Jilly Moose's Birthday Hike

Yesterday I took the day off of work for Jilly Moose's birthday. She, Travalon, and I drove to the Saint Philomena Shrine in Briggsville, a small town on the shore of Mason Lake.

Then we drove to the Dells and walked along the banks of the Wisconsin River.

We had lunch at Moosejaw Pizza and Brewery, and then we took a long hike at Mirror Lake State Park. By the end of the hike, I had walked over eight and a half miles! My FitBit buzzed when I hit 10,000 steps and again when I hit 20,000 steps. Travalon forgot to bring his good camera, but I took some photos with my phone of the beautiful Ishnala Trail that follows a creek.

Jilly Moose took this photo with her phone.

After that we drove back home, and as we passed Sauk, I said too bad the Mixing Bowl wasn't open, since I had earned a piece of their shortbread. To our surprise, there were two open signs on and one saying the drive through was open, so we checked it out - and it was! So I got my shortbread. We were so tired after all that hiking that we had a quiet evening at home, and after my weekly chat with Tiffy, I was too beat to blog, so that is why I didn't post anything yesterday.

Travalon's phone screen had gone purple on Thursday evening, so this morning he went to get it fixed, and that took the whole morning. We had been thinking of going to Holy Hill, but I said let's go somewhere closer, like Indian Lake County Park. However, it was more packed there than we had ever seen before - people were parked all the way along the road into the park. So then I suggested we go to the riverwalk in Sauk City where I had seen a bird party four years earlier. Today there was no bird party, but there were some people selling a bunch of random stuff. I asked if they had any rosaries, and they had a beautiful jade rosary that they sold for only $10. Wow! It was like the rosary was calling me to that spot to find it. Then we went to the VFW park and took a walk along a trail that went all the way to the dam. Here are photos of a sandbar and two really cool bluffs we always see across the river.

After that we tried to drive around Fish Lake, but the road is still flooded.

We saw this beautiful raptor in a tree - I think it's an osprey?

Then we drove to Mazomanie to try to see an island in the Wisconsin River, but we couldn't find a road with river access nearby. We did see this Bird Party of cranes in a corn field.

We tried to find another county park called Halfway Prairie and ended up back at Indian Lake County Park, this time at the dog park section. Here I am wearing my newly acquired jade rosary.

And this is the hill across the lake where the chapel is.

On the way home we saw this stoplight that was smiling at us!

Then we got dinner from Athens Grill and sat on our dock to eat while watching the sun set. I had an eggplant and hummus sandwich, and was that ever delicious! Today I only walked six miles, but that's still a mile more than a regular day for me.

Famous Hat