Saturday, November 13, 2010 - Meramec State Park, Sullivan MO
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Suspended Animation, Spider Egg Sac, Red Rock, East Chatham NY, July 20, 2010
Time for a break
Spending so many hours traveling and thinking about traveling gets old after a few days. St Louis and the Mississippi are behind me. This is a nice park. It's quiet here. The sun is shining. The river is running. I think I'll stay an extra night and settle some mud.
Night camp
Site 45C - Meramec State Park, Sullivan MO
- The Missouri State Parks website introduces the park with: "The beauty of the Meramec River and its surrounding bluffs, caves and forests have pleased visitors since the park opened in 1927. In 1933, the craftsmen of the Civilian Conservation Corps began blending a variety of visitor facilities into the park's rugged landscape."
- Verizon cell phone is weak.
- Verizon Broadband service is available here with an amplifier.
- Locate Meramec State Park on my Night Camps map
- Check the weather here
Crayfish Chimney
Late one afternoon I sat upon my camera case beside the path where it wound through the darkest part of the woods, down near the pond, and watched a crayfish building his "chimney," the land entrance to his underwater tunnel. He had just started to work above the ground when I first arrived. He came up through the moist black earth, carrying a ball of it between his two enormous fighting claws. Using the claws as hands, he spread the soil around the hole to form the base of the chimney. He then backed down the hole and after several minutes came up with another armful.