Tag: nature
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Isle Royale National Park 05-26-2025
I’ve wanted to visit Isle Royale since I heard about it while I was a Boy Scout. (That was a few years ago.) I’ve been planning this trip for months. I almost didn’t make it! I booked a crossing on the Ranger III, a ferry operated by the National Park Service to take visitors and… Read.
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Morning Paddle 05-10-2025
I usually visit the UW-Madison arboretum every weekend, even if it’s for a short walk, and when I go, I like to stop by Big Spring and watch the water flow for a little while. It’s calming in a way that I don’t completely understand but I enjoy nonetheless. Today I visited Big Spring in… Read.
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Newport State Park 4-29-25 — 5-1-25
Hello from Newport State Park in Door County, Wisconsin! I visited recently for a two-night stay to try out my new backpacking gear, as well as some of the oldest gear I have (my spindly old legs), all to make sure I’m ready to hit the trail this season. Here’s an obligatory selfie at the… Read.
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Evening Walk
I went for a walk through Edna Taylor park after work. At the far end of my walk, where the path loops through the playground behind Henderson Elementary School, I saw two Sandhill cranes walking across the lawn. As I got closer, I caught a reddish blur weaving between their legs. I’d never seen a… Read.
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evening walk 3/29/2025
Tim usually comes over for dinner and a game on Saturday nights, but this Saturday Barb was not feeling well enough to receive guests. She had a bit of a tummy bug that kept her up half the night and as a consequence she spent most of Saturday curled up in bed, sleeping off the… Read.
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morning walk 03/16/2025
For this morning’s walk, I didn’t want to travel very far from the Madison area because the weather was yuck, but I did want to do more than stretch my legs. I wanted to hike at least five miles, and the one place I could easily hike that far which was only a short drive… Read.
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IAT Blue Spring Lake Segment
Today was a beautiful day to hike the Ice Age Trail! It started out crisp and cool but ended up delightfully warm and was sunny all morning and afternoon. I was a little concerned the warm temps would thaw out the frozen ground and turn the whole trail into a muddy bog, making today’s hike… Read.
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morning walk 03/08/2025
I knew if I wanted to take a hike through the UW-Madison arboretum, I would have to get there before the sun had been up long enough to melt the ground and turn every trail into a slippery quagmire of muck, which was already starting to happen by the time I left at 10:00 this… Read.
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IAT Blackhawk segment
It was a good day to hike the IAT Blackhawk segment, so that’s what I did. The skies were clear and sunny but the temps were very cold — 20 F when I arrived, 28 F when I departed — so I had to dress up in many layers, and even then I was pretty… Read.
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IAT Cross Plains segment (again)
Went for a little hike this afternoon on the Cross Plains segment of the Ice Age Trail. Today was a relatively warm day with temps in the high 30s, which was good and bad. Good, because it was easy for me to keep warm. Bad, because the trail, which had previously been frozen solid, was… Read.
This Is Drivel 