St. Croix Bluffs Regional Park

It was a balmy day for December in the low 20's so I visited a new park for me, St. Croix Bluffs. If there had been more snow on the trails, my regular hiking boots would not have been adequate. I was glad I packed the handwarmers, too. Taking photos meant removing my gloves and my hands (fingers) really cannot handle the cold.

Here are a few of the photos. To get to the St. Croix River meant going down-down-down which the park's name would have given you a clue. And hiking down means you have to hike back up. It was a good workout.

Lots of deer tracks and as you will see, beaver action. There were also lots of birds including song birds, woodpeckers and mallard ducks.

I got to walk on the frozen river. It is always exciting and a bit un-nerving walking out on a large body of frozen water.

This tree wasn't in the park. It was in a field but was so beautiful I had to stop to photo.

Hoarfrost on everything.

More hoarfrost.

Some serious beaver action.

The view down on the river.

I love symmetry and I love trees.

"THE LOOKOUT" I found this on my hike up from the river.

Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge

It was such a beautiful November day on Saturday that I had to take advantage. So I drove north to visit and walk the paths of the Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge.

Known for the flocks of Sandhill cranes that migrate through in the Fall, the refuge also has Trumpeter swans, other migratory birds and more beavers than I have ever seen. Also oak savannahs, acres of prairie grasses and ponds and lakes with cattail and other marsh plants.

I easily saw a dozen beavers on three different ponds or lakes. Not just beaver activity but actual beavers. The beaver pond had 7-8 beavers with 5 small pups hanging out together and what could have been the biggest beaver I've ever seen.

Sunset selfie

Sunset colors

Moon rise over the beaver pond

2020 Ginko Tree Leaf Drop

 The annual leaf drop has occurred. Temperatures were in the range to start the drop...usually 24-26. If you listen carefully to the video, you can hear the leaves dropping. It is kind of peaceful.

The short video is available here.

Previous leaf drops:

In 2016 there wasn't a leaf drop.

Last year the leaf drop was a week later.

In 2018 the first leaf drop was 5 days earlier than this year.

In 2017 the leaf drop was dramatic.

Roadtrippin' to Southwest Minnesota

I needed to get away for a bit. First let me say that I am fortunate to have work through all this weirdness and that work has been from home. However, I needed a break from the routine of getting up, having breakfast, taking a shower, then sitting in front of my laptop for hours.

I have been wanting to visit Blue Mounds State Park in southwest Minnesota for a long while. It sounded like an interesting site for three reasons: one - it has natural, undistributed prairie; two - a herd of bison; and three - it could be done safely as an outdoor event.  It did not fail on all counts.

I also got the chance to share this with my friend, Bud. We drove down through miles and miles and rows and rows of corn being harvested. It was astounding just how much corn is grown in Minnesota. There really was no other crop and very few animal farms of any kind. I would say horses out numbered cattle.

Blue Mounds State Park is the site of a geological wonder. Out of the extremely flat prairie is this palisade of red quartzite rock! And on top of all that rock is a pristine prairie. We parked at the State Park entrance and rode our bikes around the palisade to an incline up to the top. To say it was windy does not begin to describe the conditions. It was insane wind!

Once on top of the mound we hiked/walked to where we were told we could see the bison. The bison are kept within a fenced area of the prairie. It took a bit of imagination and binoculars but we did find them. We also got to see the quartzite up close.

I used the new teleconverter attachment for my Olympus Tough camera to get this shot of the bison which were very far away.

Those dark dots are bison

Selfie in front of Eagle Rock on top of Blue Mounds

Click here for a bike ride along Blue Mounds

quartzite

After getting blown off Blue Mounds, we found a corral where it looks like some bison are kept or segregated so we did get to see some of them closer. The grey barn and silo in the photo above is where the bison corral is.

We then drove to Pipestone, Minnesota about half hour north of Blue Mounds. When researching Blue Mounds State Park I came across Pipestone National Monument where there is more of the red quartzite but also pipestone stone.

Pipestone, the town, has many buildings made using the red quartzite. Here are examples...

A beautiful inn that is currently condemned

Three facades built in the late 1800's

Pipestone stone is only here in Pipestone and a small amount in Iowa and South Dakota. It is a very rare vein of stone that is used by Native Americans to make...you guessed it...pipes. It is a soft stone that is quarried from a limited vein between the very hard quartzite. Pipestone National Monument highlights the history of this stone and provides for Native Americans to maintain this in their heritage.

We were definitely past leaf peak but there was an occasional flash of color

Pipestone Creek leaving the Park

"The Oracle"

Bittersweet

Gazing at the quartzite palisades

It is a beautiful park with prairie, quartzite walls, a waterfall and historic quarries.

