Good Spirits Here

Serendipity in our pull-through site

It’s funny how different places “strike” you.  You arrive at a place and immediately it feels homey, or immediately you feel uncomfortable. This happens time after time after time.

Much of my life I’ve felt rather like an empath.  I tune into things other people don’t seem to notice, care about, be aware of. Which is ok by me.  I don’t mind, and they don’t either.  But it’s strange sometimes that I will have agreeable dreams in some places every night; and not so agreeable dreams in other places every night.  I know it’s not my psyche.  I’m tuning into something quite other than that.

A lovely lake with an killer swimming area!

This is Norfolk Lake and it’s really a beautiful place.  The lake surrounds the campground on three sides for awesome views.

When my dad died at home, he was the last of three family members who had passed in that building.  I told the family that there were too many ghosts there for me to want to stay, and that was the reason I was putting the apartment complex up for sale.  And in fact, that was how I felt then; and how I still feel today.  I may not believe in ghosts walking the corridors but I am sensitive to the spirit of a place.  There are places I don’t want to be.  I have no logical reason for it; it’s just a fact.  There are people I take an immediate liking to, 0r dislike to — I have no logical reason for it; they just set off good alarms or bad alarms.  And my senses have never let me down.

When we pulled into Cranfield Park I really felt like this was a good place to be;  and two days before when I pulled into Dam West I felt just the opposite.  Why should that be?  Both campgrounds are comparable; the quality of the campgrounds, the cheerfulness of the staff; yet one feels like home, the other doesn’t.  At one I slept like a baby, at the other I was fitful and restless like a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

The campground lies on Lake Norfolk.  This CORPS project secures a 22,000 acre lake with 550 miles of shoreline and 19 different CORPS recreation projects.  It’s a big place. It’s a lovely place.

The 300 mile drive from Dam West to Cranfield was a delight.  We missed St. Louis rush hour, the sun was out to play, the traffic was light and most of the roads were pretty decent.  Construction in the middle of St. Louis, but once we were out of the metro area it was smooth sailing.  Well, smooth sailing until the last 40+/- miles.  That last little section at the end of the day was a bit tricky.

I don’t usually mind narrow roads;  truth be told I didn’t really mind that last section yesterday — it was just a bit narrower, and windier, and hillier than I was wanting at the end of a 300 mile day.  I have found myself thinking differently about this trip — wondering how I would feel if we were doing this trip year after year — is it a route I’d want to repeat; or is it a route I’d want to repeat regularly.  There is another CORPS project lake to the west of us a bit, I wonder if access to it would be easier than that last stretch of road we crossed on our way here?  I’ll have to investigate that!

We haven’t gotten into town yet to investigate — I’m not sure how I’d feel about an extended stay here.  But we’ll see.  I should mention that the roads in this park are wide enough but can be kind of steep in a couple places.  One would do well to exercise a bit of care making a couple of those corner with high center of gravity units.

So, we’re 40% of the way to Los Fresno in 2 days travel.  We have 4 more travel days spread out over a 10 day span — so the trip gets easier from here. No more major cities to travel through;  we’ll skirt around Little Rock (which isn’t a “major” city anyway) and we’ll avoid Houston by taking the Texas ferry from Bolivar and the toll bridge at the S. end of Galveston Island.  ($1.00 toll)  — so should be smooth sailing from here on down.

Thanks for stopping and I’ll be here again tomorrow.  Why not stop and say hi!