Saturday, April 17, 2010

Last Blast of Winter (I Hope)

Fins and Feathers hosted an event today at the Silver Lake Park. It's a great location - nice facilities and pavilion and everything. They provided food and good company - however - the weather was the absolute worst ever for April! The temperature was in the thirties, and the wind was fierce! There were gusts up to 30 mph.

So there we stood, in the pavilion, with no sunshine anywhere, and a very cold blustery wind. It was the kind of picnic where you have to anchor everything down with stones. Surprisingly, it was quite well attended, and the kids really enjoyed the playground. The adults were shivering in their stocking caps and mittens.

Well, you can have a good time if you've a mind to, and there were lots of interesting people to "meet and greet". I lasted for an hour, and then I sat in the car with the engine running. My parents didn't raise any stupid children! The radio said that the wind chill was 29. Dick bailed out about 40 minutes later and shivered all the way home.

After we had thawed out and rested a bit, we went for a ride. At one point, up ahead, it looked like smoke was blowing across the road - but guess what. It was snow! Boggling! The car thermometer said 45 degrees, but yet we had a miniature blinding snow event.

We were out checking coordinates for Emma's Shrine and the Barnum Cemetery - a very interesting afternoon. We're trying to delve into the history of the Barnum Cemetery and Mayfield in general. Rumor has it that Albert Starr Barnum, who donated the land for the cemetery, was the brother of P.T. Barnum, but we can't find any proof of it anywhere.

Emma's Shrine has been all cleaned up, and all of the trinkets and stuffed animals that people have left are now gone. The cleaner-upper left a note in our cache box saying please don't put any more trash on the grave. Maybe she thought they were our things. She very cheekily removed the urn and the flowers that had been hiding the cache, and just left the cache container sitting on the ground. We were glad we stopped by to rescue it. It has been relocated and enabled, and GeoPirates have already found it!

It was late when we got home, so we did Chinese take-away from the new China Lee at Chum's Corners. They do a really nice job. We couldn't eat it all, so we're having Chinese tomorrow too!