I’ve had great luck with local hikes recently. This month began well with a walk Tuesday morning through the University of Wisconsin Arboretum with a group of Eagle’s middle school classmates and their teacher. The classmates met us at the Arboretum building. For privacy reasons I won’t feature the students. I’ll focus on the landscape instead.
We enjoyed the crisp weather 45F (7C). Strolling through the Arboretum, we saw lilac bushes in rebloom, pines, and even cork trees. A flock of turkeys wandered through the grass casually, unconcerned about the 17 humans nearby.
The autumn leaves were in fine form. We read about the effigy mounds and saw them in the woods the other side of the Arboretum road.
In a funny twist of fate, on this trip we returned to Big Spring, which Eagle and I had visited with friends last week! Link to the previous photos here.
After we saw Big Spring, the group went down a boardwalk where we saw a second spring. At a pause on a dock-like walkway, we looked up and saw redtail hawks circling. It was a magical moment.
We walked another two miles to Vilas Beach on Lake Wingra, where we ate lunch. The water was crystal clear at this time of year.
After lunch, we headed toward Edgewood College. Near the edge of the lake on college property, there are docks that jut in and make hikers feel they are part of the scenery. After adventures with cattail fluff snow, and horizontal trees to climb, we arrived at school around 1:15 pm.
The day ended as it began, with a flock of turkeys. When a school staff member dropped the teacher and me at the “Arb” to pick up our cars, a flock of turkeys was waiting. It felt like a friendly delegation. All in all, I calculate that our group hiked 5 miles (8K) that beautiful day. The students looked to enjoy themselves and we adults did too; an autumn day to remember.
This article is my 500th post!
¡Olé! –Rebecca
Fake Flamenco 
Thank you for sharing!
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Thanks for visiting Fake Flamenco and commenting, Olivia. I had a good start to my morning watching the video on your site. Coolest video since OK Go.
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Thanks for checking it out! I thought it was pretty cool too!
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Congrats on posting your 500th article!
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Thank you, Rosaliene!
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what a terrific hike you had!
I am glad it was fun! 🙂 happy 500th post too!
xoxo
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Thanks, Carol Anne! I was very glad for the hike. I’m happy at the number of posts too!
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Congrats on your 500th post, Rebecca! Thank you for sharing your inspiring hike with us.
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Thank you on both counts, Michele. Lucky to have met friendly bloggers along the way.
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You are welcome. I feel the same. 😊
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Congrats on your 500th post! Goes to show you’ve put in the hard work and effort to get to this point. This walk is really lovely, and it’s great to see Big Spring again (such a pretty little stream)!
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Thanks, Rebecca. I appreciate your support. It is amazing to see the earth renewing itself and providing clean water.
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Wow, beautiful! Congratulations on no. 500. I hope WP is keeping track from Day One. They started counting my posts when I was many years in, so every day they congratulate me on my amazing accomplishment which they think is less than half!
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Thank you, and double congratulations to you! ; )
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Such an interesting hike and I love the sleeping turkey!
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Thanks, Sue! I was ready for a snooze too after our big hike. 🙂
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These are really beautiful photos, Rebecca! I was wondering from the last post where you saw turkeys walking around, and I started to ask there lol Glad I got my question answered.
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Thank you! Yes, our first trip to the springs, the turkeys were walking too quickly for me to get a good photo. This time I caught one snoozing, which was more my speed. 😉
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LOL
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