Thankful for a blue-sky boat ride in the Wisconsin Dells

As predicted, the smoke left us in Wisconsin almost as quickly as it had appeared. Most of the state of Michigan had been in the clutches of air quality scores over 200 with state maps shaded in red and purple. But Wisconsin was glad to see some green and yellow on their air quality map this afternoon. You don't realize how much you miss them, until you realize how good it was to see blue skies and white clouds again.

We decided to celebrate the smoke-free afternoon with a boat ride. One of the must-see things in the Wisconsin Dells is a ride up the Wisconsin River to the Upper Dells.

Mark found the best deal was to buy the tickets at the Baraboo Civic Center at the Parks and Recreation office to get a $6 discount per ticket. Then we drove to the Wisconsin Dells and got in line for the boat tour on the Chief.

It was the height of tourist season, and they were running nine boats on the river that day. They leave every 30 minutes or so, and we figured there were about 100 people on our full boat. That's a lot of people doing this must-see activity!

We loaded the boat, and most of the seats were taken on the top deck by the time we got on. So we had to split up, and Denisa got a front row seat. We definitely thought that these top deck seats provided the best views. But they also were the wettest when it started sprinkling on us. It was so hot that we were glad to have the moisture and the cloud cover that little shower brought.

We spent about thirty minutes, boating up the river through the tall bluffs. Our tour was narrated by our female host that told jokes that made the entire group groan. It was delightful!

Our boat captain took us by the rock formation that looked like Chief Black Hawk (on the left) and Chimney rock (on the right). Our host also pointed out twin rock spires that she named "Kate" and "Duplikate." Yes, the whole boat groaned at that one too.

The only wildlife we saw were a pair of eagles sitting high up in an evergreen on the banks of the Wisconsin River.

We thought about kayaking the river on our own, but we worried about paddling home against the current. Also, this boat ride has two stops on private property that we would have missed. 

The first stop was at witch's gulch. We got off the boat with the other 98 passengers on our boat, at the same time another boat was also unloading. That's a lot of people making their way through the narrow scenic gulch. It was tough to take a picture without the other 98 people in it. Denisa purposefully took a picture of the line of people in front of us.

By pausing a moment (and also using the scrub feature on our phones to remove some of those people), we got some decent pictures on the short walk through the gulch.

At the end of the walk was a concession stand and bathrooms. The narrator from our boat was available to take pictures.

While the rest of the boat load of people were in line to buy $5 soft drinks and pop corn, we went back into witch's gulch and got some good pictures without the crowd.

We didn't even have to scrub extra bodies out of those photos. This boat stop on private property was only available to boat passengers.

It was easier to enjoy wandering through God's wonders when there wasn't so many of God's people in the way.

This walk through Witch's Gulch reminds us a little of Watkins Glen in up-state New York.

Then they started herding the boat passengers away from the concession stand, and we were once again in the middle of a crowd. What a difference the experience was when we were in a big group!

We reloaded the boats for the five-minute trip to our last stop at stand rock. Again on private property, visitors can only see this if they bought a boat ticket.

This was heralded as the home of stop-action photography, where the instantaneous shutter was first used successfully. The photographer father had his son make the five-foot jump over and over to get the famous photo. It took 17 jumps to get this photo.

This day we had a border collie jumping. We had to be quick on the instantaneous shutter on our cell phone to get the jump over to stand rock.

Don't blink, because the dog jumps back to the other side immediately.

We walked back along the rocky bluff. Again, many of our boat-mates were buying more snacks and souvenirs, so we had the path almost to ourselves. We should mention again how thankful we were to see this blue sky. After a couple days of smoky skies, we didn't take it for granted.

If you haven't tried the newest scrub feature on your phone, we can report that it's kinda fun to remove those visitors that like to lounge in the prettiest places and show up in your photos. The picture below used to have a couple extra tourists in it before they were "scrubbed."

After the rain clouds disappeared, the top deck of our tour boat felt a little like a frying pan. We weren't in any hurry to load up.

