Morning at Eagle Lake

The camera button got jostled and I didn't notice it as I clicked away that morning at Eagle Lake on the Morehead State University campus. The setting was "soft." It wasn't what I intended, but it was a happy accident, I suppose, since it offered a dreamy, soft focus.

That was my second trip to the lake that morning. The first time, the sun was hidden behind a steel gray sky ...

... and fog lingered in the snow-tipped trees.

Eagle Lake is always on my list of places to visit when we're in Morehead. It never disappoints. Created in 1950 on the northern edge of the campus, the 30-acre lake was named for the majestic symbol of the University, the American Bald Eagle.

Whether reflecting the cloud-dotted blue sky of September ...

Created in 1950 with the impoundment of Evans Branch on the northern edge of the campus, this pristine, 30-acre lake was named for the majestic symbol of the University, the American Bald Eagle. Except for a small portion at the north end where Evans Branch empties into the lake, the shoreline property is owned by the University. - See more at: http://www.moreheadstate.edu/content_template.aspx?id=6707#sthash.bXlZKJis.dpuf Whether reflecting the August sky ...

... the icy waters of January ...

 

.... or the crisp cold of a November morning ...

... it never disappoints. 

Eagle Lake is part of the Daniel Boone National Forest. The Eagle Lake Trail starts on the Sheltowee Trace National Recreation Trail, but the majority of the trail is owned by MSU. So far, our visits to Morehead have not been conducive to hiking the trail. The first time, we were moving Brent from South Carolina to Kentucky, and our exercise was carrying boxes from the moving truck into the house and unloading them. During our other two trips to Morehead (the most recent during Thanksgiving week), we have brought unseasonably cold weather and snow.

So, instead of exploring the trail on foot, I stood at the start and took a few photos.

 

I would have liked to have seen the lake in the fall. Brent just might have made fun of my long-distance obsession with the leaves in Kentucky. But a fall trip didn't fit on the calendar of a Kansas farm family, what with fall harvest and moving cattle home from summer pastures.

So, I will have to be happy with another cold-weather view. And I am.

Earth and sky, woods and fields,

lakes and rivers,

the mountains and the sea, 

are excellent schoolmasters.

John Lubbock

Love Came Down at Christmas

My house still doesn't reflect any Christmas spirit after our trip.  (I did get all the Thanksgiving "stuff" gathered up yesterday.) But even though our tree is still in the cardboard box and the Nativity sets are likewise cushioned safely in their plastic tubs, I've been thinking about Christmas ever since our visit to Morehead (KY) State University last week. 

The bell tower in the center of the campus was decorated for Christmas. When I saw the tower and the snow-dusted world on Thanksgiving Eve, a song kept going through my head:

What the world needs now is love, sweet love.

It's the only thing that there's just too little of.

What the world needs now is love, sweet love.

No, not just for some, but for everyone.

The bell tower was presented to Morehead State University in April 1997 as a tribute to Kentucky horse breeder William Paul Little by his wife, Mary Caudill Little, who was an advocate of education through the creativity of the arts. Each of the tower's four sides feature a virtue important to the Littles:

WISDOM

You can barely see WISDOM through the eagle's wing from this angle.

SERVICE  (and love) ...

JUSTICE (and love). 

When I got back home, I realized that LOVE kept showing up in my shots of the bell tower. How fitting was that! (The greatest of these is LOVE. I Corinthians 13:13)

As the carol says,

Love came down at Christmas

Love all lovely, love divine

Love was born at Christmas

Star and angels gave the sign. 

 

Maybe if we incorporated a little more love into our daily lives, we, too, could fly like eagles in the face of our too-busy lives. Worth a try, right?

Those who hope in the Lord
    will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
    they will run and not grow weary,
    they will walk and not be faint.

Isaiah 40: 31

That's a message I need to hear during this busy holiday season.

