Showing posts with label State. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 18, 2017

BUFFALO ROCK STATE PARK

My first appointment on Tuesday was at 8:30AM in Morton, Illinois (Peoria area) and my customer was right on time and it was close to 11:00AM when I was finished. My second appointment was in LaSalle Illinois which is right on Route 80 which cuts through the northern part of the state. By 3:30 PM I was finished and headed to Buffalo Rock State Park. This park turned out to be very small, and many of the forested trails were closed. I hiked one loop inside the park and then exited the park and walked across the street to a part of the I&M Canal Trail. The I&M trail runs about 90 miles. I entered the trail and hiked about 3.5 miles west, before I turned around and hiked the 3.5 miles back east to re-enter Buffalo Rock State Park, complete my days hike, retrieve my car, all before sunset. When I was done, I had logged 9 miles.

from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources:

Buffalo Rock State Park is located on a bluff which once was an island in the Illinois River. Now standing majestically on the north bank, this promontory affords a magnificent, sweeping view of the Illinois River. Located approximately 3 miles west of Ottawa in LaSalle County, this 298-acre park has long been a favorite picnic area, as well as a nature lovers’ delight. The area of Buffalo Rock was the home of the Illinois Indians when Louis Jolliet, the French explorer, and the Jesuit missionary priest Father Jacques Marquette made their trip up the Illinois River in 1673. Later, the Illinois tribe was virtually annihilated in protracted warfare with the aggressive Iroquois.

Your Food Diary For:

BREAKFAST	Calories kcal	Carbs g	Fat g	Protein g	Sodium mg	Sugar g
Baymont Hotel Scrambled Eggs w/two Sausages	500	0	0	0	0	0
	500	0	0	0	0	0
L U N C H
Subway - Chicken Chopped Salad	220	10	5	36	490	4
Landshire Sandwiches - Ham & Cheese Wedge	260	32	8	18	1,240	7
	480	42	13	54	1,730	11
D I N N E R
Eel and Avocodo Sushi Roll	400	33	18	22	0	0
	400	33	18	22	0	0
S N A C K S
Cliff Builder's 20g Protein Bar Chocolate Mint	270	30	9	20	200	21
Fresh Thyme - Dark Chocolate Coconut Bites	200	21	13	2	25	18
General Mills - Pumpkin Spice Cheerios	150	30	3	3	163	11
	620	81	25	25	388	50

Totals	2,000	156	56	101	2,118	61
Your Daily Goal	3,240	405	108	163	2,300	121
Remaining	1,240	249	52	62	182	60
	Calories kcal	Carbs g	Fat g	Protein g	Sodium mg	Sugar g
	*You've earned 1,310 extra calories from exercise today

If every day were like today... You'd weigh 215.1 lbs in 5 weeks

Thursday, April 27, 2017

GENERAL BUTLER STATE PARK

After visiting customers in Cincinnati, it was time to head to Louisville, Kentucky. This time of year when sunset is so much later in the day, there is often time to squeeze in a hike somewhere interesting. Yesterday, I visited General Butler State Resort Park in Carrollton, Kentucky and hiked 8 miles before I continued my trip to Louisville.

from parks.ky.gov

Northern Kentucky’s first state park and one of the first 10 in the commonwealth is General Butler State Resort Park. On August 12, 1931, a 300-acre tract comprising part of the old William O. Butler family farm became Kentucky’s sixth state park. Not only is the park a historic site, it is also a place of great natural beauty. This is the only spot in Kentucky that has the unique view of the convergence of the Kentucky and Ohio Rivers.

