Mammoth Hike Challenge 2026 Kickoff: Delafield

 

Today we had a very relaxed morning, and I did a lot of DuoLingo. It was a very palindromic day for me on there.

Eventually Travalon and I headed to Delafield for some "trail magic," which is stuff you can do to get "bonus miles" in the Mammoth Hike Challenge. We have always legitimately hiked the whole thing, but this year I will be gone one weekend, and also we have to do forty-six cumulative miles. That is six more than when we started. Our first stop was Blue Collar Coffee to get (more) caffeinated (we had coffee at home), then we had someone take our photos in the big yellow chairs. We do this every year.

We also went to the outdoor clothing shop, where Travalon bought an Ice Age Trail T-shirt and we got two-for-one energy bars, and then we had our photo taken with the Mammoth.

We went to Guiseppe's Pizza for a discounted lunch (coffee was also discounted), and this page from a coloring book made me laugh.

I know it says "Hello Spring," but am I the only one who sees "Hell Spring"? Plus the pizza flowers are killing me. Then we went to Voodoo Brewing and bought a cup (sorry, forgot to take a photo) which supports the Ice Age Trail Alliance, and so we got a free pour. Like last year, we chose an incredibly delicious sour in a beautiful green color. This photo is a little misleading, because it's not the cup we got but one of their own glasses, and also sorry, we had drunk most of it before I thought to take a photo.

It kind of tasted like grape soda. So good!! There was an official Ice Age Trail event there, and we bought a book and a patch so they gave us a raffle ticket, but the drawing was at two and you had to be present to win, while we really wanted to hit the trail. We drove down the road to Lapham Peak, but by then it had warmed up so I had to take off my Lapham Peak hoodie. (I still had on my Ice Age Trail bucket hat and last year's Mammoth Challenge T-shirt.) The weather was perfect. Here are some photos from our sun-drenched afternoon on the trail.

I had pulled a muscle in my back picking something up off the floor in the pizza place, but fortunately I felt fine during the hike. Since then I've been walking like a hunched-over old lady. Hopefully this issue is resolved by tomorrow, which is usually true for me when I've pulled a muscle in my back. After all that hiking, we went to "Dupeyville" to watch trains, but we waited for forty minutes and never saw one. We decided to head back to Delafield, stopping in Hartland which is another Trail Community... and then we heard the train! We went to a park where we could see it, and Travalon made a video of the tail end of it. I'll provide screenshots later, since this post already has so many photos, but this one is so cool that I have to include it today.

My regular readers know how much I love single eyes. Maybe it's because a bunch of people on my dad's side are named O'Sullivan, which is literally "one eye" in Irish. Suil = eye and amhain = one, which is pronounced "sool - awan." After that we went to the Hartland Library, which was already closed, but did you know they also have big yellow chairs for you to sit in and take a photo to post on social media? I didn't, but now I do.

Then we went back to Delafield and had sundaes at the local ice cream shop. Mine had peanut butter cups and little pretzel balls and pieces of chocolate chip cookie and whipped cream and hot fudge on it. I'd say I earned it with that hike, but no way did I burn that many calories! We headed home, but the sun was shining right in our eyes, so Travalon was having trouble seeing where he was going. We pulled over at a rest stop, and by the time we finished powdering our noses, the sun had set.

Now that the Cubbies are out of the picture, I am all in for the Brewers. They are playing right now, and Tiffy and our other college friend are there. Tiffy sent a photo.

The Cubs won it all ten years ago, which is a while now but not like their previous drought when they were under the Curse of the Billy Goat. The Brewers have never won it all, but maybe this is their year. I can now cheer for them with a clear conscience.

Famous Hat

Jamming at the Choro Session

 

Today I was back at work, but from home. (It was bad enough when that alarm went off at 8:00. Don't know how I'll survive tomorrow's alarm at 7:00.) Mostly I waded through emails, and the colleague who was covering for me called me on her day off to say she couldn't tell me what she had done while I was gone because the information wasn't in front of her. Um... thanks? Travalon and I walked at Jackson's Landing over my lunch break, but otherwise there wasn't much to blog about.

