New Year, Old Landmark: A Walk Through the Louisiana Purchase State Park

 On New Year's Day, my husband and I decided to go to the Louisiana Purchase State Park.  A friend had cautioned me that it was just a rock in the water, but I had made a resolution to go to at least 10 state parks in 2025 and if you're going to visit the swampy ones, the dead of winter is the time to do it.

We got a later start than intended, and Google maps got a little cocky with the recalibrating.  I realized too late that my husband's car didn't have any state maps and so we quite literally couldn't chart our own course.

But we got there, used the pit toilets at the trail head, and set off on the trail.  The whole thing is a board walk over the water.  

It was around 40 degrees, and so we felt a little chillier out over the water.  There was no breeze, and it was incredibly quiet for the most part.  At one point, we stopped so I could look around for a solid minute to figure out where a noise was coming from (it was a single woodpecker).

We enjoyed learning about how trees like this one can just keep going.

We eventually came to the rock.

We read the signs.  We looked around.  We thought about much as changed. And then we turned back.  I loved the stillness. I took a lot of pictures of the trees and the sky reflected perfectly in the water.  

We talked about how fun it would be to come back in the early spring when the park would be full of life.  

We saw 20 or buzzards slowly circling an area near a service road by the parking lot.  They weren't in any hurry.  We got in our car, noticed the 'check engine' light came on, and headed home.  My feet warmed up after the first hour back in the car.  We'd had other, more ambitious and productive, plans for the day, but we decided to change them.  We ate Taco Bell for dinner and went to bed early.

The next day was filled with work and scheduling an appointment at the mechanic and trying to accomplish our other errands and not being able to.  Amid the frustrations and constantly changing plans, my mind kept drifting back to the cold, quiet swamp with its still waters and tall trees.

The rest of the month has been full.  So many trips back to the mechanic, so many special events at the kid's school to keep up with, so many changes in workplace procedure, and too many cold days that kept us inside and crabby.  But we've also read a lot of books and drank a lot of tea. We stayed healthier than we did in December.  We've burrowed under blankets while the outside world sleeps.  I think we have a lot to look forward to.