworked a wall which once had shelves of paperback science fiction novels to now have the cabinet and deeper shelves. Wendy also is reworking some old cassette storage bins she found in the closet into storage bins for her paints.

She has a real knack for organizing things, and has convinced me to have drawers in another part of the house for commonly used tools, rather than having them stowed in an inconvenient tool box. Here is what her crafts look like when bundled up at her apartment:

Wendy’s crafts bundled up at her apartment

And here is how we’ve changed the scifi corner into a crafts area, although we may wind up shifting things to put her little desk there:

Part of my science fiction collection in 2001

Decluttering the Big Closet

The walk-in closet off the study was cluttered with my clothes and some of the luggage. Before I tackled that closet, I visited Kmart to get a set of plastic drawers and three clear plastic bins, and we had already purchased a large blue plastic bin at Dollar General. The new set of drawers allowed me to gather my socks, various shoe items, and miscellaneous articles. I put that unit up on a side shelf, taking the place of an old plastic shelving unit that was overflowing with underwear. I took apart the old shelving unit, sawing down each of the legs to form two raised shelves I stuck in the built-in shelves at the rear of the closet to organize my casual socks and underclothes. I had some costumes and dress-up props in bags on one corner of the floor and jumbled on a long upper shelf. All of that got organized into the big blue bin. Wendy and I consolidated off-size pants and jeans from another closet into bins on the top shelf of this closet. We wrapped up by culling the clothes I no longer wear. Items that were too old or damaged were disposed of, while gently used items were bagged for donation to Goodwill. And lest some of you who click on the photos for a closer look be left wondering…no, that’s not Fluffy stowed on the top shelf of the closet; she’s in my classroom at BHS. That’s a different cat someone gave me years ago.

No Strut Tube Hangers!

When we were cleaning closets, Wendy professed her dislike for strut tube hangers, although she was infinitely more reasonable about it than Joan Crawford’s take on wire hangers as portrayed in Mommie Dearest. I’ve never been fond of them either, so we got rid of them. For decades I’ve been using open end hangers for my pants, along with some newer velvet hangers, but for far too long I have tolerated a bunch of open end hangers with little end caps that would fly off. It was time to fix that annoyance. So I ordered some new hangers that won’t shed parts and put the others into the donation pile.

Pants hangers, good and bad

The Hidden Hoard

The partners desk

The study has a 60″ x 50″ walnut partners desk my father gave me when I moved into Meador Manor. Over a quarter century later, it will actually become a partners desk, with Wendy and I each using one side of it. This big piece of furniture can hide many items, so for years I’ve had a hoard of bags, electronics, and file boxes of newspaper clippings hidden behind it and a big bin of electronics cables and parts stashed in the legwell. It was time to clean out that hidden hoard.

Wendy was amused by the electric typewriter behind the desk. I refused to part with it, although I did shed all of the other obsolete technology stowed back there. The newspaper clippings went as well, since I now rely on online sources. That freed up enough space that the big bin of electronics parts and cables could be shifted back there along with a few other items. Wendy plans to put a trash can back there for her side, since she does a lot of school paperwork at home. She also needs space for her printer and its supplies.

Other Stashes

Wendy and I also went through the foyer closet, piling unwanted coats into the donation pile and discarding a bunch of unused hats. Wendy has been gracious to spend days helping me clean up the house. We’ve cleaned four closets and a bank of cabinets and drawers and decluttered the study. The only spots left to deal with are the kitchen and a closet and a corner shelving unit in the garage; Wendy already organized another shelving unit out there. It looks like we’ll be ready for the April 23 hauling day, having sacrificed multiple weekends of good hiking days and foregoing visiting friends or watching movies. Hopefully we can hit the trails and visit friends in Tulsa during May before we have to move Wendy out of her apartment in June.

Wendy has already decluttered her apartment

Wendy’s apartment is already decluttered; she is less of a hoarder than I am. Her philosophy on clothes is, “If I haven’t worn it in two years, it needs to go.” And I know she won’t have much trouble discarding her accumulated coffee creamer and coffee cans, even though she grew up in a family that never threw anything away. Wendy’s folks inherited their hoarding habits from their own parents, who had lived through the Great Depression. Although my mother was born during the Great Depression, she was too young to remember more than its aftermath, while my father was an impressionable young boy throughout those hard times. So the fact that I’m only one, rather than two, generations removed from that experience is my flimsy excuse for the mess we’ve had to clean up at the Manor. The Manor certainly isn’t yet Super-Deluxe, but we’re working on it.

