The Park in Late November

I spend a lot of time at the park up there above Lebanon.

I love it, especially in the summer when all sorts of people are down at the little beach by the river, kids playing and running, older folk set up in lawn chairs.

The yellow jackets can be a downer though, in later summer, if you have any food or sugary drinks near you.

And sometimes the crowds of people are rowdy, trashy (leaving it everywhere), and rude.  But mostly not.  Mostly people are just trying to get away from otherwise boring or unpleasant lives in the beauty of the park beside the flowing river.

The river water is always cold.  Even in late summer its cold.  People swim in there and I do too, but its cold, not pleasant, unless its 100 degrees out and that kind of cold is ok then.  Otherwise some people go into it in stages to try to acclimate or do it in one jump, then come up yelling from the cold.  Up just a few miles is the reservoir and its warm, at least on the surface.  The water released into the river comes from the bottom of the reservoir.  That must be why its always cold.

I spend a lot of time up there also because people dump cats there all the time.  I try to intervene and get them fixed and out of there.  It is extremely frequent that people dump animals there.  So I keep an eye on that part of it as best I can. I've taken dozens upon dozens of cats and kittens out that park and gotten a lot more fixed that people have with them camping.  Because a lot of homeless folk end up staying there, for the allowed 14 days, in tents or run down campers and RV's, when they have nowhere else.  And they bring their cats and dogs (family).  Usually they need fixed and I try to get that done for them if I can.

I take walks up there and watch the river and the sky too.  Its a nice place.  Not much for walking trails, as the one near the river isn't well maintained and floods when the rain starts.

But at least its somewhere to go that's pretty and there aren't that many places in the county where I live to go and be in nature without driving a long way, or over to Benton County where they do have a lot of trails and nature parks, not just the other kind of parks, like here in this town, an area with neon green grass, sports fields and maybe a bench or two.  Those kinds of parks are useless to me.

Yesterday there were finally breaks in the down pours.  The temperature was warm despite all the rain, which meant unstable air.  We even had more funnel cloud warnings.  We had thunder and lightning.   I took some photos in the park between the rainstorms.  I went up after I returned the Lebanon cats fixed Monday.

The herd of cows across the river navigate down that steep rock bank to drink.  I keep thinking I'll see one of them slip into the river.  They wouldn't be able to get back out, I don't think.  I am not sure its legal to have livestock right by the river because of the pollution it causes.  But its common around here so if isn't legal people get by with it.  I'm happy I've not seen one of the cows fall in, because I don't know what I'd do then, if I did see it.

I came home and later on, went to Walmart.  It was dark and lightning was flashing.  I heard the howl of multiple sirens through the down pour and figured it had to be a big wreck somewhere.  They're common in such storms.  Water creates big pools in spots on the roads, and people keep on speeding, then hit those pools of water and its no good that comes of that.