***

Today, I'm linked to Jennifer Dukes Lee's Tell His Story and to Emily P. Freeman's Chatting at the Sky. 

***

Another interesting fact about the bell tower:  The bell came from the Littles' Palmeadow Farm. Cast in 1886 by the C.S. Bell Company of Hillsboro, Ohio, the iron bell is one year older than Morehead State University.

Santa Claus and Turkeys

The calendar says December, but my dining room still says November. We just got back yesterday afternoon after spending Thanksgiving in Kentucky with Brent. I've gotten some of the Thanksgiving decorations transferred to the dining room table, but it definitely looks more like fall at my house than the stop-you-in-your-tracks fact that Christmas is only 3 weeks away.

The closest thing to a Christmas tree at my house are the cedar trees in a neighbor's pasture, providing texture to a December sunrise sky this morning. 

I guess it's good we got a dose of Christmas cheer on a stop we made on our 1,890-mile journey to Morehead, Kentucky, and back, since it may be a few days before there is any visible evidence of Christmas here on the County Line. On the way, we stopped at Santa Claus, Indiana. It began snowing lightly as we drove a few miles off the interstate and into the small community of Santa Claus. (They must have an "in" with the weatherman, don't you think?)

We spent some time in the Christmas shop there, and someone put my name on the "Nice" list in Santa's workshop. (I wish I'd taken a photo of the list, but I didn't think about it until we were down the road.)

We bought and addressed a postcard for Kinley, and I took some photos of Randy and Santa in front of the post office. Then one of Santa's helpers (just some local guy visiting the post office) stopped and offered to take our photo together. He said it's just part and parcel to take photos of strangers when you live in a place called Santa Claus.

  

I consented, even though I'd much rather be on the other side of the lens. Randy did, after all, put me on the nice list, so I thought I'd better follow through.

We seem to take cold and snowy weather with us when we visit Morehead, which dampens enthusiasm for outdoor tourist activities.

But it sure made Eagle Lake on the Morehead State University campus pretty. (It's my favorite place in Morehead, though Coffeetree Books and the Fuzzy Duck Coffee Shop are in contention, too.)

More to come from our trip (once I dig out from the pile of laundry, etc.)!

Winterscape at Eagle Lake

Eagle Lake, Morehead, KY, January 2013, on the campus of Morehead State University

Bare branches of each tree

on this chilly January morn

look so cold, so forlorn.

Gray skies dip ever so low

left from yesterday's dusting of snow.

Yet in the heart of each tree

waiting for each who wait to see

new life as warm sun and breeze will blow,

like magic, unlock springs sap to flow,

buds, new leaves, then blooms will grow.

-  Nelda Hartmann, January Morn

Eagle Lake, Morehead, KY, September 2012, on the campus of Morehead State University

Whether it's bathed in the humidity of a late summer day or the brisk, catch-your-breath bite of winter, Eagle Lake is a place to savor nature in all its glory. 

 

Pull up a bench to the beauty ... to the tranquility ... to the silence.

The geese on my Kansas walks are noisy commas in the sky, honking to one another to stay in formation. These quiet cousins hunkered down on a bed of ice and snow, tucking into themselves in an effort to find a modicum of warmth. 

I hope to someday see this lake in autumn splendor, dressed in red, orange and gold. The beauty is there in all seasons - whether in monochromatic winter or electric-blue summer skies.

I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, 

 through which God speaks to us every hour, 

if we only will tune in.

George Washington Carver

Back from Eagle Country!

After 2,285 miles and 473 photos, we are back at the County Line. We spent the last week and a half driving to and from Morehead, KY, where Brent is the media and marketing coordinator for Morehead State University athletics.

While we are used to all things K-State Wildcat, we just spent some time in the heart of Eagle Country. While we were there, we got to see three basketball games - two men's contests and one featuring the women. And while I was glad to cheer for Morehead State, I was really more interested in watching the video board and using my camera's telephoto lens to peer into the press box.

