Versailles State Park...

We arrived safely at Versailles State Park after visiting Charlestown State Park earlier in the day. (Saturday, 15th July.) We visited the small nature centre and hiked the Fallen Timber Creek Trail, which follows a small creek up a valley. Riaan particularly enjoyed this trail, since there were lots of little rock pools filled with fish and tadpoles.

We then visited the dam wall and drove across the Busching Covered Bridge nearby, before heading back home. It was a very full day spent exploring some of Indiana's history as well as the beauty of nature!

 The Nature Centre at Versailles State Park.

 Riaan loved the fish!

 Looking at the other displays.

 Butterfly and bird viewing area.

 Lake Versailles.

 Riaan and I hiking on the trail.

 It used to be an old road for horse and carts.

 Fallen Timber Creek.

 Freshwater crayfish.

 A large tadpole in the creek.

 A lovely rock pool.

 Riaan loved it!

 Fossils on the creek bed.

 Looking down from the dam wall.

 The dam wall at Lake Versailles.

 Riaan enjoying the view at the top.

 The Park Office.

 Civilian Conservation Corp statue outside the Park Office.

Busching Covered Bridge.

Charlestown State Park...

We managed to visit two State Parks on Saturday, 15th July: Charlestown State Park and Versailles State Park. We visited Charlestown State Park first, located north-east of Louisville on the Indiana side of the Ohio River. This was the site of a munitions factory, the Indiana Army Ammunition Plant, during the Second World War, and it is also where the ruins of the old amusement park on Rose Island is located.

Candace, Riaan and I had a lovely picnic lunch and then hiked down to Rose Island, (not actually an island but rather a peninsula formed by Fourteen Mile Creek and the Ohio River) where we enjoyed walking along the trail through what remains of the amusement park site. It was destroyed during the Ohio River flood of 1937. All that remains are a few foundations and structures, quickly being overgrown as nature reclaims the area. We had a great hike through the area and then visited the Park Office and Camp Store before heading on to Versailles State Park.

 Enjoying a picnic lunch.

 My lunch. Yum!

 Starting off on our hike to Rose Island.

 Pretty white flowers.

 A butterfly enjoying the lovely weather.

 Another beautiful flower.

 Grasshopper.

 Giant katydid.

 The historic Portersville Bridge, built in 1912 by the Vincennes Bridge Company, used to connect Daviess County with Dubois County until it was moved here in 2011.

 The pea-green water of Fourteen Mile Creek.

 Candace with one of the information boards. Note the 1937 Flood marker on the pole.

 Information display at Rose Island.

 The suspension bridge used to connect the "island" with the mainland here.

 Site of a cottage.

 Riaan and I balancing on a tree.

 The original entry pillars are still visible today.

 An old retaining wall.

 The Walkway of Roses.

 Candace and Riaan enjoying the walk.

 The original pool on Rose Island - which has now been filled with concrete to prevent accidents.

The Park Office at Charlestown State Park.

Threatening Clouds...

We spotted this shelf cloud over the area recently. You can clearly see the "fingers" of the cloud reaching down to the earth. In the opposite direction was a towering, almost-vertical, cumulonimbus cloud. Both clouds made for interesting photos.

 The towering cumulonimbus cloud in the distance.

 A closer view of this interesting cloud formation.

 The shelf cloud to the west.

The storm approaches from the north-west.

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Dark Morph)...

I first blogged about the eastern tiger swallowtail last summer, when I photographed a pretty yellow individual. A dark morph variant of the same butterfly recently flew past and landed on the grass a short distance away. I was able to capture a photo before it flew off again. This is also a female individual.