As the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. We traveled 590 miles southbound Sunday. We put the petal to the metal traveling the interstates. We are stopped for the night at Days Inn in Southaven, Mississippi. We had pizza delivered to our room and did a little bit of picture processing that we are days behind on before crashing for the night.
We had a short ride Monday of 319 miles, 5 hours later, and we are home for the night.
If anyone would have told us that we would spend a day with Angie bar hopping and day drinking, I would have never believed them. I now believe.
We had brunch at Sunrise Restaurant in Savanna, Illinois. The breakfast skillets were to die for. Afterwards, we strolled along the street to the Ironhorse Saloon. A very cool place.
Our next stop was Poopy's. We had heard of the place from Angie and Jac, but words did not do it justice. There was a store, a restaurant, an outside bar, a band playing, a pool bar, a weed shack, a motorcycle repair shop, and a tatoo/piercing parlor. Biker heaven!!
We checked out the Harley shop, then went to the Legends Sports Bar and Grill for a drink. Afterwards, Angie and Chad grilled bratwurst burgers. This was our first bratwurst burger, but hopefully will not be our last.
7-23 Bar Hopping and Day Drinking
After a leisurely morning of sitting around drinking coffee, Angie took us on a ride. We checked out a couple of state parks, we found a lifer, a White-breasted Nuthatch.
We stopped at the overlook before entering Lost Mound where we saw Bald Eagles and plenty of cool plants.
We went to Lost Mound National Wildlife Refuge, Savanna District, which is a Ornate Turtle sanctuary that Angie works with. It once was a place that explosives were tested and stored which is why we signed wavers in order to access this area. Luckily, we did not find any explosives while looking for the turtles.
We saw a mouse, pretty plants, and cool critters, but no turtles. We needed telemetry monitoring to find them, which we did not have.
After we left, we drove around in the unit, seeing lots of Wild Turkeys and pretty plants.
When we returned, we met Chad, Angie's boyfriend. We have been joking about Chad's name with Angie calling him Antoine and Jeb. Long story short, I had a dream a while back, that Angie was dating someone named Antoine. When we first found out through the grapevine that Angie had a fellow, we were told his name was Jeb. They went with it. First he came out with a name tag with Antoine, then a little later with a name tag with Jeb. We all are having fun with this.
We had dinner at Candlelight Inn. The restaurant overlooked the Mississippi River providing a great atmosphere with good food and better company.
We got the boats in the mighty Mississippi River and left the boat ramp at 0800 this morning. Angie was our captain and Nate was in the other boat. We traveled for about 30 minutes before meeting the rest of the team. We saw thousands of White Pelicans as well as other waterfowl. We even saw a couple of Sandhill Cranes and a Bald Eagle on our ride.
While waiting for the rest of the team to unload their boats, we watched a snake eating his breakfast in the shallow water.
We emptied out our pockets, jumped in the water, and pretty much crawled around on our hands and knees digging around for mussels. The water was anywhere from 2-4 foot, the bottom was anywhere from mud to sand, and the water was anywhere from clear, a Lotus Jungle or Duck Weed. We did 10 minute digs in numerous spots over the next 6 hours. It was a hoot and a half!!
On a sad note, we got to see Avian Flu up close and personal. There were hundreds of dead birds on land and floating in the water. Angie and Nate surveyed one of the smaller islands and found 151 dead White Pelicans, 9 dead Canadian Geese, and 2 dead Double-breasted Cormorants, and this was only on about a forth of the rookery islands.
On a happy note, we got to watch this adorable baby White Pelican.
Our 10 hour day of playing in the Mississippi River was fantastic. We now have a claim to fame of polywogging. What a day!!
We wrapped up the evening with a Spotted Cow beer that we bought yesterday. It is locally brewed and sold only in Wisconsin.
We left around 7:30 am this morning. The first stop was Sweetheart Bakery for some tasty pastries that we ate on our 3 hour drive to Devil's Lake St. Park in Baraboo, Wisconsin. Lauren and I bailed out when we got to the park, while Angie took a work conference call.
We took the advice of the park attendant and hiked the East Bluff Trail. Rock climbing is quite a challenge for a couple of flat landers, but we managed to make the 1.7 miles, even though there may have been a bit of huffing and puffing going on. The views were astonishing!
When we got to the Balanced Rock spur that was an additional 0.4 miles of challenging rock climbing. I went a short ways, then decided I was too unbalanced for this hike and bailed out. Lauren on the other hand was determined. He made it there and back with no ill effects. Whew!!
We both continued on another spur that was 0.1 miles to Devil's Doorway. It was challenging, but not nearly as much as Balanced Rock. There we found real rock climbers with their ropes and stuff.
We met Angie about halfway of the East Bluff Woods Trail. It is a 1.3 mile trail straight down the bluff through the woods. A much easier trail.
We were greeted by Hilary and Anne at the International Crane Foundation. We have wanted to come here for years and finally made it. It is a phenomenal place with all 15 Crane species residing here. Not to mention the gorgeous prairie plants and birds that are here. This place far exceeded our expectations.
