We awoke to frost over everything, including my shoes. I had accidentally left my shoes outside the tent and ended up with cold feet for the rest of the day. After a ‘wholesome’ breakfast of lukewarm oatmeal, the instructors divided us into two groups. Half of us went with Gary and Julie to do a new project called a vegetation transect, while the other half went with Michael to a place called Elephant rocks.
For our transect we split into groups of four or five, where we took a compass, a 100ft measuring tape, and our plant skills and put them all to the test. We drove to the Johnson Shut-Ins and started out on the east side of the Black river. We plotted four 50ft diameter circles each about 100 feet from the other and looked at how the vegetation growing within the boundaries changed from each location as we headed east. We also recorded which way the slope was facing, the soil condition, and how they affected the type of trees, shrubs, and groundcover. This was a really fun activity because we got to hike through a lot of downed trees and thick shrubbery to get to the top of the ridge. It was also something none of us had done before which equated to a great learning experience.
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| Let's just say we had a few trees to deal with... |
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| Our finished product! |
We then headed back for a great lunch of PB&H (peanut butter and honey) sandwiches and then switched to the Elephant Rocks with Michael. These were igneous rocks that were formed by magma inside softer sedimentary rocks, miles beneath the Earth. As the sedimentary rock eroded away these rocks became exposed, and after more and more wind and water erosion they became smooth and rounded. This patch of igneous granite rock is very valuable because the rest of Missouri is filled with limestone. The formation is called Elephant Rock because they look like a line of circus elephants. The biggest rock, nicknamed Dumbo, is 27 feet tall and weighs 680 tons. After completing a vignette color pencil composition of different features from the rocks we had some free time to explore. The really neat thing about this site was a trail that circled around the whole place that could be navigated by a blind person.
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| Dumbo is thissssssss big! |
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| Nate is so good at reading braille! |
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| Fat Man's Crevice |
All in all, the day turned out pretty good, at least after it warmed up, with two exciting adventures. To add the cherry on top, we finished the day with a hot bowl of soup and a good game of three-hand touch – power walking football.
Signed
Mark Lukasiewicz and Paige Hubbard
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