BM's Boggy Adventure & BG Pix! Updated 8/30/'25!

[Boggy Man]

My September 7'th, 2024 Adventure, Part 7 (Click Here For The Beginning With More Pix)!

More dramatic boggy vidcaps:

2024 09 07 2ZE Crescent Vidcap 5.jpg

2024 09 07 2ZF Crescent Vidcap 6.jpg

2024 09 07 2ZG Crescent Vidcap 7.jpg

2024 09 07 2ZH Crescent Vidcap 8.jpg

Once I worked myself up high enough, I turned around, and pulled myself towards the floating grass on the east side, moving the mud bunching up in front of me to behind me. Then, I turned around and lifted my butt onto the grass, and continued to wipe the mud off my body. I worked my legs out and wiped the thicker stuff off my legs and feet. I then tried to push the mud off the grass I had been sitting on back into the bog, before heading back towards the pond, moving through between two of the shorter sticks in my "cage". I quickly cleaned off my hands in the water, before walking around the north side of the bog to the west side to locate the camera, which was hard to see through my muddy, foggy goggles. I fumbled around with the controls, trying to press the record button to stop it. I pressed the area a few times, before turning the camera off, then on and off again.

2024 09 07 2ZI Crescent Vidcap 9.jpg

To Be Concluded...

[Boggy Man]

My September 7'th, 2024 Adventure, Part 8, The Conclusion (Click Here For The Beginning With More Pix)!

Now, it was time to clean up. I headed back into the water, and this time, there was a warm, solar-heated layer on top! So, I was able to immerse my head and clean myself from the top down, taking off my swim goggles, cleaning them and setting them on a nearby yellow waterlily leaf north of me that was strong enough to support its weight without sinking, before cleaning my face better. After cleaning my arms and front, having to rub hard to remove the brown film stuck to my skin, I had to exit the pond to take the swim goggles over to a bush to hang. Then, I continued to clean myself off the same way as before, using "Nature's Scrub-brush" to scrub my back, and removing my junk shorts and the string, cleaning them as well, before hanging them on some of the sticks on the west side of my bog. Once I was all clean, I air-dried and warmed up, walking around the more western part of the meadow further away from the water where it was drier and warmer, and then going for a walk to the clearing by my bike to the north of the pond, where it was even drier, and as a result, even warmer yet. Then, I headed back to my spot, all dry and mostly warmed up, but couldn't wait any longer! I put my swim cap back on so that my hair wouldn't dip into the mud, and I was ready to have my final (non-submergence) sink of the day/season!

I returned to the bog and jumped into the middle, facing west, landing up to my lower chest in the soft ooze! I then began to struggle, and slowly sank down deeper and deeper, enjoying the feel of it around me! I kept trying to reach for solid ground, but it was out of reach. The sucking mire slowly rose over my shoulders, closing over them, and then rose up to around my mouth. I struggled a while more, without getting any full stimulation, before finally working myself back higher, and moving around the bog, pushing any remaining sprouting vegetation under the bog. Some water was pooling on the surface where I wasn't at, and the mud was exposed around me where I was at. At one point, I also exited on the north side and then crawled southward on top of the mud to the center, struggling a little bit before standing up again. Finally, I exited the bog on the east side, wiping the mud off my body as I went, and then tried pushing it off the grass where I had exited, back into the bog.

I was now finished with my final sink of the season, and returned to the pond to clean up one final time, going through the same routine as before. I hung my swim cap on a branch, and air-dried, happy that it was still nice and warm, something I haven't enjoyed over recent years at this time of year! In fact, this was one of the warmest air masses we have had in early September in recent memory, something more typical in mid-July! Once I was dry, I got dressed, and got most of my things together, but never bothered to check out my video there, because I felt it was getting late. I had also changed my camera's screen size back to the original format, and took one last photo of my bog:

2024 09 07 2ZJ Crescent.jpg

I swapped the memory cards in my camera, and finished putting everything away. I then took one final look at my bog, before heading back to my bike, where I loaded the saddlebags with everything, and headed back up the side trail, and moving my bike under that fallen tree again, to reach the sideroad. As I headed back down the sideroad towards Crescent Road, I came across two grouse (spruce hens), and took a couple of photos of them:

2024 09 07 2ZK Pair Of Spruce Hen Grouse.jpg

2024 09 07 2ZL Pair Of Spruce Hen Grouse.jpg

When I got back onto Crescent Road, I passed my dropoff point around 5:30 pm. On the way back, I scrutinized the sides of the road for Shaggy Mane mushrooms, and sure enough, I found them on the sides of the main road shortly after I left Crescent Road! I managed to pick a half a plastic grocery bag full, carrying it on my my left handlebar, where its swinging made my bike a bit more unstable when I got further down the hill. I found that the handlebars on my new bike were lower than my old bike after all, making it hard to avoid looking up too much going downhill, which made me concerned about my neck pain. I contacted my dad some time between 6:30 and 7 pm, and when I got down into the valley, it seemed to be not as bright as I thought it would be, and there was no sun. It was as if I had misjudged the time of the sunset! But then, I looked to the west, and the sun was still out, but just a red disk! There was a lot of smoke further to the west, which dimmed the sunlight as the sun got lower in the sky! My neck was feeling a bit more sore, but at least it was my final bikeride of the season. When we got home, it was just starting to get darker, relatively the same elapsed time after sunset as my previous bikeride, meaning that I had compensated for the shorter days perfectly! Just as I thought, my mom was happy and disappointed at the same time over the mushrooms, because she loved the shaggy manes, but didn't look forward to the work cleaning them ("Oh wow! Shit."). There turned out to be enough for two meals, one of which we ate the following day, and the other which we froze.

Overall I think that I couldn't have picked a better day for my final adventure! It was the last sunny, hot cloudless day of the year, with the following day being still warm, but overcast, which would have prevented the water from warming up. The air in the mountains was one of the warmest I have seen in recent years at this time of year (actually, we were on the northern edge of a heat wave hitting the western US at the same time)! Previously, I would have trouble with the sun going behind clouds, making things feel chilly, even on a "warm" day in September. This time, I warmed up more quickly, allowing me to have 3 sinking sessions, instead of only two! It was a shame that the heat came to an end, with the weather turning cooler after that. But then, hunting season began 3 days after my adventure, so I didn't feel too bad about it being too cold for sinking up on the plateau after that.

I was happy to see that the mud was nicely exposed, and not still flooded, but I am certain it would have been better yet if we didn't get the 1 1/2 inches of rain between the two adventures. It was thicker than last time, but still not as thick on top as it was deeper down, and water still pooled on top a bit after leaving, but it was nothing like last time, this time with a lot of exposed mud around the sides, which I wished I could have evened out. Because of our wet spring, the condition of the bog that day was roughly the same as it was in early August of last year (2023), when we had hot dry weather start a month earlier, in June. So, the condition of my bog on my final adventure this year was the same as it was on the first adventure last year. Also, my video turned out nicely, with the framed view not shifting this time, unlike last time!

The bugs weren't much of a problem, and I was happy to see fewer leeches than last time. I was also happy to see that the cattle had been rounded up before my outing, so things were quiet there. In fact, it was so quiet that you could hear a pin drop! Just a dead silence, occasionally broken up by the sound of an airplane overhead, and a helicopter, and when I was in the clearing near my bike to the north of the pond, one frog croaking briefly, and a squirrel chattering briefly. On my way back down the road, I did hear a lone cow mooing, that had been left behind during the roundup. There was no one on motorbikes or atv's going up the sideroad, something I had worried about on weekends, but I did encounter some on the main road while heading back to the valley. I was glad that I chose to go on the 7'th instead of the 5'th, since I was too run down from a few days of morning backpack spraying, and didn't want a repeat of the tiredness I experienced in my previous outing. I was well rested for this one, and gave my bog a couple more days for the water level to drop even further! I found my neck soreness got worse several days later, but then quickly subsided. However, my back was bothering me for a while after, before settling down.