Your Food Diary For:

BREAKFAST	Calories kcal	Carbs g	Fat g	Protein g	Sodium mg	Sugar g
Apples & Cinnamon Instant Oatmeal	780	162	9	18	1,020	72
	780	162	9	18	1,020	72
L U N C H
Waldorf Apple Salad	210	12	15	6	630	6
17.5oz C2o Pure Coconut Water	100	26	0	0	150	24
	310	38	15	6	780	30
D I N N E R
Panda Express - Brown Fried Rice	520	85	16	11	850	3
Panda Express - Mushroom Chicken	170	11	14	12	840	4
Panda Express - Broccoli Beef	150	13	7	9	520	7
	840	109	37	32	2,210	14
S N A C K S
Sage - Red Delicious Apple, 3 medium apple	285	75	1	2	5	57
Lean muscle - Protein Bar	370	33	12	32	460	3
	655	108	13	34	465	60

Totals	2,585	417	74	90	4,475	176
Your Daily Goal	3,128	391	104	157	2,300	117
Remaining	543	-26	30	67	-2,175	-59
	Calories kcal	Carbs g	Fat g	Protein g	Sodium mg	Sugar g
	*You've earned 1,198 extra calories from exercise today

Your Exercise Diary for:

Cardiovascular	Minutes	Calories Burned
Eight Mile Hike	147	1,198


Daily Total / Goal	147 / 30	1,198 / 590
Weekly Total / Goal	301 / 210	3,002 / 4,130

Friday, February 24, 2017

UNIVERSITY STEPS IN TO PROTECT THE SNOWFLAKES

Honestly, when I first saw this story about Michigan State University banning whiteboards from dorms, I thought it was either a great example of fake news, or purposeful satire (The Onion) or just a stupid joke. Nope, it is apparently real. Our universities are raising an entire generation of little delicate flowers, or snowflakes that will break if exposed to anything annoying or unwanted. Why stop at whiteboards? What about the dangers of a Post It note? And what if some jerk, writes something annoying, racist, or evil directly on the door of someone's dorm room? Just kidding, this is a rhetorical question. The solution is so obvious. If some evil, twisted jerk write something annoying, racist or evil directly on a dorm room door, all the university would need to do is simply remove EVERY DOOR FROM EVERY DORM ROOM. There you go, problem solved.

Your Food Diary For:

BREAKFAST	Calories kcal	Carbs g	Fat g	Protein g	Sodium mg	Sugar g
Eggs - Poached (whole egg), 4 large	294	2	20	25	588	2
Kirkland - Bacon, 4 slices	160	0	12	12	700	0
	454	2	32	37	1,288	2
L U N C H
Subway - Turkey Sub Sandwich	560	92	7	36	1,620	14
Subway - Sun Chips- Harvest Cheddar	210	27	9	4	320	3
	770	119	16	40	1,940	17
D I N N E R
Spaghetti With Meat Sauce	500	131	3	22	0	0
	500	131	3	22	0	0
S N A C K S
Oatmega Bar - Chocolate Mint Crisp	300	33	11	22	189	8
	300	33	11	22	189	8

Totals	2,024	285	62	121	3,417	27
Your Daily Goal	2,584	323	86	130	2,300	97
Remaining	560	38	24	9	-1,117	70
	Calories kcal	Carbs g	Fat g	Protein g	Sodium mg	Sugar g

Your Exercise Diary for:

Cardiovascular	Minutes	Calories Burned
Treadmill 3.3mph, incline 15	60	740


Daily Total / Goal	60 / 30	740 / 590
Weekly Total / Goal	501 / 210	5,175 / 4,130

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from the Washington Post....

Michigan State wants to cut down on harassment. So it’s banning a dorm-room staple: whiteboards.