We were glad when our captain pointed our boat south for the thirty minute trip back to town. The breeze on the water felt good! For those that want a more thrilling and breezy adventure, jet boat rides were also available on this stretch of the Wisconsin Dells.

We had our travel path pretty well determined, with detailed reservations for camping spots during this busy summer travel season. We were also meeting a group in northern Wisconsin in a week, so we didn't have too many options for missing the terrible wildfire smoke that engulfed all of Michigan, Minnesota, and much of Wisconsin. We were thankful for this blue sky afternoon for a boat ride in the Wisconsin Dells, and we prayed for the people that were directly affected by the fires in Canada and Minnesota. 

Plan B for Wisconsin

What do you do when you plan to go hiking at Wisconsin's most beautiful and most popular state park--but the heat and the smoke change your plans?  We went into Plan-B mode and found some really fun other things to do this day. We started with a trip to the International Crane Discovery Center near Baraboo, Wisconsin.

Smoke from the wild fires in Canada and Minnesota had blown into Wisconsin. Our air quality was rated as "unhealthy" this morning.

We have a special place in our heart for the endangered North American whooping cranes, so that was one of the reason that we wanted to tour the Crane Discovery Center. We have found these huge white birds in the wild several times when we were wintering in South Texas. At one time there was only 21 whooping cranes left in the world. It was the work of this center that brought them back from assured extinction. 

We enjoyed a front row seat to the whooper's extensive enclosure. We also enjoyed the education from the knowledgeable tour guide on the 10:00 tour.

Because the mortality rate of young whooping cranes in the wild is quite high, this group incubates the fertilized eggs and hand-raises most of the young in their "cranium." In order to not imprint the babies with a human parent, the caregivers wear all white outfits and use crane puppets over their arms to feed the young chicks.

But once you hand raise a bunch of chicks, how do you teach them how to migrate south to survive the cold Wisconsin winters? This was the group that led their first flock of young birds to their winter migration spot in Florida by rigging a white ultra-light airplane that looked like a whooping crane parent. The pilot of the open-air plane was wearing a crane suit, and the young flock of birds followed his lead south. We had seen the documentary about that trip, and our guide recounted the story for our group. It was good to support a group like this!

There are 15 different types of cranes in the world, and this is the only place where all 15 can be seen. Just like North America's whooping cranes, these large birds in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Australia are also on the endangered list because of their shrinking habitat. The Crane Foundation helps those other continents with their efforts to breed and raise chicks. Our guide took us on a tour of the enclosures and then let us amble our way around and take pictures. Of course, Denisa took pictures of all of them. We've put the best of her crane pictures at the end of the blog for anyone interested.

The visitor center had a very good 12-minute film, and we would highly recommend a visit to the International Crane Discovery Center! Our tour guide took us on a shortened tour because of the heat and the smoke, but we ended up staying for over two hours!

Besides all the birds, Denisa enjoyed the wild flowers that were scattered throughout the park.

All of the bird enclosures included signage that indicated the common name, as well as the scientific name of the crane. There was also information about the home territory of each bird.

Then we could take our own picture of the specimen in the enclosure.

The Goofball Crane has the scientific name of "Mucho Coocooius."

This specimen's home territory is wandering God's wonders.

After a fun time with the cranes, we were hungry, hot, and tired of the smoke. We have been in the Indian casinos in Oklahoma, where we have literally ran through the smoky gaming tables hoping for a small non-smoking section of slot machines tucked away somewhere. We were glad to see that Wisconsin casinos are smoke free. This was the first time we have gone inside a casino to escape the smoke outside! We stopped in at the Ho-Chunk Casino, and picked up the $5 free play for being a new member. We also got a $5-off voucher to be used in their restaurants. With a little luck we turned that free play money into cash enough to pay for our Chinese food lunch. It was a good air-conditioned stop on this hot and smoky afternoon, and a good change for Part B plans.

