Peaceful Summer Day

Today felt like a weekday in the park. It definitely did not seem like a holiday weekend. I don't know if word has not yet spread that the spring is open again or if gas prices are keeping people closer to home, but the park was not as busy as I expected it to be all weekend. I didn't have anyone in the park at all until 10:45 am (we open at 8am) and even then it was just a few people. It worked out great for park visitors expecting crowds though. Everyone was pleasantly surprised at the peacefulness in the park today.
I did a walk through of the park first this morning to make sure it was ready for visitors. I was greeted by a Green Heron at the spring... well, he didn't exactly greet me, in fact he moved along in the opposite direction of me. I got a few photos, but none where crisp. This was the best one, the heron is in the middle of the photo, at the water line (look for the yellow legs).
At the river, I was happy to see that the spring is pushing out even farther than yesterday! The dark river water is almost all the way out. I had a bit of garbage to pick up by the river this morning. It seemed like we may have had some boaters in yesterday evening that didn't pick up after themselves. I first spotted some Mountain Dew cans and when I got closer to pick them up I also found bloody cotton balls... yuck. Thank goodness for garbage grabbers, I didn't have to touch anything! A little further down, I found a no longer inflated dragon toy. Its not everyday that I find a dead dragon by the spring. Oh, summer has arrived. I was also finally able to get to an area where the flood waters had deposited a lot of garbage. I wasn't able to reach it until today because of the water. I don' t like seeing so much trash left behind, but a full garbage bucket gives me a great sense of accomplishment.
After my walk, I headed in to the air conditioning to get the paperwork done. I had enough time to answer e-mails, send some e-mails, and return phone calls. I even took care of a few things on Monday's To Do List! After finishing all of that I STILL didn't have any park visitors. I decided to update a kiosk in the picnic area and make new signs to replace ones that had outdated information. I found that the kiosk has become a suburb of Troy Springs State Park! I found that a total of 4 crickets, 1 cockroach, 1 wasp, 1 green anole (lizard), and 1 spider have taken up residency in the kiosk. Everyone can stay except for the wasp, he will be served with eviction spray tomorrow. That particular type of wasp gives me a terrible reaction if I am stung.
After completing the kiosk project, I finally had some vehicles pulling into the parking lot. I still had the stapler in my hand from hanging the sign in the kiosk and one park visitor asked me if state budget cut backs made it so that I couldn't carry a gun, if I was given only a stapler for defense. We had a good laugh about that and he even took a photo of me with the stapler. The afternoon continued with a similar tone. More friendly people drifted in and we even had a few divers today. I enjoy watching their bubbles float to the surface.