Chasing clouds

I chased clouds down to the lake Sunday afternoon as temperatures dropped from a noonday high of 55 to about 40 when gale-force winds swept in.

With a surface pool of roughly 11,000 acres under normal circumstances and because of prevailing winds, Rathbun has a summertime reputation as one of Iowa's best sailing lakes. Too much ice and too much rough water for that Sunday, but the force of the wind caught me about here while sliding down a muddy slope toward the shoreline and kind of sailed me into a tree. It seemed much colder than it was.

Earlier, before the big clouds rolled in, Honey Creek inlet had been a good spot to check out water level, of interest because of our season of drought and the fact the Rathbun Rural Water Association supplies roughly 16,000 households (consuming I'm told four inches of lake water annually).

The stable pool should be lapping at the edge of the riprap here, but as you can see it isn't.

A procession of 16 modest ceremonial mounds along a ridge in Honey Creek State Park, dated to the Woodland Period, always catches my eye --- so I stopped to take a look. The wind was picking up, it was getting colder and my light jacket wasn't conserving heat well; didn't stay long enough to follow the trail among them; I'll do that again when spring is closer.

Before leaving, respects to the mighty burr oak that given time and the right circumstances could be my Bodhi tree. For now, however, I remain unenlightened.