Road Trip: Mississippi River

Well, since the budget is a little tight these days my travels need to be closer to home, but that doesn't mean they need to be any less special. This week I took a spectacular two day drive through bluff country alongside the mighty Mississippi River. On the first day I drove down the Minnesota side (Hwy 61 South) and the second day back up the Wisconsin side (Hwy 35 North) for a total of 460 miles round-trip. Let me just say right now, if you have any affinity for bald eagles, water fowl, or birds in general - along that river is the place to be. Very cool. Let's get to some pics.

Day One: First stop, Frontenac State Park 10 miles SE of Red Wing, MN.



Great views. I took a nice walk in the park and saw a group of deer.

The next cool stop was in the Whitewater area. I guess Whitewater is a wildlife preserve/State Park. From what I saw it was a gravel road that went on for miles, surrounded by wilderness, mostly wetlands, and wildlife. In this picture below I was trying to get a picture of a Bald Eagle sitting in a tree.

I tried zooming but this was the best shot I could get:

Ah, If only I had an awesome camera.


View of Winona, MN from a bluff.



Next stop, Great River Bluffs State Park. It has great trails, my kind of trails anyway, through forest and meadows.


Didn't see any snakes there.


Crossed over into the lovely state of Wisconsin.

Stayed in a cheap motel in Onalaska, WI right across the street from the river. As the sun went down I sat on a bench and watched Pelicans migrating north up the river. I didn't have my camera with though.

Notice little Teeta at the bottom of the statue, she was my companion for the trip and proved to be a handfull. I don't think I'll take her on any overnight trips anymore, she doesn't let me sleep.

Day Two: On the way back up north I stopped at the historic Seven Bridges Road. I'm guessing the famous song is referencing this site. It was a neat little footpath.



And now for my most favoritest stop on the trip, Trempealeau National Wildlife Refuge.

I spent most of the morning, at least 4 hours, there and was having so much fun I forgot to take a picture of the welcome sign like I usually do. But I still have the brochures. What was so cool about this place is that it had wetland, prairie grass, and forest habitats. And there was a self-guided driving tour that consisted of a narrow one-way gravel path with several numbered point-of-interest stops along the way. The brochure gave great information about plant and wildlife and even history for each stop. It was exactly like a hike except you were in your car, which I appreciated because I was starting to get tired with all the activities and driving. I rolled all the windows down and crawled along, I don't think I ever went over 5mph and I turned the engine off frequently to just watch and listen. It was awesome. I swear those moments when I'm alone out in nature are just about the only times when I feel zero stress, anxiety, anger, or sadness - out there I'm not in a rush or locked in my own head, I'm just present in the moment and at peace. I feel really alive and a part of everything around me. It's the kind of high worth chasing. And when I do get lost in thought out there, I'm just imagining what life was like for the early European settlers, and before them the Native Americans. I wonder what the landscape was really like back then, and when early man hunted mastodons and sabertooths, and even before man when it was just dinosaurs. Before there was a Mississippi River, when the land was covered in glaciers that eventually melted, creating it. It's nice to get lost in nothing but those kinds of thoughts sometimes.
Alrighty, moving along, this is another pic I snapped at the wildlife refuge. It's a Common Flicker (Yellow-shafted)




Canada Goose

Muskrat

Canada Geese looking for food.


There was this great little grassy pike that stretched 3/4 mile I think. It was a narrow walking path with water on both sides; it felt like a narrow little island. There were tons of birds everywhere I looked. I saw a flock of Sandhill Cranes, many types of duck, a Blue Heron, what I believe was a White Egret, quite a few Bald Eagles and other unidentified hawk-like birds. It was incredible. The whole park felt like a paradise, or what my idea of paradise is anyway.


Beaver Dam


On the way back I stopped at the birthplace of Laura Ingalls Wilder who wrote the Little house books.



And that's it. I'm thinking for my next trip I should do a tour of the covered bridges of Madison County. Sounds like fun.