Blue Skies and Yellowcake

This weekend we went to a park and celebrated my step-dad's 70th birthday—which sounds suspiciously like... exactly what we did last weekend.

But, this time there were toads and derelict bridges; so, don't bail on this installment of our mildly-riveting-albeit-sometimes-redundant lives just 'cause you think you've been here before; capisce?

The Hollow Darkness

There's a park right around the corner from me called Dark Hollow Park. It's roughly the size of Texas, and I've been trying to figure out how the heck to actually get into it since circa 2002...

(Like, casually: I've never put serious time or resources into it; I could just never find a definitive answer on Google, or the county's Parks and Rec page, or anywhere else.)

...but I recently found an answer on Alltrails.com! Apparently, you have to take York Road into Jamison, turn onto Old York Road (at the Big Brothers Big Sisters), and just before the closed bridge over the creek is a parking lot that can hold five, maybe six cars...

All in all, we barely scratched the surface of this park; but, since it was our first time here, I decided we'd travel east toward the old Mill Road bridge (not the stone one in these pictures; another one).

Turns out there was plenty to see on the way there...

Toadal Recall

The place was crawling with toads. Athennia and I were cool with that, because we think toads are awesome; but, if you have bufonophobia, you might want to stay away.

Keep America Beautiful

As an anarchist, I spend a fair amount of time contemplating ethics (specifically, ethics in the absence of coerced authority). Public but secluded places like parks provide interesting testing grounds to see what sorts of things different types of people do when they have perceived anonymity.

We found all sorts of little niceties—like a remarkable lack of litter, and stepping stones strategically placed across narrow sections of the creek and in muddy areas.

But, of course, there's always that handful of schmucks that don't seem to care that they're living in a society...

Some jerk let his dog poop on the trail... and it looked like some other jerk is letting his factory poop on the trail—which is really kind of risky with all those toads hopping around...

Man, you'd think that factory-owner never saw Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 as a little kid!

Eiffel Power

We encountered some power lines, along with a utility pole that looked like it's just going to give up at any moment.

My brain presented me with "Eiffel Power" as I was writing this post, and I was quite impressed at my own cleverness until I remembered that it's the Tower of Pisa that leans—not the Eiffel Tower... So, it would seem that my knowledge of European tourist traps is severely lacking.

Imagine my embarrassment.

Getting back to TMNT2, I'll point out that knocking over utility poles is classic Tokka and Rahzar behavior in that film—which makes me think that, like, bionic battle toads and radioactive beavers are probably already roaming the park...

All because someone let his factory poop wherever it wanted.

At any rate, I think a lot of Netflix subscribers will soon be streaming in an entirely different sense—because this pole is gonna funk someone's Monday at some point, for sure.

The Haunted Mill Road Bridge!

At long last, we finally reached the Mill Road bridge—which Kelly and I used to drive over for fun in the middle of the night (way back in our high-school days, because it was creepy as hell when we were tykes).

It's been closed to vehicular traffic for well over a decade now... and, in the daylight, it's decidedly more surreal and beautiful than creepy...

Believe it or not, there were zero hauntings. <shrug>

What's in a Name?

I spent the entire hike musing that it should've been called Toad Park or Abandoned Bridge Park instead of Dark Hollow Park, since there seemed to be toads and abandoned bridges in droves; but, we hadn't really encountered the advertised dark hollow...

It wasn't until we got home and showed each other the photos we'd taken that I realized we did in fact capture a number of "dark hollows."

There was also this fascinating little habitat inside a dark-hollowed-out log, with mosquito larvae swimming in the water...

It kinda looks like the Mother-Buddha face revelation in Incantation; doesn't it? So, if we're covered in runes when you see us at Thanksgiving, you'll know why ;)

Artsy-Fartsy...

You know the drill: It wouldn't be a trip to a park if we didn't take an obnoxious amount of artsy-fartsy shots. We just have to decide who gets to be Artsy and who has to be Fartsy...

Artsy (Kevin's Pics)

Fartsy (Athennia's Pics)

Post-Parkum Digression

After Dark Hollow, we came home for lunch, baked a batch of sugar cookies, caught up on the backlog of videos in my news-feed aggregator, and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening relaxing.

When we started getting hungry again just before 9:00 P.M., we spent a few minutes considering lesser options before readily agreeing on Qdoba.

You probably neither want nor need a picture of that; but, here's one anyway...

Ron's 70^th Birthday

On Sunday, we celebrated my step-dad's actual birthday. (His surprise party was last weekend to throw him off.)

Athennia and I drove over to Morrisville to get Riley... and gave her a heads-up that her #1 fan would be waiting for her when we got to my parents'...

Then we all loaded up on takeout from Taormina's in Richboro before devouring a healthy amount of yellowcake. (As far as I know, no one has developed superpowers from the yellowcake... yet. But, it was tasty regardless. We made a pretty decent dent in it.)

Olivia did try to invoke a thunder god though...

Believe it or not, there was no thunder god. <shrug>

And finally, here's a pic of Riley and me. (I know she hates being in photos, so I tried to spare her the agony.)