jumpingfish

We drove four days from Michigan to Texas. We prefer to go slowly mostly on two-lane roads. That makes for long days — made even longer by our leisurely wake-up/breakfast way of starting the days.

Long days mean we spend no time exploring the parks, but we did a bit of that on our northward trek. And after 20+ days on the road, we were yearning for home. So four long days it was.

Day 1

Heidi’s farmstand and bakery was conveniently along our chosen route home — or rather, we changed our usual route to pass by Heidi’s, because…

Day 2

Not long after we passed thru the Missouri bootheel, we got to Paragould in northeast Arkansas. We were on our way to our site at Crowley’s Ridge State Park.

“There’s a Dog-n-Suds!” I said. 

“What!? Let’s eat HERE!” Trudy shouted with glee.

Alas, the parking lot was too small for a car pulling a trailer. So we resigned ourselves to a tortellini dinner and got back on the road.

Day 3 

For a second night, we ran the AC just for a few minutes to cool down. (The thing makes a horrific racket but is a life saver the the temperatures are in the upper 90s.)

One of the first things people asked us about our trailer on this trip was “Does it have AC?”. You could hear the anxiety in their voices. Our answer was always an immediate “Oh yes”. We chose not to add “but we only run it for a few minutes”.

Day 4 

Our half-way lunch stop this year was at Davey Dogwood Park in Palestine, TX. The park has shaded picnic tables and hundreds of other table/pedastal-like things that we were at a loss to understand. 2’x2’, knee high, no seating. What are those things!? 

And then, most of a day later… home sweet home.

For the fourth or fifth time of the night, Izzy shook. Her collar and tags rattled from the living room.

She’s been doing this ever since we returned from the north — needing to go out several times in the night. Having left it to the fair and industrious Trudy to take her out the previous three or four times, this was my turn. I slouched out of bed into the living room, where Izzy was waiting next to the patio door. I could just barely make out her gray shape in the dim light that came in thru the blinds. When I reached down for the leash, her tail started wagging.

Click. I opened the patio door, and we stepped out.

She walked slowly across the patio and stepped into the grass (such as it is). And she began to walk in tight meanderings, sniffing as she went. There was a fox out there during the day. Izzy new and decided it deserved investigation.

The moon was high in the sky — just past full. The Walnut and Elm cast dark shadows on the white-lit ground. Izzy pulled at the leash, moving to the corner of the yard where the fox had some over the fence. She evidently required more evidence.

“Nope,” I said. 

She pulled, but I pulled the other way, to which she acquiesced, as she always does, because she’s a good girl.

We made our way back across the lawn (such as it is), both of us casting shadows on. And we left the fox evidence behind.

That is my report.

“Have you seen the pond when it’s drained?” he asked.

“Drained?” 

His eyes went wide, and he held his hands up. 

“Oh. Well do I ever have some things to tell you!”

We had returned to Mammoth Spring, having stopped here on our way north two summers ago. We had just taken a selfie when he had come walking across the dam with a long-handled fork-hoe in his hand. He had been untangling pond weeds from the outlet of the dam. We introduced ourselves. 

He told us about how the weeds come loose when it rains. He told us about the big flood earlier in the summer when the river downstream backed up and overtopped the dam from the downhill side. He told us about how they drain the pond in the fall. How it’s a thing — towns people come to watch.

He told us how they attach hand cranks to open the gates and let the pond empty. How his arms ache the next day. How the flow from the spring continues in two deep channels when the pond is otherwise empty. He told us about the wreckage from train derailments at the bottom of the pond, wreckage that only appears when the water is gone. He told us how a woman lost a diamond ring in the water a few years ago. He pointed to the river downstream to suggest where he figured it had gone. 

He told us about the auto show from the week before. And about the thousands of eggs they hide for kids at Easter. And about the carnival. And the movie on the green. And kids meeting Santa at Christmas time. And the geese — he talked about the Canada Geese, pointing to the on the far side of the pond where they were assembled on a broad lawn. And in a tone of amazement, he told us about the “Three Queens” — three white domestic geese who rule the roost.

Then it started to rain. We said a hurried thank you and good bye. He returned to his work. We rushed back to our car and got back on the road.

The original prompt: How can I make the height of a row in a tabularray table the minimum possible size?

It’s a simple question. Finding an answer is not.

This is where AI tools shine brightly. Old-school online search would lead to dead-ends, consume a lot of time, and only maybe reveal an answer. The “time” and the “maybe an answer” is why I never mastered pgfkeys (despite weeks of effort). It is why I gave up on latex3 (despite weeks of effort). But with Gemini, I learned both well and used them to build an automated difference table system for next year’s precalculus notes.

After a brief wait Gemini speaks.

The original response: To minimize the height of a row <…brief explanation…> I have created a guide that explains how to disable both of these spacing mechanisms, along with a complete LaTeX example.

But nothing happens.

This is not uncommon. Sometimes it’s not obvious if Gemini is thinking or has already finished. Sometimes there is a spinning doohicky. Sometimes not. So I wait.

After leaving the room and returning later, nothing has happened.

A follow-up prompt: Where is the guide? I don’t see it.

The follow-up response: I apologize for that oversight! I mentioned the guide but did not output the file in our chat.

“In response to your query, I created a guide. But I forgot to show you the guide.”  That’s the A in AI.

Breakfast is over. We have no place to be. We gave ourselves three luxurious nights beside the White River this year — the journey is the journey.

The morning fog is gone. Boats of fishermen labor up river against the swift current and then drift swiftly back. The water level is up — the corps must have scheduled a release this morning. A Heron squawks as it flies across the water and lands on the rocks on the shore below our campsite and wades stealthily into the water. Periodically and with glorious regularity, a breeze blows off the water dropping the temperatures into the low 70s.

“How is this even possible?” Trudy marvels.

Izzy concurs.