Lake Bowdoin Animal preserve

We had an "easy" day today.  We drove around Lake Bowdoin this morning - that took almost 3 hours.  We saw tons of birds.  This is also where I ran 3km.  Bowdoin Lake is completely dry at the moment.  How sad! I don't know if this happens every year or this is usual... it's just a big white patch of dirt.  Supposedly during migration you can see a ridiculous amount of birds here.  Not in the summer that's for sure!  If you ever have the chance, take the time to drive around (it's 15miles) and stop often.  Bring some bug spray!  I don't know what those biting things were but they were vicious!  There were also millions if not trillions of grasshoppers!  It made running interesting!  Trying to dodge them flying at your head, hitting your legs and arms - good thing they don't bite! 

After this, we went back to the hotel, watched some tv, just relaxed.  We went for a paddle - the water was so gross!  Remi fell in twice... I'm thankful I didn't fall in!  The water was just full of little bits of algae.  I guess the water is so low - the motor boats are must mixing everything up and it comes up to the surface.  A big old YUCK! 

I watched the beautiful sunset and plan on doing that again tomorrow! 

Not sure what we will be doing tomorrow.

Birds - too many to name them all - red tailed hawk x2, lots of different ducks, nighthawks, kingbirds, yellow warble, pelicans to name a few.

Wildlife - pronghorn antelope mixed in with cows, rabbits in the back of our hotel

Road kill: none

Lark Bunting

Cows are branded early...

From Billings to Malta

Since we didn't go paddling yesterday, we got up and drove to lake Elmo.  Once we arrived, we walked around the lake I think it was 2km or so.  We then blew up our paddle boards and off in the water we went.  We are getting pretty good at it!  We didn't fall unless it was on purpose.  I needed to figure out how to get back on the board if I fell in.  Not an easy thing!  We paddled for 2km.

This exercise made us hungry so we made our way to Sophie's Kitchen.
Why?  We chose this place because our kid's name is Sophie - and because on their website, they promote that everyone is welcome.  We all need allies - might as well encourage them when we can.  Lunch was delicious!  This restaurant reminded me of places you would find down in Westboro in Ottawa - it was delicious. 

We then started driving to our next destination: Malta, Montana - a dinky little town with not much to do - but they have a little "resort" with a thermal pool.  We will stay there for 3 days while we wait for Sophie to be done work.  We will explore various sites in the area, starting with Bowdoin Lake - supposed to be lots of good birds and wildlife.  We shall see! 

Farm animals: horses, cows, sheep, goats and llamas

Birds: a couple birds of prey, turkey vulture, lots of small birds, doves, pelicans, shorebirds, cormorants, tern, starlings

Roadkill: raccoon - not much roadkill today! 

Wildlife: pronghorn, rabbits

A Day in Billings, Montana

 Billings is the largest city in the state of Montana.  It has a whopping 110 000 people.  I looked it up - there are more cows in Montana than people.  The city of Billings is not very pretty.  It's industrial with a very small downtown.  It takes 10 to 15 minutes to go anywhere.  Helena, which is the capital, has a population of only 32 000! 

There is lots to do in the area.  Today, we went to see the Pictograph Caves State Park.  Don't waste your $8 if ever you are in the area.  The good thing I guess is that you can go to any park for the day once you pay.  Don't get me wrong, it's a nice park.  If you think you will see lots of pictographs, think again.  You need binoculars to see them and there are only a few left (there used to be 100s according to the sign).   The walk is 1km long so it's a short visit.  There are beautiful rock formations as well... just no pictographs.🤣

We also did a couple of hikes - one on our way to the cave and one on our way back.  We did Larsen's loop and Four Dances area. Since it wasn't that hot yet, we got to see many birds in the small and scarce
trees.  Many lifers.  We also got to see a dead rattlesnake - quite large too.  