It was also my first outing with my new bike, and I felt that the handlebars could still be raised a bit more so I wouldn't have to lift my head up so high going downhill, which had aggravated my neck. I also felt that the bike seemed less stable when carrying a bag of mushrooms than when I did the same thing with my other bike, but then, I have poor recollection of details when I did the same thing in previous years, and I had more mushrooms than in previous years.

Now, I wait until next summer, and hope that water levels drop earlier, so that I can enjoy more boggy adventures than this year. La Niña is starting up this fall, which brings cooler weather with more precipitation, but is expected to die out next spring. I hope it dies out quickly, so that we don't have such a wet spring. But, an earlier start to dryness also brings with it more forest fires and more smoke to reduce the sunshine warming the water/mud. I will just have to wait and see how things go.

[Boggy Man]

My August 11'th, 2025 Adventure, Part 1!

After waiting a little over 11 months, I was finally ready to go on my first adventure of the season on Monday, August 11'th! That day that was forecast to be sunny with a high of 32˚C, or 89.6˚F, but with gusty winds, which had me worried. My brother drove me up into the mountains, and had a close call with a logging truck coming down the hill along the way. We saw a white-tailed deer along the way as well. He dropped me off at a clearing on the south side of Crescent Road just a short distance from my sideroad around 9:30 am. The air still felt a little chilly, with the temperature around 19˚C, or 66˚F, forcing me to put on my hoodie jacket, but knew it was going to be heating up quickly.

After he left, I first headed westward down Crescent Road to glance at the two ponds on the south side, noticing the first being all high water into the grass, and the second one just full of grass, although there was likely still a bit of a pond hidden behind the willows further back. There were cattle prints along the road, and some cow droppings, meaning they were around. I then turned around, and headed back to my sideroad. I decided to walk my bike up the steep first part, before riding it the rest of the way, stopping to look at some small flowers that I was wondering if they were some sort of lobelias. I reached my side trail, and walked my bike down it, having to lay my bike down to get under a fallen tree, and having to be careful not to get scraped by the broken side branches sticking out going under it myself. A little further down, I saw some droppings that looked like it might have come from a bear, which made me a little bit wary.

I dropped my bike off in the shade of some conifers, in the usual place west of a small clearing north of the pond, and got my things out of my saddlebags. I decided to take my lunch with me in case there was a bear in the area, since many years ago, I had my lunch pulled out of my saddlebag by a bear elsewhere, which resulted in me feeling weak and drained from having a full active day running only on breakfast with no lunch. I headed through the alders to the northwest side of the pond, snapping a picture of a white bog orchid along the way, which was past its prime and had lost its cinnamon fragrance. I didn't notice at the time that the camera focused on plants in the background instead, resulting in the orchid being blurry:

2025 08 11 1A White Bog Orchid.jpg

When I reached the pond, I noticed that the water was still up into the grass, which was disappointing. I had hoped the water would be lower. When I reached my spot with my bog, I set my things down in the alders and went over to have a glance at it. The grass on the west side of the bog, which was usually quite solid and above water, was saturated to slightly under water in the low spots between the grass, and unstable. But, I was happy to see that the bog itself was mostly exposed , except for the edges, which were under water.

I returned to my things, switched memory cards in my camera, removed my shoes (or did I do that before) and took the first photos of the bog, the bouncing grass bubbling swamp gas like crazy, which smelled like eggs:

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2025 08 11 1C Crescent.jpg

2025 08 11 1D Crescent.jpg

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2025 08 11 1F Crescent.jpg

After that, I walked to the south side of the pond, noticing that there was no mud exposed anywhere, with the patch of clay on the northwest side of the tiny pond submerged. I headed back, grabbing a large dead alder stick which I broke in half, to add to the ones I surrounded my bog. During that trip, I took one photo of a muddy patch in the grass and rushes:

2025 08 11 1G Crescent.jpg

When I got back, I kept on looking at the exposed mud, trying to decide on what I wanted to do. I sooooo badly wanted to end months of waiting for a stimulating sink, but knew that plunging into the mud would result in water rushing in and covering it up once I exited. But, I also didn't want to go through this outing without making a sinking video. So, I kept on trying to decide what to do. The only solution, which I had done before, would be to have the stimulating sink on one end of the exposed mud, and have the video on the other end, hoping that the first sink would leave the other part intact. I probed the mud on the west side with one stick to see if it was all mud or if there were any water pockets just beneath the surface, fortunately finding that it felt like it was all mud! I had put the other half stick in the ground with the other sticks. It was still feeling a bit cool, so I decided to go for a walk to the other pond with the ring bog that was to the north, and possibly further, depending on how I felt.

