Wildlife

Hello,

Those little girls left on Thursday, but we thought of them several times today as we rode down to Ely on our bikes. We attended the Polka service, lunch and almost the dance too. The sky was getting cloudy so we headed back to Cedar Rapids as it takes us about an hour to make the 12 mile trip.

The first time we thought of the girls was when we saw two wild turkeys trotting off towards the woods. We were pleased to see them as we have not seen turkeys for some time. After that we saw squirrels scampering across the trail along with some gold finches flittering. One of the most exciting things was the spotted fawn that almost walked in front of us, saw us, twirled around, and dashed back into the woods. When I looked over I could see another deer, but was unable to tell if it was young or not. Seems like the wrong time of year for spots, but I guess some late births occur in the animal kingdom.  Many geese were resting by the pond in Ely.

As we were going home something I found quite interesting was a guy walking with a fully loaded pack on his back accompanied by a dog with packs on each side of its back. He wanted to know where the trail was. It was easy for us to show him. He wanted to know how far it was to Cedar Rapids and the eleven plus miles did not seem to faze him. We learned that he was hiking to Colorado and had come from Chicago. He especially liked walking the trails because they provide some shade, however, in Iowa he was mostly using back roads as there are not many trails going east and west.

Both of us are so happy to see so many people out using the trail especially the large number of families. What a good example for these kids.

Paula