Petrol refinery

While on our hike, we got to witness (hear) the petrol refinery having some sort of drill.  A loud message came on to say multiple drills would happen during the week.  Then, some siren,  another message saying something about a fire, and another siren.  I guess they want the whole city to know about it?  

After our morning, we were supposed to go to the lake to paddle board but we ended up falling asleep and not waking up until 4pm.  That heat is truly horrid.  Takes everything out of you.  Paddling will be for tomorrow before we leave for Malta.

We had dinner at Montana's Rib Chop House.  It was the best chicken burger ever! 

Some of today's birds:  western meadowlark, rock wren, great blue heron, finch of some kind, grasshopper sparrow, cliff swallows, crow, lazuli bunting, spotted towhee, chickadee, 

Farm animals: surprise! cows! 

Wild animals:  rattlesnake, desert rabbit  

Tomorrow, we have a short drive - 3 hours to Malta where we will spend a few days to pick up Sophie on Aug. 2nd.

There is a magpie there - I promise! 

Poor fellow has seen better days.

western meadowlark - state bird of Montana -
also the bird Sophie is studying this summer.

From Buffalo,Wyoming to Billings, Montana

 Since Billings is only about 2.5 hours away, we got up, had breakfast and went for a hike up Grouse Mountain.  We hiked for almost 11km and had nice views.  Nothing spectacular but lovely nonetheless.  During our hike, Remi hit a rock with his toe that already hurts because of his latest gout attack.  He was a trouper and kept going.  Near the top of our hike, we met a group of mountain climbing cows! They looked at us like we didn't belong... 

After our hike, we had lunch at Dash-in - a fast food joint that last night's server recommended.  We had fried chicken and lemonade.  It was decent - actually better than KFC - nice and crunchy without the oil dripping.

We made our way to Billings - gotta love the 80 miles/hour highways!  It gets you places! Ontario could learn a thing or two about highways!  The road here is not boring, but boring.  There are no trees, only dead looking grass and mounds.  It's pretty for a while but then...

Once in Billings, we stayed at the hotel for the rest of the afternoon.  It's crazy hot here it was 34.  It's a dry heat - so much different from Ottawa.  You feel like you are burning!  My hands actually feel somewhat better in this dry heat (arthritis in hands is no joke - some days, I can't even make a fist it hurts so much).

We did have dinner at Cracker Barrel - we were really excited!  We first saw this restaurant in Nebraska and wanted to go.  We thought we had missed our chance until... What are the chances? There are 2 of these restaurants in all of Montana and one of them is 5 minutes from our hotel!  Cute restaurant, good food.

We are spending tomorrow in Billings - planning on a couple outings and then paddle boarding in the afternoon.

Farm animals:  Cows and horses

Birds: Mountain bluebird, grouse (they were too fast for a picture), turkey vultures, some other little bird, flicker?, robin, chickadee -not sure if it was black capped or mountain

Road Kill: porcupines - lots of them.  Why are there porcupines here? There are no trees... pronghorn looking thing - can't be sure as it was mush... but it was big so...

Wild animal: pronghorn, butterflies

From Ogallala, Nebraska to Buffalo Wyoming

 

Let's start with a funny story - we are driving down the highway - two lanes, 65miles an hour - we've just had lightning and thunder, everything is good and beautiful when all of a sudden, I see something in the middle of the road.  I yell Oh my God! Oh my God! an armadillo!!  I hit the breaks, turn around only to find a turtle.  Duh- I know there are no armadillos in Nebraska - they live south of the states... why did my eyes/brain see an armadillo?  I have no idea!  Rémi will never let me forget that one I'm sure.

I'm still happy I got to see this turtle - it's one I've never seen before - I've been identified it as a Blanding's turtle.  We have some in Ontario but I've never seen one.  Yip! Yip! 

Our one planned stop was Carhenge in Alliance, Nebraska.  Yup, a little weird but fun nonetheless!  