I returned to the sideroad, and walked northward up the road, noticing a low spot whose ruts were usually with muddy clay with cattle tracks, was currently full of water. I continued up the road, and looked at more of those flowers, which I was curious about whether they were lobelias. I passed the stream leaving the south side of the ring bog pond before I realized it, and backtracked to have a look. It was all high water, with nothing exposed. So, I continued up the road a tiny ways until the pond was in view through the trees. I saw the water rippling from something swimming, and at first thought it was ducks. But, the ripples were too huge, and then a black figure in the water came into view - a black bear! So, I quickly decided not to go any further, turned around and headed back, hearing splashing noises coming from the pond from the bear exiting the water!

I got back to my pond again, and took a look at the north side, but was unable to get closer than among the alders, because the water was into the grass, and I didn't want to get my shoes wet. I noticed that everything there was submerged as well, and so I carried on.

I got back to my things, and removed my shoes before returning to my bog. I took a photo of a low mucky spot in the grass to the north side of the bog, which looked like a leg could plunge through if I stepped there:

2025 08 11 1H Crescent.jpg

To Be Concluded...

[Boggy Man]

My August 11'th, 2025 Adventure, Part 2, The Conclusion (Click Here For The Beginning With More Pix)!

I then took a photo of a close-up of the exposed patch of treacherous ground I was going to sink into afterwards!

2025 08 11 1I Crescent.jpg

Then, I decided to try and make a short video of the mud undulating by agitating the grass beside it while shooting the video with the camera. Then, I headed to the north side to get a closer look at the water level with bare feet, finding that the patches of mud that were along the stream bed through the grass were all under water. But, I did take one photo of a larger area of mucky ground between the grass on the west shoreline:

2025 08 11 1J Crescent.jpg

After I got back to my things, I was finally starting to feel warm enough to have my first sink of the year! I got undressed and removed my glasses, and headed over to the west side of my bog, with today's theme being "carnivorous ground" in the area that people were being warned about!

Facing east, I took my fateful step, or leap, onto the middle of the western half of the exposed ground, which hungrily gulped me down to my shoulders immediately, the mire farting swamp gas around me! I was happy to see that there really were no water pockets, just looser mud below the surface skin and thicker gooier mud deeper down! I struggled a bit with my arms laying on the surface before finally plunging them below the surface in front of me, which set off even more bog farts! It felt really nice surrounding my body, and I slowly sank myself down deeper and deeper, the surface closing over my shoulders. Because of the high water levels, I refrained from disturbing and mushing the surface around me, otherwise I would be surrounded by a surface layer of water instead of mud. I kept on struggling with my arms and hands beneath the surface, keeping the surface skin intact, the sucking muck rising over my mouth and up to my nose. I never bothered with swim goggles or swim cap, because I felt it was too early and cool to submerge yet, so I didn't want to get any deeper. I struggled for stimulation, but found the mire too loose where it counted, so I had to supplement the pressure/friction with my hands, which did the trick!

I lingered there a little bit, before finally working myself up higher, and then mushing all the invading weeds around me into the mud, including some clumps of dead grass/roots, which I pushed down deeper. I then exited the bog, pushing the mud off my body as I went, water rushing in and covering the mud that I had disturbed as I had expected, leaving just the undisturbed exposed mud on the eastern half.

