Ten Day Stretch=Mini Vacation oh yeahhhhh

Hi there. Most recently I worked ten days straight due to an intern taking vacation. As you know we raccoon people are limited in number so when this raccoon intern went on vacation we had to fill in for her shifts, hence the ten day work week. I must say at about day 7 I was getting a little loopy. However, in return I am finishing up my four days off (more like my mini vacation!), I didn't get my two days off from last week so they were bunched together with this week's days off. I call this set of days off my Tourist Weekend :) On my first day off Gale and Steve, my great aunt and uncle on my Dad's side, took me to the International Crane Foundation (ICF) and the Wisconsin Dells. I met an employee at the ICF who was a falconer and makes raptor hoods. He talked to me for a few minutes about his career, the opportunities at the foundation like internships and volunteering, and then gave me his card. Thank you Mr. Bryant from the crane foundation. By the way, there are only 2 native crane species to the United States, the sandhill crane commonly found up here and the rare and endangered whooping crane. Here are some pictures from the ICF.

Grey Crowned Crane, Native to Africa

Blue Crane

Whooping Cranes

White Naped Crane

Next we were off to the tourist trap town known as the Wisconsin Dells. For those of you who don't know what the Dells are, they are along the Wisconsin River and probably a few other places but basically they are the sandstone rocks that have been weathered and sculpted into layers by the glaciers that moved through that  area many years ago. It is kind of like the limestone up in the hill country of Texas. We took a boat tour on the river and made two stops that had interesting rock formations. The entire town known as the Wisconsin Dells is teeming with tourist attractions, they boast about the best water parks and hotel/resorts with water parks in the state. They have museums and attractions like the mysterious house seen below.

The Dells along the riverbank.

Gale walking along the Witches' Gulch

One of the more obvious carvings of the Dells.

First stop on the boat called Witches' Gulch




Second stop called Stand Rock

So that was my big adventure for the weekend. I was very appreciative of Steve and Gale for showing me some of the beautiful places Wisconsin has to offer and for being a tourist with me for a day. In the last couple of days of my weekend I went kayaking with Linda which I found out I wasn't too terrible at, just a little slow or so it seemed that way.

Kayaking on the lake

Sunset on the lake

 I played tennis, getting better every time now that I have found my serve again. Watch out Linda! I did the usual grocery store run and laundry, nothing too exciting. I wanted to catch some fireflies so that I can take a picture of them, but that hasn't happened yet. Oh I almost forgot, Linda's property has some wooded areas on it so we took the doggies (yes we had them for a day or two)out for a walk in the woods. To me the woods were more like what we would find at a state park in Texas, not really massive trees or underbrush aside from all the tall weeds. I thought I might be able to go running on the path in the woods but no such luck, too many tall weeds. We saw a lot of patches where deer had been laying though. One good thing about the wildlife up here is that they don't have many biting or stinging animals like snakes, scorpions, or harmful spiders so going into the woods was no big deal. Normally deer flies are pretty thick, but even they can't take the heat right now. One other thing I did on my days off was go to a drive in restaurant called the Kiltie after kayaking. The Kiltie gives ice cream, excuse me custard, to dogs and they put these things called jimmies  on human ice cream. Apparently they are known for their jimmies which are chocolate sprinkles made out of real chocolate so they taste like chocolate, unlike the fake sprinkles you buy in the store. Linda had been trying to take me there and we finally made it. I think one of my goals while I am up here is to try all the different custards I can, a custard connoisseur if you will. There is a cheese factory that also makes ice cream in Milwaukee that is on our hit list. I had been itching to go swimming in a lap pool so today I went with Gale to the YMCA to swim while she helped someone with some physical therapy. I felt like a fish that had finally made it back into the water, I am definitely at home in the water. I hope to go back more often now.

I just had to put this in here. This is a little baby, and I mean baby baby, that we got in right before I left my 10 day stretch. He was the cutest thing, I didn't even care that he would be the only one we still had to bottle feed he was so darn cute. He knew how to eat from a bottle already and go potty, easy peasy lemon squeezy.

That is the extent of my much appreciated extended weekend. Now back to work tomorrow, back to my raccoons. It will be nice to work only 5 days instead of 10!

 Sarah :)