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A Manor for Two Meadors

Posted on April 5, 2016 by Granger Meador

April 5, 2016

The Manor That Is Not

I’ve always referred to my abode in Bartlesville as Meador Manor, but the name is simply alliterative fun, since my property is hardly a manor. A typical English medieval manor estate was 1,500 acres or about two square miles; my quarter-acre lot in Arrowhead Acres is about six thousand times smaller. And my residence is about 1.4% the size of Highclere Castle, the setting for Downton Abbey on PBS. That’s why I’ve been able to manage it on my own for the past 21 years without the 42 servants that Highclere Castle had in its heyday. Mind you, while I run the vacuum cleaner now and then, I certainly don’t dust enough to meet the standards of an Edwardian manor house. The lack of a gardener is also evident in how I’ve only kept one bed of hardy shrubs, Nandinas, and striped grass alive out front, and my typical yardwork consists of little more than 40 minutes of pushing a mulching mower over the fescue and bermuda grass…and picking up after the big messy River Birch in the front yard.

That’s Meador Manor, which would be a gatehouse at a real manor

Yard Plantings

Tulips around the mailbox

But in three months my bachelorhood will come to an end. Wendy has already started improving the back yard, which now has three rose bushes, including one in a raised bed we built. It is a certainty that she will be planting many more in the years to come. Last winter she planted tulips around the mailbox and by the porch, and they’ve been brightening things up around here. Recently she gave me a pot of marigolds to keep by the porch as well, knowing that while I love them, mosquitoes hate them.

New brushed nickel bathroom faucet

Newfangled Faucets

But the yard is not the only part of the manor that is being improved. I’ve added some lights around the mirror and some additional cabinets in what will become her bathroom, and I’ve replaced the faucets for the bathroom and kitchen sinks with brushed nickel ones that don’t leak.

Clearing Closets

We’ve cleared out one closet thus far

Lately we’ve been tackling the issue of clearing space for her clothes and other items. We’ve decluttered a wall of cabinets and drawers in the living room, which had already shed almost 400 CDs and DVDs a few years back in my digital downsizing project. This weekend we cleared out one of the two closets she will be using for her personal items.

Bequeathing Books

The biggest unloading has been the study, which was built as the master bedroom. We’ve decided to keep it as a study, since we both do a lot of work from home and she needs a place for her crafts. But my study was loaded, and I do mean loaded, with books. Years ago I mounted shelves on three of the four walls which held over 1,150 books with another 100 or so stored in a closet. A few years ago I sold off and donated almost 200 books in the digital downsizing project, but there were still far too many old books in there.

So we got a bunch of boxes and went to work. In the end, we packed up over 700 books into a couple dozen boxes that I dropped off today at the public library. I’m down to less than 350 books total, so I’ve culled almost 3/4 of the collection, and now most of it fits into the beautiful wood sectional bookcases my parents gave me a few years back. The shots below compare 2001 to today.

Some of the 33 bookshelves that once lined my study

Sectional bookshelves

Since I prefer to read novels on a Kindle these days, I didn’t mind getting rid of almost all of them, including hundreds of science fiction tomes. A few dozen favorites survive, including all of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novels. I also rid myself of most of my histories on science, technology, and engineering, as I doubt I would ever feel the need to re-read them. But I kept everything by my heroes Stephen Jay Gould, Martin Gardner, and Carl Sagan, along with all of Bill Bryson‘s works, both hilarious and informative.

Part of my science fiction collection in 2001

Empty scifi shelves

Computer desk with big books, Starfleet, and other toys

That Which Survives

My Star Trek book collection survives intact, and I used a couple of remaining shelves to house my fleet of U.S.S. Enterprises and other toys. If Wendy still had her Barbie collection, she says it would compete with my Enterprise fleet. All of the “picture books” with large plates of art and photography were kept, since the Kindle and its like don’t yet do such images justice. I also kept most of my books on music and movies as well as all the hiking and travel books. Some reference volumes, such as those on local history, were also retained.

Vanquished Valances

The color valances of the study when I moved in back in 1994

1981’s hideous valances in the study back in 1994 when I moved in

Years ago a visitor remarked that my home’s decor was “stuck in the 80s”. Meador Manor was built in 1981 at the tail end of an oil boom that went bust. The decor of the home still reflects its origins. It still has wall-to-wall carpet that looks like you blended an orange with some salmon. When I took over in the mid-1990s, every window had metal mini-blinds topped with valances. I like the blinds, and have steadily replaced them as they wore out with identical ones, except for substituting light-filtering cellular blinds in the study for consistent soft daylight. Most of the original valances were vivid floral patterns, which I thankfully replaced years ago with dark solids. But the bay window in the dining room has always sported a country blue balloon valance.

