Posts filed under Wisconsin

Hiking Governor Dodge State Park in Wisconsin

 

Adventure Tuesday

Governor Dodge State Park

    Governor Dodge State Park was the second park W and I visited. It is pretty close to the Blue Mounds State Park so we actually did both in one day. Now the main difference between visiting a park or hiking trail here in Wisconsin (so far) and Alaska is that there are a lot more people here in Wisconsin. Not too surprising I guess, but still, I like the less developed trails and areas that aren't so touristy. Within Governor Dodge State Park we went to the Stephens' Fall. Of course all of these State Parks have multiple trails connected to them. We have only explored a tiny bit of all that is accessible so far. We started at Stephens' Fall. I am actually not that used to waterfalls from living in interior Alaska, but they are definitely on my favorite list now.

 
 

    Again, like the previous State Park we visited this one was very lush and green.

 
 

    The main attraction was definitely the waterfall. After that the trail followed a creek before we turned up to only deciduous forest and then some grassland. 

 
 

    We did run into some creatures, very small creatures though. Chipmunks are very new to me, and I was very excited about seeing them. Aren't they cute?

 
 

    We ended up where we started, a field full of Lupine. It was so beautiful to see. Although, nothing beats a field full of fireweed! The field also had Wild Parsnip, which apparently is irritating to your skin. I did not know this, so very appreciating that they write a big sign about it :) It appears that the ants don't mind this plant though. 

 
 

    As always, I took the opportunity to take more macros of the nice wildflowers and all other details along the trail. W had to wait around a lot for me, as always. In the end I told him he could go ahead of me so he didn't have to be so bored  :)

 
 

    Do you have a favorite wildflower?

Posted on August 2, 2016 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Nature, Wisconsin, Photography, Adventure Tuesday and tagged Governor Dodge Governor Dodge State Park State Park Summer Adventures summer days Summer green lush chipmunk Adventure Trail Trails Park Nature vandra hiking 2016.

Hiking Blue Mound State Park in Wisconsin

I have come up with two new themes for my blog, Adventure Tuesday, and Flashback Friday. I have so many pictures I have yet to share with the rest of the world, so I figured that these two themes could be a nice addon to my blogging. I hope you enjoy. Here is the first Adventure Tuesday post.

Blue Mound State Park

A couple of weeks ago W and I went to one of many many State Parks here i Wisconsin.  To enter a State Park you have to purchase an admission ticket, a sticker you put on the car. Annual admission sticker is 15.50$ compared to the daily which is 8$. Compared to the BLM land in Alaska these trails in the state parks here in Wisconsin (and probably elsewhere too) are highly maintained, and some of them even has asphalt on the actual trail. Going uphill is no problem because there are stairs put in, almost a little bit ridiculous coming from Alaska but it's very pretty. 

The forest here is so green, and lush. It definitely looks like a rainforest. 

At the Blue Mound State Park the main goal for us was to see some views. There are two different towers you can climb up for some views.

Again, showing how green it is here.

As always I love taking macro photos. There are some many plants here. I really need to read up on the vegetation here. Are you familiar with the plants where you live? What State Parks do you have in close proximity to where you live?

Posted on July 26, 2016 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Wisconsin, Adventure Tuesday, Nature, Photography and tagged State Park Blue Mound State Park Blue Mound Wisconsin green lush flowers plants Summer Adventures summer days Summer Adventure Vegetation vandra hiking Hikes Summertime 2016.

Bad weather?

 

July 21:

    Ever since I got here it's been hot, like really hot. Ok, I know that a lot of people are used to temperatures up in the 90's and above combined with humidity up towards 90%, me? not so much. I am so happy that we bought an AC right when I got here, because I don't think I would have been able to survive otherwise. I like it cool, I love sweater weather, and this is everything but sweater weather. 

    We seem to have these high pressure storms, where the heat is always combined with some sort of rainstorm. Makes it hard to dress for hot temperatures and rain, I am definitely not used to that. W and I got a metrological weather station for Christmas that measures wind speed and direction, barometric pressure, rain accumulation and rate, and humidity and temperature of course. It's been really cool to have it now when we've had these rainstorms to see how much rain we get. Usually it says "it's raining cats and dogs". Madison is about the same latitude as southern France, so for someone who never lived more south than say the southern part of Canada (cause that is right about where the latitude of Cranfield in UK is, and of course, Stockholm Sweden which is approximately southern part of Alaska, and then of course, Fairbanks Alaska, Madison is far far south. Fairbanks do get hot in the summertime, I mean, we've had weather up in the 90's before, but generally that doesn't last very long, and it's usually very dry, so not the same type of heat that we experience here. I only had one pair of shorts when I moved here, yeah one pair, a climbing pair. Well, and one pair of running shorts. But as you can understand I went shopping for more after a few weeks in this heat. Best money spent in a long time, and I came home with 6 different pairs of shorts. 

 
 

    As I have mentioned earlier Madison lays in (on?) an Isthmus, and we have two lakes on either side, Monona and Mendota. We usually swim in Monona, and while it is definitely not clear, it has been semi OK. Yesterday I biked by the lake and eek what a smell, I was just thinking on the bike ride that it would be nice to maybe go for a swim. But that smell, not fresh lake smell, but yeah, algae. There were people over there swimming and having fun in the water, but I don't know, I am a little skeptic. The first three pictures below are of Lake Monona and the fourth one is Lake Mendota. 

 
Posted on July 24, 2016 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Madison Life, Wisconsin and tagged Summer Madison hot summer Photography with Iphone culture latitude summer days storm summer storm Biking Lake Monona Swimming Bathing rainstorm regnstorm raining utlandssvensk Wisconsin Weather 2016.