Johnson's Shut-Ins

We had another great experience at Johnson's Shut-Ins. We invited Larkin to join us and have some cousin time with the Merrills.  We drove the two-hour trip Monday morning, June 15th and we had perfect weather both days - not too hot, not too chilly. Clouds collected during our Tuesday morning swim and, as we were packing up, it rained on us a little as we walked to our car, but not a drenching rain. And, by the time we were driving home, the rain had stopped. Here are photos:

Larkin and Steve were quite adept at cairn stacking...

This is Steve's:

There were only two things that put a black mark on the whole trip. First was that Steve's and my air mattresses leaked. The camper cabin has only room to sleep 5 or 6 so Steve and I planned to sleep on the large porch on air mattresses. However, by midnight, mine was pretty much flat and Steve's had a slower leak. The electric outlet on the porch didn't seem to work and we didn't want to disturb sleeping bodies by hauling the mattresses back into the cabin to fill them out. SO, I had the brilliant idea of sleeping in the Honda Element (which we chose to drive since it has more room to haul stuff). Both the front and back seats can be made completely flat and I thought we could sleep on the elongated seats. Unfortunately, the seats are not completely even in their flat-ness and Steve's back could only tolerate about 20 minutes of it before he returned to his slowly leaking air mattress.  After he left, I was able to configure my body over the two back seats and I slept there the rest of the night. Not a great sleep, however.  Here is what my bed looked like: 

The other black mark - SNAKES! Monday there was a water snake sunning on a rock by the far shore and also swimming in the shallowest swim pool. Happily, it kept to itself but it was back again Tuesday morning. And, Monday evening, as Ryan and Ivan were walking down the cement path to the bathrooms, they encountered a copperhead!!!! And, it was in strike mode. When Larkin, Steve and I went to the bathrooms a little later, we avoided the cement path and chose the road and Steve and Larkin saw another snake in the road. It was getting dark so we don't know if it was the same copperhead or not. Here is the photo Ryan took: 

HORRIFYING. We are going to the Shut-Ins again in August with the Southerlands and this might just be my last year to go.