Another fabulous trip

If you read Repressed Librarian's blog, you already know that we made it back from Devil's Lake yesterday. We had planned to do the majority of hiking on Saturday and save the easy trails for Sunday so that we'd still have enough time & energy to drive back on Sunday evening. Unfortunately, the weather had other plans - an entire day of rain, sleet and snow. We braved the elements on Saturday for a few hours, but after five miles of trudging through the freezing rain, we were ready to retire for the night. Fortunately, Sunday was beautiful and we were able to spend six hours hiking up and down the mountain.* We were exhausted by the end of the day and decided to stay an additional night (neither of us were really coherent enough to drive for three hours). It was an excellent decision - soaking in the hotel's hot tub was much more pleasant than fighting through traffic. :)

Posing in our rain ponchos on Saturday (I think mine looks more like a glorified garbage bag than a poncho)


View from the East Bluff Trail (aka: the top of the mountain)




The mountain we climbed (the photo above is of the mountain on the other side)




Sticky & me on the Balanced Rock Trail
(We named our walking sticks - mine was Sticky and RL's was Pokey)


Balanced Rock


A random rock (in the middle) with a mean face


Foliage






Full set here

*After we arrived safely back on the ground, we kept joking that it felt like we had just climbed a mountain. Come to find out - it is a mountain! By the time I arrived home yesterday, RL had already emailed me this (scroll down to #4). There are mountains in southern Wisconsin... I lived there for four years and had no idea!