By Amy B Wang February 22 at 2:37 PM

Sharing a communal bathroom. Buying twin XL sheets. Eating late-night pizza. Leaving messages on a friend’s dorm-room whiteboard down the hall. All could be considered quintessential experiences when it comes to life inside a college dorm. But starting this fall, Michigan State University will no longer allow students to hang whiteboards outside their dorm-room doors, saying the ubiquitous dry-erase boards have become too much of an outlet for anonymous, hateful messages. “It had become more of a distraction than a helpful tool,” MSU residential services spokeswoman Kat Cooper told WLNS News. “You know, once in a while, someone writes something that isn’t very nice.”Cooper told the Detroit News that “in any given month, there are several incidents” of negative messages, some racial and others sexual. Whiteboards have also been decreasing in popularity with the rise of social media and smartphones, MSU spokesman Jason Cody told The Washington Post in an email. “Basically, whiteboards are no longer an essential communication tool for today’s college students,” he said. “They are an attractive nuisance whose utility no longer outweighs their abuse.” For those reasons, the university decided to remove whiteboards from the list of items allowed on dorm doors next semester, Cody said. Though university officials said there was no single incident that led to the ban, the Lansing chapter of the NAACP hailed the decision on Facebook as a response to a recent case in which someone allegedly wrote the n-word on a whiteboard belonging to an African American honors student at MSU. “It’s been a while but MSU Police have informed us that ALL dormatory [sic] white boards will be removed asap,” the group wrote. “Victory!!!” Several people decried the ban and the NAACP’s response to it. (It is incorrect that the whiteboards will be removed as soon as possible.) Many felt it would do little to curb racism. “How is this a victory when every dorm resident will be punished because of one racist idiot? What does this accomplish exactly?” one Facebook user wrote in response to the NAACP chapter’s post. “It seems to me you’re giving more power to the racist. Should we have limited skyscrapers to only 10 stories after 9/11 in an effort to end terrorism? Help me to understand the reasoning and logic.” Another user wrote that the university should have done more to find the student who left the racial slur, rather than “limiting everyones self expression and freedom of speech because one a–hole wrote the n-word.” Another person, he posited, could just as easily write something derogatory directly on the door in permanent marker. The Lansing NAACP did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday. Michigan State is one of the largest public universities in the United States, with about 50,000 students, according to fall 2016 enrollment figures. About 39,000 of those students are undergraduates. About 18.7 percent of the students enrolled at MSU are students of color, according to the university. Like other large public schools, MSU has seen its share of controversial incidents centered on race. Last fall, an MSU freshman came under fire after she posed with a gorilla mascot at a football game and compared it to an African American girl in an Instagram post, WILX News reported. Her post, which went viral, prompted the student’s sorority to announce that she was no longer a member and for the university itself to issue a statement about the school’s commitment to inclusion. “One of the university’s core values is inclusion, and we are committed to fostering a campus climate that does not condone racial harassment or bullying,” Cody, the MSU spokesman, said at the time. “The university is aware of the recent posting connected to an MSU student. This posting is deeply troubling and is clearly not aligned with our core values. We are addressing this situation in a responsible manner through multiple channels.” Whiteboards at MSU are not provided by the university but are the personal property of students, Cody said Wednesday. Next year, the ban on whiteboards will be enforced by residence hall staff. The university is still working on a more detailed implementation plan, he said. In a letter to the editor of the State News, the MSU campus newspaper, sophomore Jack Kellett said a part of him was relieved when he heard about the whiteboard ban, since he has “witnessed firsthand” hate speech left on students’ doors as a resident assistant.

“Whiteboards on doors, especially with markers attached, are easy ways for anyone to anonymously communicate hostile, divisive rhetoric, some of which threatens the safety of students and contributes to a negative campus environment,” Kellett wrote. “Fewer incident reports for me to make, right?” Unfortunately, the ban would not deter bullies or “make hateful students less hateful", he said. “Rather than asking, ‘what can we do to make it harder for residents to bully/harass other residents,’ the university should be asking, ‘how can we get residents to not bully/harass in the first place?’ ” Kellett wrote. “… I’d encourage the university’s administrators to do a careful reevaluation regarding whether they expect this ban to actually reduce instances of harassment or bullying. What they will hopefully discover is that the problem is a little more complicated than $7 whiteboards.” University officials have said they do not expect the whiteboard ban to eliminate wholesale the problem of harassment on campus. Cody said Michigan State does “extensive things on campus around race, diversity and inclusion,” and pointed a reporter to a website outlining the university’s inclusion and intercultural initiatives.

WILL POST IT NOTES BE NEXT TO BE OUTLAWED FROM UNIVERSITIES? THEY ARE A CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER...

Saturday, November 12, 2016

PROPHETSTOWN STATE PARK

After my last appointment on Friday in a northwest suburb of Indianapolis, I headed home to Chicago. I was still trying to figure out where I might stop for a final hike before returning home when I passed a sign for Prophetstown State Park. Problem solved.

Indiana’s newest state park (2004), Prophetstown is located where the Tippecanoe River meets the Wabash near the town of Battle Ground northeast of Lafayette. The park's landscape has been shaped by ice from glaciers, moving water, fire and human hands that helped maintain the vast tall prairie grass. Native American people hunted and lived along the two rivers for thousands of years.

