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  Although a blanket of snow smothered the landscape, and the air was calm, a faint yet distinct rumbling rose from the valley and was amplified by the Mississippi River bluffs. As we stood admiring one of our favorite Iowa scenes – the view from Pike’s Peak State Park across the Mississippi and up the […]

      Why do I hunt deer? It’s partly an excuse to . . .   Watch a brown creeper fly down, then creep up the tree trunk –   Be amazed at how efficiently a pileated woodpecker can chisel apart a boxelder log –   Hear several other pileateds chattering and flying in

        The first snow. It’s so quiet . . . and white . . . and wild . . . When the storm finally ended, it left a foot of sticky clumps to bend over the prairie grasses, make giant ice cream sundaes out of the deck furniture, and coat the tree

      What a difference a month makes!   Early October may bring shirt-sleeve afternoons, bumblebees nectaring on lingering coneflowers, a lone hummingbird drinking sugar-water before heading south, and hillsides of still-green oaks. Chicken-of-the-woods fungi thrive on a decaying oak stump, and pure-white puffballs sprout seemingly overnight on the forest floor.   By mid-month,

  “There is magic in the feel of a paddle and the movement of a canoe, a magic compounded of distance, adventure, solitude, and peace. The way of a canoe is the way of the wilderness and of a freedom almost forgotten.” Sigurd F. Olson From The Singing Wilderness, “The way of a canoe”  

Fifteen miles off the Canadian shore of Lake Superior looms Isle Royale – a beautiful, 133,000-acre, one-billion-year-old hunk of rock that’s defined by contradictions.   A National Park since 1940, it’s on the “bucket list” for countless travelers – but still remains one of the least visited sites in the 390-park system.   Ninety-nine per-cent

Little town – BIG Welcome! Massage? I needed that!   Liquid refreshments   Entertainment Boogeyin’ Rumbers Turkey River hospitality   Iowa evening It’s full moon week Another great day on the Turkey      

Foggy, breakfast at the church (more good food!), no hurry, beautiful morning, wide valley, loafing on the sandbar

Rain (and lightning!) delay, soggy but undaunted, church bells, on the Turkey at last, sweeper surprise, majestic Motor Mill, Gary & the river barometer, bald eagles, Garber welcome, delicious church dinner, volleyball, ZZZZZs  

Checkin’ in (all 184-plus paddlers!) – Camping in Founders Park – kiddie choo-choo train – boats on the riverbank – free sweet corn – barbequed chicken – music – ear plugs.