We Conquered the Mammoth Hike Challenge!

 

Ugh, that Packers game! I knew they would have to lose eventually, and Rodgers would throw an interception eventually, but did he have to throw two in a row that turned into touchdowns? And even at that point the Pack were only down by four points, but it was like he lost his mojo and they couldn't score again. How humiliating to lose to Tom Brady by four touchdowns! On top of that, I seem to have a virus. No coughing or fever, so probably not the dreaded COVID, but how could I catch a cold? I haven't been around anyone!! Except Travalon, and he's not sick.

The morning started very oddly, when we went out the door to go to Mass and found two little birds, a robin and a sparrow, standing in front of the front door and staring into it as if they were expecting someone. We were running a bit late already, but I thought we should move them. 

I picked each one up gently and moved it to the garden in our front yard, and then they began to act normally. Here is a better look at the sparrow, now alert and not glassy-eyed.

What happened? Did they fly into the glass door and get stunned? By then we were too late to get to Mass, but maybe God did that on purpose, because it quickly became apparent that my sneezing and constantly running nose were not improving after taking an antihistamine, so I must have had more than allergies. This way I couldn't spread the joy to everyone at my church. 

We did decide to hike on the Ice Age Trail. We hiked on parts of two segments: the Brooklyn Wildlife segment and the Montrose segment. Of course when we got there, Travalon realized I had not put the memory card back in his good camera after uploading his photos from yesterday to Boethius. Clearly I was not running on all cylinders last night because I ALWAYS replace it immediately exactly so this wouldn't happen. Also, I forgot to charge my phone last night, but I charged it in the car on the way to Brooklyn. I took these first two photos with my phone, and the rest are from Travalon's phone, even the photo of him.

Some parts of the Ice Age Trail are right by private property. We were amused by this person's fake geese.

Here is a map of the Brooklyn segment that we did.

And here we are, almost finished with the hike. I look pretty beat, because I thought some exercise would help me fend off whatever virus I was fighting, but it just made me more tired.

On the way home, as we drove up Stoughton Road, we noticed a pond with a park on the map just to the east. It was Acewood Park, and look at the bird party on the pond!

Then we stopped by the antiques store on Cottage Grove Road, mostly because I had to powder my nose. I didn't expect to find any rosaries, since they never seem to have any at that one, but today I found two wall hanging ones, two cheap little ones, and a bracelet one. Then we came home and I entered our miles in the spreadsheet the Mammoth Challenge people had provided, and we were at 40.4 miles! Woo hoo! I submitted our form, and then we watched the game. Now I am really feeling lousy, but is there any point in calling in sick to work tomorrow if I'm working from home? It's not like I'm going to infect my coworkers. 

Famous Hat