Second story - this one not as funny - it's kind of sad.  We stopped in Wyoming somewhere for lunch. I'm wearing my Be equal t-shirt. In the restaurant, as we were eating, some man had a comment about having the right pronouns to be able to use the bathroom, and laughing - I didn't think much of it at the time, just that it was an ignorant comment.  We left the restaurant and went right next door to fill up before continuing on our way when all of a sudden, some cute older man knocked on my window.  I put it down halfway to see what he wanted.  He says: "When I saw your t-shirt, I knew you definitely were not from Wyoming - in fact, I see you are from a different country!"  To which I replied that yes, we are very accepting of differences and people.  He then asked where we were headed to.  When I told him we were headed to Montana, he made a face.  I think he was thinking they are even worse than Wyoming (in being open-minded). Maybe I read more into it, but it sure felt real.  He thanked me, and wished us a good trip.

We had dinner at Bozeman Trail Steakhouse - yuck - but we had the sweetest cutest waitress ever!  She was super friendly and gave us some ideas of things to do for tomorrow.  After dinner, we walked in the downtown section to see some amazing artwork.  Have a look at a few samples.  Buffalo, Wyoming- quite the quaint little town! 

A new business perhaps?  I don't think we have one in Ottawa... Inside, you can find a large tub with a ramp for the dog to get in, a soap machine, water.

Farm animals of the day:  you guessed it cows!  I'm starting to think there are more cows and people in
Nebraska! a cat, horses, a donkey and buffalo.

Wild animals: pronghorn 

Birds: lots of birds of prey - red tailed hawk, turkey vultures (sunning),
something I think is a grosbeak, blackbirds, pelicans, ibis, mallards, coots, night herons, great blue heron, shore birds (will have to have Sophie identify them for me)

Road kill: fox, turtle (not my turtle, I saved it), some little creatures like mice maybe?

Random thoughts:

• Nebraska is interesting - has everything from tall grass, to grasslands that look dead, rock walls, trees, corn fields.  It's a special place! 
• Wyoming so far has a lot of grass land - it looks yellow and dead.  You can see white capped head in the cloud mountains in the distance - we followed the Big Horn range - nice! 
• 
  

From Des Moines to Ogallala

 Today ended up being an interesting day.  We drove about 6 hours.  When traveling, we like to make our driving no more than 6 hours.  That way, we have time to stop and walk and see things -not that there was much to see today.

Did you know that Iowa has over 5 500 wind turbines? That's a lot of ugly but beautiful windmills.  No wonder we could see them as far as the eye could see!  Why do I say ugly and beautiful?  Well, in theory, it's great to use renewable energy - that's the beautiful part.  In reality, how many birds are killed each year because of the woosh woosh sound, or get sucked in? I found this website to give more information.  Good for them for trying to go greener.

After about an hour and a half, we arrived at our first destination - Avoca, Iowa.  A spider structure made with an old VW Beetle.  Fun!  We had seen it online and had planned to stop and take a peek.  It was only about 2 miles from the highway so not bad.

In Iowa, there doesn't seem to be a speed limit for anyone - even though it's clearly marked 75Miles/hour.  You get passed by everyone - and I mean EVERYONE!  It's scary to see a Transport truck coming in behind your seemingly out of control, pass you and lose them from sight within a couple minutes... NUTS!  We did see a truck on its side - so no, this doesn't only happen in Hearst.  The traffic was backed up for KMs!  Good thing they diverted traffic to another road further up. I sure was glad I was going the opposite direction! In Nebraska, trucks have to have speed limiters - which makes way more sense to me.

What else happened today... We pretty much just drove to our next stop as there wasn't much of interest on I80W.  Ogallala here we come.

Ogallala is sort of a small dinky town in Nebraska.  We arrived at our hotel a little early (2:30).  The lady at the front would not let us register - she was such a peach (not).  I don't think she knows to "Smile, it's free".  We try to get some information on what to do here - she couldn't muster up much information other than there a lake.  That's what people do. They go to the lake.  Ok...Thanks?  We set off on an adventure to find Lake McConaughy.  I had to stop somewhere to get directions to the lake.  It's difficult not having internet service to look things up! We found a beach where we could drive right up to the water, blow up the paddle boards and get out on the water.  What a lovely way to end a long day in the car! 