From the "Eagles' Nest" at the top of Johnson Arena, Brent works the video board at each game.

He flashes up the graphics he designed for Slam Dunks, "bank shots" (promoting a local bank, of course) and other action on the court. 

We also got to see the large-scale graphics he designed this year for the upper perimeter of the arena entrances.

These are just a couple of them, but the panels feature Morehead State's All-American ballplayers - both men and women.

We enjoyed seeing his office and meeting and eating lunch with some of his co-workers. I always like being able to visualize where my kids are and put names and faces together with some of the people they talk about.

Sorry to be vague about the trip before I left. I didn't really want to advertise that we were going to be gone. I had feverishly worked ahead on my KFRM radio reports, but I couldn't get a week and a half of blogs done ahead of time, too.

I promise I won't show you all 473 photos. But we did enjoy several stops along the way, as well as touring the area that Brent now calls home. So, yes, there will be some show and tell coming up here on Kim's County Line.

We came back yesterday to a little snow blanketing the wheat fields.

Unfortunately, we left the rain behind us in Missouri. It rained all day Tuesday as we traveled through the Show Me State. Then, about the time we got to the Kansas border, it quit raining. It was discouraging. We stayed all night in Topeka for a little Kinley time before heading back home on slick roads Wednesday morning.

I got back in time to play the piano for middle school choir. Just for the record, there's no quicker return to reality than middle school choir.

Hill Traffic Does Not Stop

Anyone who knows me knows I find beauty all around me in Kansas. God's creative handprint is on the sunrises, the sunsets, the ditches lined with sunflowers, the windmills, in the pastures dotted with wildflowers and in the wide open spaces. I love wheat from the time it pokes the first blades of green through the brown soil, when it's encased in winter white, and when the waves of gold dance in the Kansas wind.

It was a different kind of beauty in Morehead, Ky. My favorite spot was Eagle Lake, a picture postcard pretty place on the campus at Morehead State University, where Brent began his new job on Monday. That lake has got to be one great fringe benefit of being a student or being on staff there.

I would love to see it in the fall as the leaves begin turning and cast brilliant autumn colors on the smooth water's surface. I probably won't get to see it this fall, but maybe another year.

Morehead and Morehead State University are nestled in the foothills of the Daniel Boone National Forest. Yes, Kansas has its regions with peaks and valleys. It just doesn't happen to be where we live. Morehead was much greener than the drought-stricken Kansas we left behind.

Hills are part of the backdrop for the Morehead campus. I took this shot back toward campus, turning 180 degrees around from the lake.

In just a few weeks, the fall colors of the trees on the hills surrounding the football stadium will rival the action on the field, I suspect.

It was even pretty on a rainy, foggy morning.

Same goes for the baseball stadium and pretty much anywhere else on campus.

The hills also provided some signs we aren't used to in Stafford, America: "Hill Traffic Does Not Stop"was a sign near Brent's new home.

It wasn't exactly Lombard Street in San Francisco. But the street began in downtown Morehead and crested at the top of a hill, where there was a parking lot at one juncture and two stop signs flanking it.

Brent's backyard is mostly tree-covered hill, though there's enough room for a barbecue grill, which we put to use before the K-State vs. Miami game on Saturday. 

Brent was our chef, a nice change of pace

We were surprised by how narrow some of the streets were, especially in Brent's neighborhood. I was glad Randy was driving the Budget truck and not me. Meeting traffic was an adventure of narrow streets and hidden driveways. 

On Brent's street - The sign warns of a driveway that seems to go straight up a hill.

Next time we visit, we won't be hefting boxes and hanging picture frames, so we hope to explore more of the area. Maybe then we'll see more horse farms. It wasn't until we got to Lexington to fly back to Wichita that we saw horses grazing on the stereotypical bluegrass of Kentucky.

But there's no place like home either. Beauty: It's all around us - whether on the Kansas plains or the Kentucky hills.