Happy Spring Everyone!!

Well its finally spring in southern Illinois! No more crazy ice storms....they have been replaced with torrential rain storms. Earlier this week we got about 10 inches of rain in just a little over 24 hours. I'm not complaining about that because life is already back to normal for me and it was nice and warm today. All the local streams and rivers are flooding, which is kind of neat to check out if you are a Hydorolgist or a Wetland Biologist. The first pic is the bridge over the Big Muddy River in Murphysboro (water is usually ~30+ feet below the bridge). The 2nd pic is Riverside Park in Muphysboro.

I think it was mid-week last week when I realized that spring was here. I was out doing field work and found the first tick of the season on my leg. The really funny thing is that about 10 minutes later Amanda text messaged me that she had "found first tick of season!" I just started laughing out loud. I texted her back that I found one too!

Yesterday was actually the first "official" day of spring and we marked it with the first meeting of the new year for our "Thursday Night Climbing Club." I founded this club last fall. We meet on thurday nights to go rock climbing and hang out. It was a pretty good first night.