I then headed to the pond for cleanup, where I used a yellow waterlily rhizome for a place to sit or kneel on, and also standing on the soft ground as well, and cleaned myself off from the head down, immersing my head fully with a surprising amount of comfort, meaning it was warm enough for me to have submerged with swim goggles and swim cap after all! I moved to the floating vegetation (Nature's scrub brush) and rubbed my back on it to take care of the mud that was stuck to my back as a brown film, and headed back into the water to splash water over my back to wash it off. I kept on having to swish away the clouds of sediment which kept bubbling up, so that I could wash with cleaner water. I then moved to the edge of the floating vegetation to kneel down on it with it sinking below the water, to clean myself lower down, before getting up to finish the job. I then headed to shore, and to drier ground to air-dry off (I believe it was then that I found a large leech on me that I had to remove).

Once I air-dried, I took a couple of photos of the bog with the flooded part I had sunk in, and the undisturbed part that was still exposed. I had one half of that broken stick still laying on the ground, as seen in the second photo, but had earlier stuck the other broken half straight up into the ground to add to the "cage":

2025 08 11 1K Crescent.jpg

2025 08 11 1L Crescent.jpg

I got dressed, and headed back to the clearing north of the pond near my bike with my drinks and lunch (Pizza Pops). I sat on a rock to eat, but had to move to a different area because ants were starting to crawl on me. After I finished eating, I had a bit of time before I would be ready for my first submergence sink video of the season! I planned on working on the video at around some time after 3 pm, so I had a fair bit of time for a hike!

Because of the presence of a black bear up the sideroad, I decided to go to an area I went to a number of years ago, which had a large meadow and a seasonal pond to the southwest. So, I walked my bike back to the sideroad, stopping on the sideroad to finally take a photo of the flowers that I wanted to see if I could identify later, which appeared to be some type of Lobelia. Doing a Google image search over a week later revealed that it was not a Lobelia, but a Euphrasia, or Eyebright:

2025 08 11 1M Euphrasia or Eyebright.jpg

I got to Crescent Road, and headed westward further up it, until I saw the turnoff to the south. There was another trail to the north that would have led me to another meadow with a pond on the north end, but I wanted to go to the one to the south. There were some cattle on Crescent Road, which vanished into the bushes to the south. So, I headed down that trail, seeing a south branch going up a hill with a fallen tree across it. I figured it might have been one that went on the east side of the meadow I was looking for, but decided to take the west branch, which I figured would come up the west side of the meadow, encountering the cattle again at the beginning. The grassy dirt road turned south, and paralleled a streambed to the east that had lots of willows. I would stop periodically to check out some interesting-looking spots, where it widened with grass. The streambed had no water, and any black mud that was exposed was damp but firm. I would then return to my bike and continue on.

I finally appeared to reach the end of the road, where it seemed to end at the stream, but it looked like a trail continued on the other side, but I didn't think much about it. I parked my bike in a south trail branch (before it vanished into the woods) further back, grabbed my drinks, and headed up the stream, where it opened into a small meadow. Past the meadow, there were more willows, and so I kept on going, eventually noticing a huge clearing in the forest ahead of me, which I had hoped would be the meadow I was looking for! But, getting close to it was a challenge, because the closer I got, the larger the willows became, with me having to fight through the tangle of willows and past a beaver dike before finally breaking out into the open!

The seasonal pond was just a low damp grassy spot with the stream bed containing damp but firm black mud, nothing of interest. I headed to the southeast side of the meadow, and had thought about trying to go to the far east side, but the willows were getting larger again. So I headed back to the west side. I felt it was time to head back, since it was getting to around 3 pm. So, deciding to save time, I headed straight to the forest to the west where it would be easier and faster hiking, because I didn't want to backtrack through those tall willows again. But, heading to the west side was also a challenge, because the willows were extremely thick and tall there as well, with me at one time losing my balance and falling down among the tangle of willows. When I finally reached the forest, where it was easier hiking, I headed northward, along the stream bed to the east of me, finding a trail and then a grassy road. But, something seemed off! The end of the road was supposed to be where I had my bike, yet things looked different! I never seen the other smaller meadow I had passed, either! I figured maybe I was on a parallel trail, and so I backtracked a ways, then headed down to the streambed and followed it northward, never finding any smaller grassy meadow, until I finally went up to the nearest trail again. It was still the same wrong trail! Something was wrong! I must have followed the wrong stream! So, I decided that the best course of action was to follow that grassy trail/road northward until I got back to its entrance, which would have been further up Crescent Road. So, I walked along the road, until I finally reached Crescent Road, and back down Crescent Road until I reached the entrance of the original road (cattle on Crescent Road moved into the bushes when I approached), and then down that road (encountered same cattle on that trail early on) until I finally found the end with my bike! I had wasted an hour getting back to my bike!

