Pheasant Branch and Small Business Saturday

 

This morning Travalon and I went for a hike at Pheasant Branch, and we ended up doing the whole loop. It's about five miles. We did not, however, climb the big hill. (I have climbed it in the past.) It was a gorgeous day, and tons of people were out. Tons of sandhill cranes, too - we saw a big bird party of them in the middle of the nature preserve. Here are some photos.

We did stop by the springs to watch them bubbling.

Here is a brief video. Travalon made a longer one, where you could see the little fish that live around them, but Blogspot won't let me post it so I'll have to work on making it a YouTube video at some point.

Here is a sign about the springs that has googly eyes, for some reason.

Then we went to State Street for Small Business Saturday, one of Travalon's favorite days of the year. He saves his change all year, and I had just gotten a prepaid Visa card from Michelin to thank me for buying brand new tires. We had lunch at the Globe, which is about the smallest of restaurants, and then we bought lots of random stuff. This first thing is a cuddly Christmas tree; if you look closely, it has eyes and a smile. And it even smells like a Christmas tree!

I bought some little plants, and I had $11 in credit from the plant store! (Because I've already bought too many plants...)

And I bought cool soaps - a sailboat and a Christmas soap!

Most of what Travalon bought were books and music, so not as photogenic, but he did buy this cool miniature guitar.

I also bought fancy chocolates that weren't worth taking pictures of: a lime and sea salt milk chocolate bar, a rose and black pepper dark chocolate bar, and a mocha dark chocolate bar. We also bought some shirts.

My prepaid Visa card is all used up! Then we came home and did a Zoom call with my aunt and uncle from Colorado. When I told them about how we did the Ice Age Trail challenge, my aunt mentioned there is a Mount Fuji challenge where you walk, run, bike, or somehow move 40 miles. She said I should google it, and that there's a beautiful medal for when you complete it. Now I have to decide if I want to register for this new challenge and, if so, do I do the regular version where you only get a medal, or the upgraded version where you get a T-shirt too. Because if there's one thing I need, it's another T-shirt. I only have three dresser drawers stuffed full of them.

Famous Hat