Cedar Bluff light display drawing near
By MIKE CORN
CEDAR BLUFF RESERVOIR -- It's almost that time of year. The hot chocolate has been mixed, the lights are going up and the stage is set for the annual lighting of Cedar Bluff State Park.
It's going to be bigger and better this year, with new lights and new displays.
With more than 7 miles of lights, the park -- for six days this year, spread over two weekends -- will be awash in Christmas lights.
The fourth annual lighting of the Christmas lights is planned for the next two weekends: Dec. 11, 12 and 13 and then again Dec. 18, 19 and 20.
If the weather holds, the hope is that this year will surpass last year's visitation, when more than 3,000 people stopped by.
The tour, through the park on the lake's north shore, offers a self-guided tour or the chance for a tractor-pulled hay rack ride.
Back at the shelter house, hot chocolate and marshmallows will be available to warm the heart and stomach of those who turn out.
Cedar Bluff office manager Anita Schneider has already mixed up the hot chocolate, all of it made from scratch.
"Last year, I gave away over 50 gallons," she said.
Santa will even be on hand to hear what children hope to get for Christmas.
All that for $1 anyone 5 and older; anyone under 5 gets in free.
While the lighting of Cedar Bluff is a cooperative venture between the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks and the Die-Hards, a group of park aficionados, the money stays with the friend's group to pay for park improvements and new lights.
Cedar Bluff Park crews hoped to complete the task of stringing lights by week's end so that Monday and Tuesday will allow for connecting the lights a ready supply of power.
If all goes well, said Larry Eberle, the lights will be tested Tuesday.
Eberle and Don Bradbury were busy Tuesday putting up lights, tacking them to gutters on a bathhouse, stringing them on trees surrounding the park office and setting a Santa display on the fish cleaning station that falls midway through the tour of lights.
"We're done with the bathhouses and the fish cleaning station," Eberle said. "And before the day is over, we'll probably do some more trees."
Indeed they did.
Eberle used two sets of telescoping poles to reach well up into the leaf-free branches of trees, some towering nearly 40 feet tall. Crews from Western Cooperative Electric were planning a trip to the park to help with some of the taller trees.
"We're planning on running our test night Tuesday night," Eberle said. "That's our hope and dream anyway."
Eberle, a full-time KDWP, has yet to see the lights, and he's looking forward to it. Bradbury, and seven-year part-time veteran of the park, has seen then and told of how the lights are so expansive, it's hard to describe to anyone who hasn't seen them.
It's not known for sure how many lights are involved, but Eberle said they are stored in 13 55-gallon barrels.
This year, they had to add to the stockpile, as icicle lights were put on the park office and the trees have grown larger -- requiring even more lights to cover them.
"You've got to do something different every year," Eberle said, "otherwise it will look the same."
One of those changes is the addition of yet another group shelter to the list of lighted structures.
"The cabins are done," Bradbury said. "Almost all the trees are done."
Eberle and Bradbury tried to follow patterns in the various campgrounds in the park. Some are blue, while others are red or mixed.
One follows a trend of being red, white and blue.
Weather often is the deciding factor in how many people show up for the event.
"If they catch nice weather, they'll have a nice crowd," Bradbury said.