I had to work on that valance once while cleaning it, discovering that parts of it were stuffed with 1981 newspapers. The dining room decor had the most shortcomings of any room to Wendy. She doesn’t care for the wallpaper, hates balloon valances in general, and we agreed that the chandelier needed adjustment. This weekend we took down the old valance and disposed of it, and wired the chandelier up higher to provide more headroom. The narrow pub table will eventually be replaced by a larger round table. The new look is more severe, which the round table will relieve a bit, and there is a lot more north light coming in now.

Original Balloon Valance in Dining Room

Valances removed and chandelier raised

We also took down a Spanish Revival wooden conquistador spoon decoration which gave Wendy the creeps.

The Creepy Conquistador

Redecorating

I don’t feel like I’ve changed the look of the Manor much over the years. When I repainted the exterior, I kept the color scheme the same, and on the interior I still have the original 1981 carpet, paint, and wallpaper. Many wall decorations have been in place for years. So is this place frozen in time? While scouring my computer for old photos for this post, I came across a set of 2001 inventory photos. I was surprised that more furnishings than I would have guessed had changed over the past 15 years; only a few major pieces are unchanged. Neither I nor my wallet were surprised to note that not a single piece of electronic technology is the same. The television, stereo, speakers, computer, monitor, printers, and scanner have all been replaced, and some are a few generations removed from what I used 15 years ago. So the Manor does evolve, and I’m looking forward to hanging on the walls some of Wendy’s art projects, which I admire, and I’m glad we’re clearing out the dust, cobwebs, and junk.

I’m clearly in the mood for change as I sneak up on my 50th birthday: I’ll be getting married and changing my job role in the coming years (more on the latter still to come). So cleaning up, clearing out, and updating the Manor, inside and out, is fine by me. Nothing lasts forever…and I’m very glad I’ll be sharing the Manor with Mrs. Meador in a few months.

Posted in books, gardening, home repair, photos, random | 1 Comment

Told Tales, Part 2: The Life You Save May Be Your Own

Posted on March 5, 2016 by Granger Meador

March 5, 2016

Meador Post During our Spring Break in 2015, Wendy and I were snuggled in a cabin in the Ozarks when she read to me “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” by Flannery O’Connor.

The title is taken from the road safety signs that once adorned roadside billboards across rural America. Ad man Robert S. Walstrom coined the phrase in 1931, and O’Connor borrowed it for her Southern Gothic tale.

O’Connor’s works examine life through the lens of her Roman Catholic faith and often feature grotesque and freakish characters. She once wrote:

Whenever I’m asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one.

Flannery O’Connor

“The Life You Save May Be Your Own” tells of the intersection of desolate older Lucynell Crater and her deaf-mute daughter with the tramp Tom T. Shiftlet. The names hit you over the head: shiftless Shiftlet confronting the empty Craters. The color imagery is strong and clear: Shiftlet’s black suit, Crater’s gray hat, and the daughter’s “long pink‑gold hair and eyes as blue as a peacock’s neck.” Shiftlet paints a car green, but then adds a band of cowardly, sickly yellow.

Flannery once wrote:

When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs you do, you can relax and use more normal means of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock — to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures.

A particularly strong figure at the start of the tale introduces Shiftlet:

He turned his back and faced the sunset. He swung both his whole and his short arm up slowly so that they indicated an expanse of sky and his figure formed a crooked cross.

Shiftlet’s opportunity for grace is heightened by additional Christ imagery, including his occupation as a carpenter. But when he sees a chance to acquire the car, “In the darkness, Mr. Shiftlet’s smile stretched like a weary snake waking up by a fire.” He squanders the offerings and the storm clouds build. He is cut off from the sun, and we know that means from the Son as well. His prayer that the Lord would “Break forth and wash the slime from this Earth!” is answered by raindrops pelting down upon his car as he races towards Mobile.

But this is a story with much more than stark imagery, for it is laced with black humor. There is the daughter following Tom about, babbling “Burrttddt ddbirrrttdt” and clapping her hands. There is the old woman offering a car for Tom to sleep in, and, when he says the monks of old slept in their coffins, her reply, “They wasn’t as advanced as we are.”