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My attempt to photograph the moon in the background.

Your Food Diary For:

BREAKFAST	Calories kcal	Carbs g	Fat g	Protein g	Sodium mg	Sugar g
Quaker Apples Cinnamon Oatmeal	650	135	8	15	800	45
Kellogg's - Raisin Bran Crunch	380	90	2	8	400	38
	1,030	225	10	23	1,200	83
L U N C H
Subway Sun Chips Harvest Cheddar	210	27	9	4	320	3
Subway Footlong Turkey Breast	560	92	17	36	1,890	11
Fit Crunch Choc Chip Cookie Dough	380	27	16	30	320	6
	1,150	146	42	70	2,530	20
D I N N E R
Jimmy John Thinny Chips	260	40	10	4	190	4
Jimmy John's Bootlegger, 1 sandwich	684	67	24	42	1,660	0
Whey Protein Bar Chocolate Chip	360	42	12	20	160	29
	1,304	149	46	66	2,010	33



Totals	3,484	520	98	159	5,740	136
Your Daily Goal	3,483	435	116	175	2,300	130
Remaining	-1	-85	18	16	-3,440	-6
	Calories kcal	Carbs g	Fat g	Protein g	Sodium mg	Sugar g
	*You've earned 1,553 extra calories from exercise today

Your Exercise Diary for:

Cardiovascular	Minutes	Calories Burned
TEN MILE HIKE PROPHETSTOWN STATE PARK	145	1,778


Daily Total / Goal	145 / 30	1,778 / 590
Weekly Total / Goal	859 / 210	12,015 / 4,130

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This information comes from In.gov

The park is named for a Native American village located between the rivers established by Tecumseh, who was Shawnee, and his brother Tenskwatawa (The Prophet) in 1808. Tecumseh led his band there from Ohio, where pressure from white settlers had forced him to leave. Tecumseh believed the only way to repel the advance of European settlement was to form an alliance with other tribes. He traveled widely persuading tribes to join his coalition. More than 14 tribes set aside centuries-old disputes to stop their common enemy. They met at Prophetstown, and heard The Prophet speak. Tecumseh anticipated their sheer numbers would be enough to stop the westward settlement.

William Henry Harrison, governor of the Indiana Territory, was alarmed by the numbers at Prophetstown, and moved 1,200 troops to the site while Tecumseh was south gathering additional support. Wanting to avoid a fight, yet fearing an attack, The Prophet decided to strike first in the early morning hours of Nov. 7, 1811. The battle lasted two hours. As darkness faded, the villagers withdrew through the marsh back to Prophetstown, then fled to Wildcat Creek. Harrison's men burned Prophetstown to the ground.

It is interesting to me that I just happened to visit this park, only one week after a new monument dedicated to the Indian tribes native to this land was dedicated.

from WLFI.com

Circle of Stones dedicated in Prophetstown State Park

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BATTLE GROUND, Ind. (WLFI) — A dedication ceremony was held Friday in Prophetstown State Park to honor native Americans.

The Circle of Stones is a monument made of 14 stones bearing the names of tribes native to the Prophetstown area. Thirteen of the 14 stones have a name of a well-known tribe that was around during the founding of Prophetstown. The 14th stone recognizes all of the tribes and people that were not documented by history.

Representatives from those native tribes and the Indiana Department of Natural Resources spoke about the site and its importance. The dedication was a celebration of both the native people and the 100th birthday of the state park system.

“I really feel like anyone standing on the Circle of Stones today, and looking out over this beautiful prairie, can’t help but appreciate the land — the way it looked, the importance of that land to the people at that time, and the importance of the land to the people today both native and non-native,” said Vicki Basman, chief of interpretation for the Indiana State Parks’ division of DNR.

The ceremony closed with the release of a wild eagle. The eagle had been rehabilitating for months, after contracting West Nile Virus.

This dedication was only seven days prior to my visit.

Most of my hiking yesterday was on the far eastern end of the park, Trail 2,Trail 3 and Trail 4

SATURDAY MORNING... WEIGHDAY
222.7 LBS