Click here to see the waterfall

The pipestone vein is where the gap is. This has been quarried out between the layers of quartzite

We headed back to Minneapolis through more miles and rows of corn. We could no longer tell one set of grain elevators from another. These sites along rail corridors are really big. 

We stopped in Redwood Falls to see one set of falls...apparently there are more but we didn't find them.

It was a great roadtrip and a break from work. It was also great to spend time with my friend, Bud, and to see more of Minnesota.

Front Porch Project

 Going to start with the after photo because I don't have a good before and the before was hideous.

I haven't ever really used by front porch for a couple of reasons. My house sits at the front of the property so my porch is very close to the sidewalk and the street. It seems odd and uncomfortable for some reason being so close to the sidewalk. But mostly the porch has been kind of skanky. The floor was awful and it just felt abandoned -- because it was.

Spending the Spring, Summer and now Fall in the house, I decided to spruce the front porch up. I got vinyl plank flooring at Menards way back in the early summer. It was either too hot and humid, raining or I was too tired to work on it.

Finally when it cooled down in the late summer I got at it. Once I really started work on the project, it went fairly quickly.

The old floor was a linoleum tile squares. A few were completely loose but most took some effort to get up. Once I came up with a technique, it went fairly smoothly though I did get a nice stigmata like blister in the palm of my right hand.

The biggest decision was which direction to lay the flooring in. I did some research and decided that having the planks "guide" toward the entry was the way to go. Once that was decided, laying the vinyl plank flooring was not bad. However, I can't tell you how many times I cut the wrong end of a plank but that just became the next row.

I re-used the quarter round after repainting white. I added a piece of furniture that Kelly gave me - I think I'll white-wash it so it is beachier - and added a lamp. I already had the two-seater.

I super pleased with the end results and feel like I could actually sit out here and enjoy.

After with staged furniture

After with planks drawing you to the front entrance

In progress. Once I got around that corner, it went quickly

All the nasty linoleum gone

Maggie on the nasty linoleum. My only before photo.

BWCA Flora and Fauna

 In addition to the crazy brilliant beaver rock dam, there were other wonders of plants and animals. Alas, there were no moose sightings again this year though we wouldn't have seen the beaver rock dam if we hadn't gone moose stalking.

Near Jenny and Andrew's cabin is the "Moose Pond" that has to be surveyed on every trip to the cabin. The Grade is being worked on (widened?) and as part of the project the culverts are being upgraded which has resulted in the "Moose Pond" being lowered. No moose this year but there were two beautiful swans. The Moose Pond is very close to the road so you can see truly how big these birds are.

The bear for the 'Daryl and the Bear' story was supposed to be here

We had lots of song birds at are campsite. They are often difficult to see though. From the vantage point of the latrine I as serenaded by a small flock of red breasted birds. And we had a robin and a song sparrow fist the campsite and show themselves.

Two really enjoyable bird events were: 1) an eagle pair flew very low and near the campsite and performed their aerial talon intertwining right next to us. We have had the good fortune of having seen this before but it is always breath taking. .. and 2) an adult Merganser duck with 15, yes 15!, ducklings. The ducklings were practicing diving while mom kept a watchful eye and made sure no one swam out too far. It was hilarious watching the little downy ducklings go underwater but because they are so buoyant, they actually pop out of the water before quickly swimming along.

We also saw a Merganser with a single duckling on her back. It was too adorable. After the two eagles performed their midair dance, a very large bird landed in a tree that was super far away. With our binoculars we could see it was huge but couldn't tell what it was. It might have been a Golden Eagle as they are bigger than a Bald Eagle and we could almost make out that it wasn't a Bald Eagle.

There was some sort of small mammal in the little cove next to our campsite. I'm going to call it a mink. I only saw it one time.

We had several chipmunks around camp and frogs and toads. We also enjoyed watching the fish in the crystal clear waters at camp.

So may variety of evergreens

The variety of evergreens in the BWCA is always amazing and stunning. I must have hundreds of photos of trees reflected in the water. There were not a lot of big trees where we were. You could tell the area was coming back from long ago fires and blow downs.

Tree reflection

There were a variety of bees on this flower

The mid summer flowers were wonderful though there were not many water flowers and hardly any water lilies on the lakes we paddled.

A water lily from under the water. The water is crystal clear.

Annual Boundary Waters trip (full recap)

Our annual Boundary Waters Canoe Area, BWCA, Wilderness adventure did go on this year. We considered the COVID-19 situation and took precautions prior to departure. Afterall, we were going to be spending a great deal of time in very close quarters where wearing a mask was simply not possible or practical...the long drive up north, canoe paddling and sleeping in a tent together.

