Posts tagged #Flowers

Hiking Cherokee Marsh Conservation Park in Wisconin

Adventure Tuesday

    Time flies, and today I am posting the 6th Adventure Tuesday post. It's fun to share some of my every day adventures. An adventure doesn't have to involve a risk for your life rafting down the Grand Canyon, or climbing the tallest mountain in the world. You decide what your adventure is, your pace and how far you are willing to go. 

Cherokee Marsh

    This past weekend W and I decided to go to a park that is about 10-15 minutes by car from our house, so basically in the near vicinity of Madison. We had something else planned originally but had to switch those plans and ended up doing this instead. 

    Arriving at the park I immediately spotted all the water droplets on the spiderwebs even before we stopped the car. The morning started off as a foggy surprise and it definitely continued to surprise us, well at least to me. 

    We started off by walking up the trail from the south side of the marsh and immediately got some views of the Yahara river which flows into lake Mendota. 

    As I mentioned earlier the weather was foggy and a bit cloudy. This walk varied between open fields with views of the river and beautiful stretches through oak forests.

    We kept seeing more spiderwebs of different shapes along the hike, mixed in with the vegetation.

    Again, as many of the other hikes we do, this one was not that far. But I am mostly interested in getting outside and also to take some pictures of all the cool plants and insects I see.

    I try to identify time as time goes by, so if some of them are unnamed check back later on to see if I managed to identify them, or better yet, if you know the name of the plant let me know!

    It's incredible how many different types of flowers there are here. Ok, there are a lot of flowers and such around fairbanks too, but not like this. Or maybe I am just biased because a lot of these flowers are new to me. 

    We did run into the giant wasp here too, but now I know they are harmless and it did make me feel as if they were less intimidating, but man, look at that size. Also I managed to snap a few pics of two different butterflies. 

Fieldwork in Yellowstone National Park

Where's Waldo?

Where's Waldo?

 

Hi friends, it's Flashback Friday again

Yellowstone National Park

    Being married to an ecologist has its perks. While we were driving from Alaska to Wisconsin we drove through Montana and Yellowstone. We needed a break and we also needed to check in on some of Ws fieldwork. Both W and I do research about fire, me in Alaska and he in Yellowstone, or jellystone as we sometimes call it. As always when me and W go somewhere, I fall behind because I just can not get enough of all the tiny little things I see, or all the awesome views. 

 
 

Dalahäst    

    Before I moved to Alaska one of my best friends gave me a little miniature "dalahäst" which is a painted horse. Of course that one was with us this day too. Fires can be really destructive, but I think it's beautiful to see what can grow out of a fire. 

 
 

Coniferous Trees

    Coniferous trees are either serotinous, not serotinous, semi-serotinous or a mixture between the two first. In Yellowstone National Park the Lodgepole pine is a mixture between the two first examples and the fire can benefit the reproduction of the forest. Serotinous species are dependent on fire to open up the cones and "activate" the seed, and the opposite is true for species that are not serotinous. 

Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt - John Muir

 
 
 

 Hiking in Yellowstone

    I love being able to walk away from the road system and feel like we are in the middle of nowhere. Yellowstone is so huge, and so beautiful, and if you haven't been there yet, its definitely a place to see. Just remember that walking off the main road will show you extraordinary places. I would definitely recommend to do a backpacking trip. However, please don't walk off the road in areas of hot springs...use a map and consult the backcountry office for permits and current conditions, carry bear spray and know your bear safety!

 
 

  Leaving Yellowstone

    When we left the park we used a new (to me) exit, the city of Cody, and the landscape changed drastically. I asked W if he still thought this was grizzly country, because I surely did not think it looked anything like it. Literally 5 minutes later, we see this grizzly below getting up on its hind legs as we approached with the car. He started to cross, before he changed his mind and we could see his friend in the bushes. One of the coolest things I ever seen. Didn't capture him/her getting up on the hind legs, but man that was so cool!

 
 

    Have you ever seen anything cool on a roadtrip, or any other time for that matter?