Wendy had read to me a story overflowing with symbols of all sorts, an evocative and harrowing tale of bartering, betrayal, and bluster. I responded over time with a few favorite stories by another master of imagery, Ray Bradbury. Those will be the subjects of the next installment of this series of posts on our Told Tales.

Posted in short stories, Told Tales | 1 Comment

Return to Sparrow Hawk Mountain

Posted on February 27, 2016 by Granger Meador

Hike Date: February 21, 2016 | SLIDESHOW | PHOTO MOSAIC

On a sunny and warm Sunday afternoon in February 2016, Wendy and I decided to return to Sparrow Hawk Mountain near Tahlequah. We’d thoroughly enjoyed a five-mile hike there the previous April, and I was interested in exploring some of the side trail loops we had skipped on that initial outing, while Wendy was looking forward to a workout in the woods. The elevation changes on the trail certainly provided some exercise on what turned out to be a 3.8 mile hike.

Sparrow Hawk Mountain Trail Tracks

Before we had headed out to Tahlequah, Wendy and I checked that our state fishing licenses were in our packs, knowing that one can face a hefty fine for hiking at Sparrow Hawk Mountain without a fishing or hunting license or a wildlife conservation pass. In fact, a woman had run up to our car at the trailhead, having heard about the fines and asking for verification of the issue; she decided her group would forgo a hike since they lacked licenses. As it turned out, Wendy and I hiked on invalid licenses. I had presumed they were good for a year and would last until April 2016. But when I happened to pull out my license at a stop along the hike and actually read it, I was chagrined to discover that the licenses are for the calendar year only and had expired at the end of 2015. Thankfully no game wardens were present to fine us or the other hikers, many of whom may have similarly lacked valid licenses.

We drove 45 miles south to Tulsa for lunch at Spaghetti Warehouse before driving 47 miles east on US Route 412 and then 26 miles southeast on Oklahoma Highway 82 and through Steely Hollow over to Sparrow Hawk Mountain, which lies a few miles northeast of Tahlequah.

There were quite a few cars at the trailhead, and we climbed the initial steep ascent and regularly encountered fellow hikers throughout the hike, except on the side loops and on a bushwhack we made off one of those loops. Many were college students from Northeastern State University, including a very tall male basketball player escorting a rather short girl. I smiled, thinking how she would need to stand on her own shoulders to snatch a kiss from him. I’m grateful Wendy and I are not so mismatched in height.

Above the Illinois River

Binghams Trail

We reached the high spot above the Illinois where the trail heads north along the mountainside for great river views. Soon we reached the south entrance to Binghams Trail, a side loop constructed by Green Country Cyclists. It was a pleasant diversion and included an accurate mile marker sign.

Eventually it looped back to the main trail, not far south of the popular overlooks on the Illinois. Young lovers were out on the slopes down below the trail, enjoying the views and each other. Wendy and I had already descended down the bluffs back in April for the vistas, so we just stopped for a snack up on the main trail.

We headed on north, both of us suffering from strong allergies in the warm winter air. I even saw a fly and some gnats on the hike, unwelcome reminders that our mild winter means the insects will be out in force this spring. We eventually reached the entrance to the other major side trail, this one marked only by a couple of crossed limbs. So I’ve termed that loop the X Trail. Like Binghams Trail, it heads eastward along the top of the mountain before turning north and then returning west to the main trail.

X Trail

Wendy was enjoying hunting for pretty rocks with crystals throughout our hike, so when I spotted a large stony wash down below, we bushwhacked down to it in case some interesting rocks had washed down. While it wasn’t a lode of crystal rocks, the rocky bed of the dry hollow was interesting to traverse.

Down in the wash

Bushwhacking our way back up the hillside, we passed a violently ripped tree. Back on the trail, we came across a ROTC wayfinding marker, and I posed by a large tree trunk gall.

Such gall

The Illinois

It was warm enough and our allergies severe enough that I decided to not continue northward to Sparrow Hawk Village. We turned back along the main trail, I took a final shot of the Illinois, and we made a final diversion along a side route down to the trailhead. It had been great to be out and about, even with our drippy noses. It is a long haul at school between the winter and spring breaks, and Wendy and I are eagerly looking forward to getting away to Sugar Ridge Resort at Beaver Lake in Arkansas in the middle of March.

SLIDESHOW | PHOTO MOSAIC