Tuesday, May 27

Began the morning exploring Devil's Lake State Park.  First trail was called Parfrey's Glen and was the first designated Natural Area in Wisconsin.  We saw this pair of cranes in a meadow on the way there.

 The Glen was cool and lush with a lovely melodic stream.

 Scratch 'n' Sniff of the day:  Lovely sweet fresh air!

 Next we did a combination of parts of several trails. The first climbed a steep, rocky bluff and about 2/3 of the way, offered this view of Devil's Lake.

Can you spot the trail

Lovely wildflower along the trail.

 There were several birds, vultures I think, riding the thermals by the bluff and at times they were even with us or even below us!  So graceful!

 Near the beginning of the descent, we came to Devil's Doorway - the rocks behind us to our right.  The return trail was  not quite as rocky as the earlier one.

 The park, which was very busy when we arrived yesterday is very quiet today.
Having worked up a sweat, we went back to our campsite and hit the showers again.

Campsite #90

 We had lunch and then left the park, heading to the Aldo Leopold Foundation
buildings.  He was an early conservationist who wrote "A Sand County Almanac"
Which tells how he took a piece of property that had been stripped, abused and abandoned as worthless and nurtured it back to health.

 There is a museum, films, bookstore and then, a short drive down the road, the small "shack" where he and his family sometimes lived and worked.

Beautiful flowers at "the Shack"

 From here, we headed north and west to a small town named Warren, where we visited the Cranberry Discovery Museum.  Wisconsin produced about 60% of all the cranberries consumed in the US - more even than Massachussets!  There are fields all around the countryside.  They don't grow in water, but they are flooded a few times a season for various reasons.  One time is just before winter so that a thick layer of ice protects them over the winter.  Interesting that they spread sand on the ice, so that when the ice melts it nourishes the plants.  We sampled some dried berries and a cranberry salsa, and bought a small bag to add to our cereal.

cranberry field

The small town of Warren had these little Library boxes which were cute!

 Just a short drive west, we came to the Bicycling Capital of America - Sparta.  Wisconsin has quite a number of biking trails which interconnect and go through old RR tunnels, etc.  You can see the clouds moving in and the wind picked up too, scattering white crabapple blossoms like snow!

We stop at a Culver's, which is a local chain and try their butterburgers and fried cheese curds.  Good burgers, I could live without the curds.  We pull out some maps and several people stop by to offer assistance.  One cute older couple spends 10-15 minutes telling us about various places.  They winter in Arizona and live nearby.

 By the time we found a spot at a nearby Walmart, the storm was upon us.  Lots of rain and wind but it only lasted an hour or so.