Last Lovely Day of 2020?

 

Today the weather was so beautiful, I sat out on our screened-in porch. I had a meeting with my boss, and I told her things were kind of slow today, so she said, "Why not take the afternoon off?" So Travalon and I got steak tacos from the nearby gyros place and took them to Governor Nelson State Park, where we went out to a picnic bench on a little spit of land to enjoy our lunch by the lake. It was perfect until the wind knocked my hat off, and as I grabbed for it, all the napkins blew away. Fortunately I was able to recover the hat and all the napkins, and nothing went into the lake. 

After lunch we drove to Sauk and got lattes and treats at the Mixing Bowl, then we hiked on a section of the Ice Age Trail by Lodi that goes right up a bluff. We took the Merrimac Ferry over to the north side of Lake Wisconsin and drove up Highway U to some side roads I was curious about, and there were spectacular views of the lake from there. We went to the park in Merrimac, then we took the ferry back over to the south side of the lake and drove along it, trying to get photos of the sunset. It turned the whole lake pink! But by the time we got to Sunset Island, the sun had mostly gone down. 

If you like photos of sunsets, then you will really enjoy this post. First are a couple of shots of the sunset that Travalon took the other day at Governor Nelson State Park.

These are some photos from last night's sunset, from both Travalon's camera and mine.

We got this sparkly little unicorn in the Dells a couple of weeks ago.

These are my little pea plants. They are looking pretty scraggly, and one seems to have died completely, but on the far left you can see one has a bud. Will I actually get some peas??

As we were leaving around noon today, we saw two of our neighborhood cranes.

These photos are out of order - they are from my camera when we were hiking on the Monches section of the Ice Age Trail the day after the election.

These are photos from the Lodi section of the Ice Age Trail we hiked on today.

There were some really interesting rock formations as we hiked up the bluff.

Here are some photos of Lake Wisconsin. People were boating on it today, and we sort of had two boat rides: taking the Merrimac Ferry over and back.

Isn't this European-looking chalet cool? 

We also passed a large (but not as beautiful) house overlooking the river with the name "Reilly" on the mailbox. I guess when they say "living the life of Reilly," that's who they mean. Here is the view of the lake from the road these houses are on.

Here are some shots of the sunset I took as Travalon was driving.

Here are some photos from the park in Merrimac from which you can see almost all of Lake Wisconsin.

Paradise Island

Owl's Head Bluff

I took this shot of the sunset with Travalon's camera from the spot where you catch the ferry.

Here is a shot of it from on the ferry.

I liked this shot of the crescent moon with the pink clouds behind it.

Here is the sunset just after we got off the ferry.

These last two photos aren't as good. This one shows how the lake was pink, but it's not totally in focus. I took it as Travalon was driving. By the time we got to a good place to take a photo, the sunset was done.

This photo makes me laugh. I was trying to take a photo of the lights of Prairie du Sac (the blue one is a cross on top of a church which I think is Methodist), and Travalon turned, so they made streaks. I was just going to delete it, but then I thought it looked kind of artistic.

So it was a wonderful day off. Tomorrow it should be a little cooler, and then I imagine we'll be moving into our usual bleak late November weather, and soon... snow.

Famous Hat