However, this evening at choro was really fun. I got there a bit early, and three young people were playing "Hungarian Dance #5" by Brahms on a cello, violin, and accordion. It turns out the cellist is a student at the university, and the other two were musicians on a cruise ship - but in different bands - who decided after that gig to drive across the country together. They have to get to the west coast by Friday for a gig. Wow, were they good! Then they left to find some dinner, and only the leader of the choro session came, not the guy from the Handphibians who has always been there, and not a really good guitarist who has always been there. At least the music club owner played the cello, and the cellist played the bass. Then another mandolin player who had been there last time arrived, so it felt like a critical mass... and then the two cruise ship musicians returned and joined us, and that was amazing. We didn't have the music for "Tico Tico," the most well-known choro tune, but one guy had a chord sheet, and some of the others knew it, so they all jammed on it. Eventually I joined in too, playing whatever notes I could identify or at least something in the right key. That was so much fun! The two guys said they found out about the music club when one of them needed a repair to his instrument, and when they asked the instrument repair shop people about the music scene in Madtown, they got referred to the music club, so they came to check it out. It's intimidating to play with musicians who are so much better than I am, but it's fun too.

As promised, here are some more photos from yesterday. First, some plants at Necedah: field wormwood, shamrocks (yes, they are invasive, and they were all over), and columbine.

This fungus growing on a dead tree was so interesting-looking.

More scenes from Necedah. I'm not sure what the yellow flower is; my phone said it had some long scientific name like lithospermum but didn't give a common name. And it said the photo I posted yesterday that I thought was a catbird was a northern mockingbird. Maybe it was mocking the song of a rose-breasted grosbeak, because that is what Merlin thought it heard, but all we saw was that bird.

And more photos from Horicon: a swallow, a May apple blossom, a muskrat lodge, and a red-headed duck.

More shots of the cormorant with the fish in its beak:

And another shot of the mama mallard with babies.

I did forget that as we were driving back toward downtown Necedah from the preserve, we saw a train. Travalon noted that it was the tenth one we'd seen that weekend. Then tonight, as I was walking back to my car from the choro session, I saw a Wisconsin and Southern engine with three cars crossing Winnebago. What a cute little train!

Famous Hat

Necedah and Horicon in One Day

 

This morning Travalon and I set out for the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge, where you are pretty much guaranteed to see a whooping crane, as far as we can tell. We had lunch at a Chinese buffet in Mauston and then got to the refuge, where we checked out the bird feeders behind the main building, which had been a great place to see birds on our last trip there. This time they apparently hadn't filled the feeders, so there was no action. (There was no toilet paper in the women's bathroom either - but fortunately plenty in the men's bathroom - so it seems like someone there is falling down on the job.) Of course it got late, so I will just post a few photos tonight and will post more tomorrow, since I'll be working from home and may not have much to say.

First we took the boardwalk hike and saw swans, baby geese, spectacular clouds, lovely ferns, blooming wild indigo, and what looks like a catbird.

We kept hearing a weird sound near the main building, and I wasn't sure if it was a swan trumpeting or someone honking their car horn, but we realized it was actually this weather vane.

We also saw tons of blooming lupines.

I also saw a couple of tiny, periwinkle-blue butterflies, but they were too hard to get a photo of. Then we went up on the observation tower and saw swans, mallards, sandhill cranes, and a whooping crane in the distance.

We took the one paved road that goes deep into the preserve and then drove over the causeway. There was a sign that seemed to imply it was a goose resort.

Do they rent towels and umbrellas? Here is a view from the causeway.

Last time we were there, we saw a whooping crane back there, but today we just saw water and trees.

We decided it would be fun to go to Horicon on the same day, so we drove and drove, picking up some food at Kwik Trip for a picnic before hitting the boardwalk. The first thing we saw was a mallard drake with an abandoned goose egg that has been there for weeks.

This is a female red-winged blackbird:

This is a Homo Sapiens who is married to Travalon.

In the woods, the May apples are still in full bloom.

On the rest of the auto tour, we saw a pied-billed grebe, goose families, and a pair of swans.

Then we drove slowly along the edge of Highway 49 as the sun set. We saw the cormorant rookery.

The red-headed ducks were particularly colorful in the light of the setting sun.

We saw this cormorant with a fish in its mouth.

The sunset was beautiful.

Another pair of swans.

A couple of male northern shovelers.

A pied-billed grebe.

A mother mallard with babies.

I took this photo with my phone of the sunset afterglow reflected in the water.

I heard the yellow-headed blackbirds but never saw any. Then for some reason Travalon's car hooked up to my phone instead of his, so we listened to my music on the way home, and Travalon had to listen to me singing along. We got home pretty late, and I have to work tomorrow for the first time in over a week, so that ought to be a shock to my system. But was it worth it? Heck yeah!

Famous Hat