After careful consideration and precautions, the group decided to go forward with the trip.

Getting ready to paddle in

This year’s itinerary had us entering the BWCA far up the Gunflint Trail. We spent our first night up North in Jenny and Andrew’s cabin as usual but instead of paddling out of the BWCA and returning to the Twin Cities all in the same day, we returned to the cabin to spend the night and rest up. It was a good pre-decision.

There were really only two “tricky” parts to the trip this year. One was that we had planned on pitching our tent on a campsite on Ogishkmuncie (Ogish) Lake. But because of COVID-19, the BWCA and all camping facilities in Minnesota are super popular and there were no available campsites on Ogish. We knew that it was going to be along paddle to Ogish to begin with and never expected that it would be full of campers.

Seagull to Alpine to Jasper

We entered the BWCA from Seagull Outfitters on Seagull Lake. Seagull is a very big lake and we were to paddle pretty much the full length of it to get to our first portage. We got an early start but by the time we arrived at Ogish and paddled from campsite to campsite in and around confusing islands, there simply wasn’t a spot to stay so we proceeded to the next lake....Jenny Lake!

We ended up at a fantastic campsite on Jenny Lake. It was secluded in a deadend portion of the lake...which means there was not a portage near us so paddlers would not be going by on their way to another lake.

We did arrive in daylight (plenty of) and as usual got the site setup in no time at all. Brian fixed a great dinner and sleeping wasn’t a problem as we were all very, very tired after what ended up being 8 hours on the water and portaging. I think that was a record and not one we need to try to top.

We paddled into the BWCA on Wednesday. Thursday and Friday mornings we did our usual reading and napping and reading and snacking and reading. By mid-afternoons we were ready to do some adventuring.

Thursday we went to Eddy Falls. These are water falls from Eddy Lake to South Arm Knife Lake. Since we had passed the Lawrentian Divide, the waterfall flows to the north. And one advantage of COVID-19 is that most youth group camps up the Gunflint Trail are not in operation this year so there was no one at the falls. Jenny said there sometimes is a line of groups!

While you can’t jump into big pools of water here you can sit and enjoy the water running over you. It was incredible. We were able to spend 20-30 minutes by ourselves playing around before a boy scout group showed up.

Rock dam

Friday we paddled and portaged through Kekekabic Ponds looking for moose. We didn’t see any. We did come across the most interesting beaver dam we have very seen. It was a rock dam…entirely of rocks! We think they built it to catch fish. It was amazing.

We broke camp early Saturday morning. Though we had several portages none of them were all that long so we mad good progress getting back to Seagull even with some rain. Then there was Seagull. We had had some rain and heard thunder in the distance on the paddle but nothing bad enough that we had to stop for comfort or safety. Then the wind picked up on Seagull and we had two sections that were crazy difficult to paddle.

Taking a break after a portage

Small whitecaps started up in the first section. Whitecaps while in a canoe are not a good thing. Julie and I were in the front of our canoes and Jenny and Brian were steering. Not much was said as we battled through this. We reached calm water and rested a bit.

Before reaching"the outfitter, we hit another wind. This time coming right in our faces. It took what seemed like forever to get to the outfitter’s dock. We had paddled for two hours just on Seagull Lake.

Getting back to the cabin to spend a comfortable night was a brilliant idea. We ate and slept great and made it home on Sunday suntanned and a little sore but with great stories.

You will have to ask about Darryl and the bear, the eagle pair, mink?, Jenny the ghost, “I’m good,” and other stories I’m not remembering.

Click here for all my photos and movies on One Drive.

Cozumel Spring

I do not use my blog site very much anymore but I do like to post my travels here still.

I got back on Wednesday from a wonderful trip to Cozumel. I know. I know. I go to Cozumel a lot. There is a reason...actually several.

There are wonderful people on the island of Cozumel. The smiles. The friendliness. The warmth of everyone you meet, is infectious...in the best possible way.

It is also the people that I travel with. This trips including two friends I have known for a long, long time. Jenny, who hadn't been in 11 years! And Dave, who goes with me or I with him at least once a year. The amount of laughter cannot be accounted.

And this year for the second year in a row, the trip to Cozumel overlapped with another dear friend, Shirley Venard. The story of Shirley on the island is a blog post all its own some day.

I did not get any good underwater photos this year. The stupid Sony camera I bought last year takes horrible photos and I couldn't get my Olympus Tough that I have had forever to work for more than few seconds.

I did get dry land photos with my iPhone and Jenny and Dave got a ton of underwater photos.

I also took a couple of videos. One I will share here that captures something of what makes the island special. This was shot with my iPhone in portrait mode.
Video


As for my photos, they can be viewed on my OneDrive storage site...Cozumel March 2020 Photos