I got on my bike and returned to my sideroad and parked my bike back in its usual spot on the north side of large coniferous trees on the west side of the clearing north of the pond. I returned to my things, and was ready to get set up for my first submergence sink of the season! But, I was a bit concerned because I saw the first tree shadow moving across the bog, and hoped that it would move away(shadows become an increasing problem as the season gets later).

I changed into my junk shorts, tied a string around them because the elastic was stretched, and got my camera set up with its format set to 16:9 to match the video so I could properly frame the location where all the action was going to take place. I attached the Gorillapod to the camera, and mounted it onto one of the sticks on the west side of the bog, making certain it was not casting a shadow on the patch of ground that was going to swallow me up. I adjusted the camera's position and zoom until the area of interest filled the camera's view:

2025 08 11 1N Crescent.jpg

Hoping the camera doesn't time out and shut off, I quickly put on my swim goggles to keep mud out of my eyes and a swim cap to keep the mud off my hair and out of my ears, and then returned to the camera, where I pressed the record button, setting things in motion!

I headed clockwise around the bog, towards the east side, and started my monologue, which was the setup for the theme of the video, which was the theme of the day, namely hearing stories about carnivorous ground! I complained about stinky swamp gas, and then finally made my fateful leap into the middle of the patch of exposed ground, immediately landing armpit deep, with mud and water splattering around me! It was a bit looser on that side, with water oozing right around me. I struggled a bit with my arms on the surface, swamp gas bubbling and farting all around me, before finally plunging them beneath the surface. I kept them beneath the surface, and swished them around underneath, to agitate the mud to release even more bubbles of swamp gas. I refrained from breaking up the surface, because I knew that would result in it being covered with water, and I wanted to be surrounded by exposed mud for the sink. However, with some watery mud oozing on top close around me, it was creating some problems as the watery mire on the surface rose up to my mouth, causing me to spit it out several times. Finally, I took a deep breath, and let the carnivorous ground swallow my head! I then raised my hands, and slowly retracted them, before letting out some of my breath, which bubbled to the surface. I then managed to pause longer than usual beneath the surface post-exhale, before finally breaking the surface to take in lungfuls of air, coughing a bit because traces of watery mud had gotten into my mouth and throat during the latter part of my struggles before my submergence! Then, I quickly worked myself higher rather easily, because unlike the upper looser stuff, the mud deeper down was thick and gooey. I then wiped mud from my upper body and mushed up all the invading weeds into the mud, mostly rushes, the water flooding the surface of the mud. I then exited the bog, wiping the mud away from my body into the bog, headed to the pond, cleaned my hands, wiped water on my swim goggles to get a clearer view, returned to the camera and clicked the record button to stop the recording. Just to make certain, I pushed the button a couple more times, before turning the camera off. My first sink video recording of the season was done!

I then headed back into the water to clean up, sometimes standing in the muddy bottom, sometimes sitting or kneeling on a yellow waterlily rhizome, and I also found a submerged log close to the edge of the floating shoreline, where I could stand up in the water as well. I cleaned off like before, but also had to remove and clean the swim goggles and swim cap, having to exit the pond to hang them on some dead alder branches further into shore before returning to the water to clean off more. When I went to remove the junk shorts, the slip knot in the string holding my junk shorts up somehow got tangled, and I couldn't undo it, so I had to pull my junk shorts down from under the string and then clean it up, before exiting the pond and hanging it on dead alder tree branch. I also managed to get the string untangled and removed from my waist, and had finished my cleanup, with the string hanging with the other things. I air-dried, and was happy to feel the air nice and warm still.

