Coding

Page creation information

This html page was created as the output from an R Markdown document. Code is not shown (for purposes of brevity), but will be provided on request.

libraries used

  • data input: readr, readxl, geojsonio
  • data organization: tidyr, dplyr, stringi, magrittr, glue
  • website organization: htmltools, htmlwidgets
  • plotting: leaflet, sf, ColorBrewer

Introduction

Description

I’m glad you’re reading this! I will be tracking progress as puppy Lars and I hike, explore, and read at many state parks within a few hours of Eau Claire, during Summer and Fall 2024. In case you would like to follow along with my experiences, please continue on.

Goals

  1. This is mostly for my own accountability - I am committing to visiting at least 20 state parks in the Wisconsin / Minnesota area during summer-fall 2024. I will hike and do some research reading at each of those parks. This map is my way of tracking and communicating those results.
  2. As a statistician, if I can gather data, I want to. I plan to correspond with a local state-park resource to see if there is anything I can do to support data gathering, verification, or analysis.

Theme

I’ve heard the phrase, “to return to the trees”. The best Ojibwe translation I could find is “azhegiiwe izhi-mitigokaa”. This phrase well describes the peace and re-centering that I find in the woods, in nature, in the trees. return to the trees

Setup

Read in the data

Comments and data for each park are being added manually and progressively. A .geojson file was created with mapping and visit information.

WISP_data <- geojson_read('WI_MN_SPrecords.geojson',
                         what = 'sp') # "sp" = spatial object

All the meta-data is entered by hand, with descriptions quoted from the state’s sites.

I didn’t find any real reliable / complete data in the necessary .geojson format, so I created my own file*.

`* Please let me know if you see any typos or mistakes!

Create popup content

After re-formatting of input, the relevant information is concatenated via the glue function, and formatted to appear as HTML.

#Put together with available reports:
popupcontent <- glue(
  "<b>{WISP_data$Name}</b> <br/>",
  "<em>Date(s) visited</em>: {WISP_data$DateVisited} <br/>",
  "<em>Hiking Distance</em>: {WISP_data$DistanceHiked} miles<br/>",
  "<em>Reading</em>: {WISP_data$Reading} <br/>",
  "<em>Camping rating</em>: {WISP_data$CampingRating} <br/>",
  "<a href='{WISP_data$TrailReportURL}' target='_blank'>Trail Report</a>"
) %>%
  lapply(htmltools::HTML)

WISP_data$popupcontent = popupcontent

Map with Pop-up Information

Map shows:

  • popups contain name of state park and trail report link (if completed);
  • hiking is green, reading (of a research article) is blue, and camping is red;
  • combined colors show combinations of activities.

Total count of visited parks (including National sites): 22 parks!

References and Thanks

Parks

Ideas: Thanks to all the advice and park suggestions from friends and family!

State park information:

Data: gathered by me through individual experience.

Coding

Mental Health Resources

IMPORTANT: reading and support is just as integral (if not more so) to me being able to continue work as is the activity of doing research.

Reading: A mixture of understanding my neurodivergency and how that interplayed with religious trauma to feed into anxiety, depression, and manipulative relationships. My recovery continues to move forward past those experiences, as running, nature, and spirituality intertwine in my journey.

Podcasts: This is absolutely an eclectic medley, but this is what has helped me to heal from past experiences, to understand the reality of the world around me, and to learn how to be a better person to those around me.

Available upon request