A day, with cranes
’Twas another car-rental weekend. Yesterday, as I was in the mood for a longer drive, we tooled up to Necedah National Wildlife Refuge to look around a bit.
Highway 12, most of the way up. How hard could that be? Alas, I did not take into account that unlike the interstate, Highway 12 goes through the Wisconsin Dells. The Dells look merely kitschy from the interstate. A few oversized waterparks, a few oversized electric billboards—local tourism making good, you know what I mean? No big deal.
As $DEITY is my witness, I will never drive through the Dells again ever. As far as I’m concerned, Highway 12 has a big fat sinkhole between 33 and County J. The Dells are vile. They are giant piles of soul-sucking fake plastic experience marketing. They are the perfect setting for a game of Kill Puppies for Satan (warning: not for the easily offended). They are the worst parts of the Vegas Strip and the Anaheim House of Mouse all incestuously rolled up together. Plus, the traffic is horrible.
There just isn’t enough WTF in the world. Never again. I swear it. And that’s enough of that. Boy, is it ever enough.
We arrived at Necedah without further incident and drove most of the auto trail. We stopped off at the Sprague flowage, where we made the acquaintance of a super-cute green-and-brown leopard frog with a mighty hop. Another frog swam to the surface of the water, but plooped right back down as soon as it noticed us.
Eventually we reached the refuge headquarters, parked the car in the shade, and tore through lunch. A little way away is one of their (few; this is a wildlife refuge, not a state park) official hiking trails, which has a short observation tower and a blind a little way further on. We saw a huge flock of geese, as well as half a dozen trumpeter swans (including one youngun) and two sandhill cranes standing elegantly above the scrum, knowing they own the place.
We then made a slight strategic mistake—well, I did, actually—deciding to walk to the other hiking trail instead of picking up and driving there. It turned out to be a long, dusty walk on a hot (though thankfully not humid) day. The redheaded woodpeckers, didn’t mind, though; they were everywhere, alongside the bluebirds and warblers. Near the beginning of the walk, a doe stopped to watch us, graceful tan body beautifully framed between a tree and tall vines. It was a good ten minutes before she decided she had other places to be and sprang away. We startled a couple of great blue herons out of the marsh and watched them sail sulkily away, remarking peevishly to each other that the neighborhood was going to the dogs. We also interrupted the sun bath of another little leopard frog; we made sure to shoo him off the road before we let him be.
There was a reward at the end of the walk, though we were too tired (and needing to husband water) to actually walk the trail once we found it. Through our binoculars, from the little wooden deck at the trailhead we saw a group of sandhill cranes—and three bright-white whoopers! Can’t complain about that; whoopers are rare, and a sighting much-prized.
David managed to navigate us around the Dells, fortunately for my sanity. A wild turkey in a ditch hunkered down to attempt invisibility when we stopped to look at him. I do love driving through Wisconsin countryside; it’s restful and pleasant and fifty times more picturesque than it has any right to be. I’m a city-kitty and probably always will be, but I do understand the appeal of living there.
I was plenty tired and achy when we made it back to Madison, so we stopped at Noodles and Company for a quick dinner before we reached home. We’d wanted to eat in Prairie du Sac, but it appears the Blue Spoon doesn’t open on Sundays.
There are quite a few state parks up Baraboo way that I have on my list of places I want to go. At this rate, I’ll have to live in Wisconsin the rest of my life to get to them all!
Fortunately, I don’t have any problem with that idea. None whatever.