Lake Wisconsin and Eagles

 

When we got home yesterday, Travalon's new friend had arrived. Check it out - he even has tiny ice cubes in his glass of Hawaiian Punch!

Then we took a long walk, and there was a beautiful winter sunset.

Today Travalon and I drove out to Sauk; we saw a mature bald eagle fly overhead as we passed Roxbury, but we didn't see any eagles in Sauk itself. We drove along Highway U, up the north side of the lake, and on one road there is a random porta-potty, which was handy for me. We kept driving on that road up a bluff, to get a great view of Paradise Island.

Okay, this is out of order, but in Merrimac we stopped at the park from which you can see all of Lake Wisconsin, and there was too much snow to walk into the park so we took a walk along the road. We saw this tropical house that belongs in Miami! Ha, just kidding, that's a fake palm tree.

We drove to Portage and went to Two Rivers Coffee, because I had a 10% off coupon. We took a walk in town, and there were speakers on the lampposts that were playing 40's Junction, which is what we were listening to in the car. How cool is that? We saw these pretty Christmas trees on a street corner.

We saw this adorable turtle in a shop window.

Then we drove down the south side of the river on Highway V, and we stopped by Columbia Lake. Because of the power plant on the lake, the water is always 70 degrees Fahrenheit, so a lot of steam was coming off of it. Notice the rime on the weeds... and the people kayaking in January!

It had started to flurry while we were in Portage, which was shocking because it hadn't been in the forecast. It was getting a little worse, so we stopped at Hooker's Resort for lunch to give it a chance to blow through. Hooker's has a cute little delivery Smart Car.

Things cleared up, and we drove down Tipperary Road and stopped at the boat launch to take photos of the bluff across the way where we had been earlier, taking pictures of Paradise Island.

We turned off Tipperary Road and onto the causeway, and we saw lots of ice fishermen on either side. (I never see ice fisherwomen because women have more common sense than that.) Just then, 40's Junction played "It's a Long, Long Way to Tipperary," and we thought it was too bad we had missed hearing the song while on Tipperary Road by just moments. We drove through Okee and past the island in Sunset Bay, and then we returned to Sauk. This time we saw two eagles on the island, one at the VFW Park that flew downriver, and two at the dam. Here they are sitting in one tree.

Then they flew closer to the dam.

There they sat in a different tree, so close that at moments they looked like a single, two-headed eagle.

I still needed some steps when we got back, so eventually we went for a walk in our neighborhood. These lit up green mounds under the snow were very cool.

Now we are watching the Cleveland Browns beating the Pittsburgh Steelers in the playoffs. So excited for Cleveland! They haven't been in the playoffs since 2002, and in fact a few seasons ago they didn't win a single game, so I'm so happy that they aren't one and done. Of course, if they do make it to the Super Bowl and so do the Packers, I'm still cheering for Green Bay.

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