While in the town of Baraboo, we stopped at their free zoo. They have around 15 different animals. We're always surprised when a little town goes to the expense of hosting animals like bear, lynx, and an arctic fox. But our favorite was the resident beaver--mainly because he was the one willing to pose for us on this hot day.

After sitting down on his leathery beaver tail, he began a long process of grooming for the guests.

In addition to the animals, the zoo was lined with rows of flowers that were looking great in July. We came to really like the little town of Baraboo, Wisconsin. We hadn't planned to visit here, but it was another good Plan B stop.

After the zoo stop, we were outside for a walking tour of Dr. Evermor's Sculpture Park. 

The vision of Tom Every, this gallery was a collection of sculptures made from scrap metal and other salvaged pieces.

A few of the pieces allow for visitor interaction. This one looks like something straight out of a Dr. Seuss book.

Others were sculptures of the native wildlife--like this bigger-than-life-sized mosquito. (Note: while we purchased an artillery of bug spray and mosquito netting, we didn't have any problems with the bugs.)

The largest sculpture in the middle of the park is called the Forevertron, and it wouldn't fit into one photo frame. Perhaps it got its name because you could stare at it forever and not see it all? It's massive, yet intricate.

We especially liked the gooney bird sculptures made out of junked band instruments. Mark used to play the baritone in high school . . .

while Denisa played the saxophone.

A whole band of metal sculptures were conducted by an impressively large conductor.

Mark visited at length with a resident artist working on a clay sculpture of a local military hero.

The Dr. Evermore Sculpture Garden stop was free and just a few miles away. It was another part of our Plan B, and we would recommend it to everyone!

Our final stop of the day was the real reason we wanted to spend time in this part of Wisconsin. Devils Lake State Park is the most-visited park in the state, and we wanted to see why. We postponed the hike we had planned for today, but we did a drive-by to see what else there was to do in this popular park that was covered in smoke.

The smoke really cloaked the distant views that Devils Lake is known for.  Denisa waded into the beautifully clear blue water with a few other hardy Wisconsin travelers. We're guessing that the water and views are breath-taking on a less smoky day.

We were watching the weather and the smoke forecasts carefully, hoping that we would still get to do our planned outdoor activities before we left the area. In the meantime, we had laundry piling up. So we found a local laundromat and did some household chores out of the smoke. We had a good time and got some things done with our Plan B here in Wisconsin.

Now for those crane pictures that Denisa had so much fun taking this morning:

The Siberian Cranes get the award for having the longest migration trip--they fly 3,000 miles twice each year.

The White-Naped Crane also resides in Russia. Most of the enclosures at the Crane Foundation included a painted back drop that was reminiscent of their native homeland.

The Black-Necked Crane--not surprisingly--has a black neck. This one is from China.

Japan's Red-Crowned Cranes are the heaviest birds here--weighing up to 25 pounds.

This one had found a snail, and he kept banging it on the rocks to try to crack it open.

The different cranes have different diets. The Red-Crowned Cranes like aquatic tidbits like this little frog that was trying to keep his distance.

The Eurasian Crane is one of the least endangered of the cranes. With 800,000 in existence, these birds have to fight for territory. The artist included a couple Eurasian cranes in the painted landscape of this enclosure. But it had to be covered with a black tarp when the two resident cranes kept fighting with the painted birds.

The Wattled Crane is the largest crane in Africa.

The Grey-Crowned Cranes are their neighbors, also from Africa.

The Demoiselle Cranes are the smallest of the cranes, and form huge flocks when they migrate over the Himalayan Mountains in Nepal. Their head feathers look like a little old man with a bald head on the top and long hair on the side.

The Black-Crowned Cranes are sacred birds in their homeland of Senegal.

The Blue Crane is found in South Africa, and between 25,000 to 30,000 exist.

Standing in the blue water of the enclosure made a pretty mirrored picture of the Blue Crane.

We didn't take any pictures of the common sand hill cranes that we have seen often in Wisconsin this summer. Maybe we'll get a picture of them in the wild?