Goodbye Madison

Said goodbye to Madison on a Saturday morning. There was just enough light snow to cause the 5 token car accidents on the beltline of the folks that never realize that when the road is wet and partially icy you have to slow down.

It was nice to think that after Madison, we probably would not have to deal with any traffic at all until some of the cities in Montana or even until Seattle.

It was hard to say goodbye to Wisconsin though and we were nostalgic driving through the Baraboo Range and the Castle Rocks and especially so as we drove through the Central Sands area and saw the frozen cranberry bogs and the sedge meadows where the year before we listened for the Yellow Rail. The sloughs and bottomland forests in the Mississippi River valley called me as they always had and I know that I could spend weeks there exploring without ever getting bored.

When we drove up out of the west side of the Mississippi River Valley the snow flurries were over and the sky was blue.

Our first night was spent in South Dakota in the thunderbird lodge in Mitchel. Was served Chinese for dinner by a shiny faced Dakotan of good, big-boned Scandinavian stock.