Once we got back to the hotel, we walked to a nice little authentic Mexican restaurant.  We sit down when all of a sudden, our phones start buzzing really loudly -you know that sound alerting you of possible imminent danger... it's a  tornado alert!  Luckily, no tornado hit the restaurant.  It got really windy and rainy, but it passed and the sun came back out.  

This was the best food we've had since leaving Ottawa.  Yum!  I had a Mexican stir-fry and Rémi had Taco Pastor. 

Birds: Oriole, kill deer, swallows, red wing black bird and birds we don't have at home so I don't know what they were, birds of prey, pelican, turkey vultures.

Farm animals: Cows and horses

Road Kill: raccoons and more raccoons - whole families of raccoons too.

Random thoughts:  

• Wisconsin was the prettiest so far - they have wildflowers along the road - purple, yellow, white all mixed.  So pretty.
• I'm tired of seeing corn fields.  What the heck do we need this many corn fields? Can't they grow anything else?
• Nebraska brings a welcomed change of scenery - more trees, less corn and bare mountains in the distance - what I would call bad lands - very dry.
• There are rattlesnakes and bull snakes in Nebraska.  Keep your eyes and ears open.
• Darn it - I think we missed our chance to eat at Cracker Barrel.  Maybe tomorrow - fingers crossed. 

in front of our hotel

Appleton Wisconsin to Des Moines Iowa

In a nutshell:

Huge air show in Oshgosh - as we left Appleton, we saw cloud pictures in the sky made by the airplanes.  This must be a huge deal as there were so many cars - incredible! Here's a smily face - there was also OSH22 written in clouds.

Drove to our first stop: The pink elephant.  To get there, we drove through small roads surrounded by corn fields - you know... exactly like in horror movies!  As you can see, it is indeed a big pink elephant!  We continued on our merry way
after taking a couple photos. 

Our next stop was 1.5 hours later: Dickeyville - The Shrine of the Grotto of Redemption.  I don't know what to say about this place... It is spectacular - the priest who created this truly was an artist. It was worth the little detour for sure!  You can see the grotto here.  There was also a water fountain and other Shrines all depicting the life of Jesus.

There were even a couple bird motels with house sparrow nests in there. 

In Dubuque, right at the border of Iowa and Wisconsin, on the mighty Mississippi river we stopped at Eagle Point Park .  It's an amazing park with great views of the Mississippi river.  If you know what you are looking at (which we didn't) you could see 3 states: Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois.  

In the parking lot, park, we were "lucky" to see a  real live soap opera.  Some teenagers/young adults fighting and throwing things, swearing, baseball bat, pushing, shoving, the whole shebang - it was a sight. I could've gone without and be happy...

After walking in the park for a little, we continued on to our last destination of the day: Des Moines.  We arrived at our hotel, registered and went out to our car to get our luggage.  Brought in the room and were leaving for dinner at the Zombie Burger when 3 police cars showed up.  No idea why but it didn't give us a good feeling.  Dinner was good - similar to The Works but all zombie related names and decorations.  We also stopped at a chocolaterie - we bought some
chocolate and fancy cotton candy.

We drove downtown a little to see and came upon this gorgeous building - the State Capitol - wow - it's a beauty! 

Birds of the day: Pelicans, cormorants, chickadee, goldfinch, turkey vulture, Canada geese and a few birds of prey - I suck at recognizing them so birds of prey it is.

Farm animals: goats, sheep, dairy cows, brown cows, black cows, cows cows cows and horses.

Roadkills: lots of raccoons, skunk, and non-identifiable animals

Weird things for today: 

Gas station name... who ever thought of that??

Lady's waxing place... really?  Hilarious!