Once I was dry, I got dressed, and decided to take a look at the videos from my camera which I had removed from the stick it was mounted on. I deleted the extra video that was a few seconds long, that I had briefly clicked after stopping the main video, and then watched the two remaining videos. The first one of me agitating the mud was a bit jittery, but I could see some movement of the ground. But, when I looked at the main video footage, something seemed strange! The length was exactly 10 minutes and 0 seconds! That seemed to be too precise, making me wonder if the camera had actually stopped at that point on its own! I viewed the footage, skipping through the "dead parts", watched the sink, the submergence, the emergence, the mushing of the rushes into the mud, the exiting from the bog, everything, right up to the sound of my footsteps splashing in water getting louder as I approached the camera, and the camera shaking from me turning it off. It was all there - I had actually stopped the video EXACTLY at the 10 minute mark, not 9:59, not 10:01, but 10:00!!!! That is some crazy precision coincidental timing!!!!! I didn't have my glasses on, and was looking through muddy swim goggles, and couldn't see the screen, so I had no idea what the elapsed time was when I stopped the recording! And yet I stopped it at ten minutes, zero seconds! What are the chances???? Perhaps I should buy a lottery ticket!

With the camera format set back to 4:3, I took a photo of my bog, now covered with water, except for a few spots still sticking up:

2025 08 11 1O Crescent.jpg

I gathered my things together, and put things away, retrieving my items I had hanging on some dead alder branches, and putting them away as well, before heading back to my bike. I had earlier stuck that other half of the broken stick straight into the ground to add another "bar" to my boggy "cage" to keep animals out. I put my stuff away in the saddlebags, made certain I didn't leave anything behind, and headed back to the sideroad, laying the bike sideways and crouching to get under the fallen tree to get the rest of the way to the side road. Then, before I knew it, I was on Crescent Road, and then the main road, and couldn't wait to get to the downhill portion! Once I was finally close to the bottom of the valley, I then got out the iPhone, booted it up, and texted my brother, who replied that he would be there in a few minutes. I just barely continued down the road, when he drove up, knowing that I would be on the road at that time, and we put everything away, and he drove me back home as the sun was setting.

It was quite a refreshing day to be able to finally check out the status of my patch of treacherous quagmire, and have a personal stimulating sink on one side, and a video sink on the other side, making the most of the mud that was flooded with water after it was disturbed! I was disappointed that the water level was still so high, but glad the mud was exposed. Looking at the video again, this time on the computer, where I could get a better view, I was happy to see that even though I wasn't perfectly centered, I was centered enough. I was a bit disappointed to notice that in the part of the video where I was swishing my hands around below the surface to disturb the swamp gas it contained to make the mud bubble and fart like crazy had its audio masked by rumbling from the wind coming up! But, I was glad the shadow in the upper right hand corner of the video moved away in the video!

I looked at Google Earth to try and figure out the path I had taken during my bike and hike, and discovered that the road I was on, WAS the road that went by the east side of the meadow! All I had to do was follow the trail across the streambed, and it would have followed it on the east side to the meadow! I also discovered that when I had hiked through the tall willows and emerged into the meadow, I didn't emerge from the north, but from the northeast! So, when I exited to the northwest, I followed a different stream bed, with a different trail/road that still led back to Crescent Road. I am tempted to return to that road/trail to take it to the east side, a perspective that I was more familiar with from years ago, although things have obviously grown in substantially with willows since then!

I was happy to not have neck pain this time, but my back was extremely sore for a long time afterwards. My right foot injury I sustained many years ago acted up, making it swell, and I was kinda limping for while afterwards. My right ankle was sore for a very long time after twisting it several times during hiking. But, at least I am feeling much better now!

So, I have to wait for the water level to drop by around an inch for the mud to be exposed again, but the following week, we had a day or so of lots of rain, which may have raised water levels higher. But after that, we were in a warm dry stretch (highs for the next several days to be around 35˚C, or 95˚F), which I hoped would drops water levels and expose the mud, with me making plans for my next adventure at the latter part of that stretch!