September 21, 2008 - Donald County Park: Mt. Vernon, Wisconsin

I fell behind in my hiking stories this last month. Seems there is not always enough time in the day to get all my photos processed the way I want to, and get my other tasks done.

I got out for a hike after a 2-week lay-off due to weather. My sister called up and wanted to get out also. I had been to a park earlier in the year by myself, and wanted to get back to explore it some more. I made September 21st that day.

The location is Donald County Park, named for the family that farmed here and later donated the land to be developed into a park. It is located near the hamlet of Mount Vernon, Wisconsin in south-west Dane County.

I already found the 2 geocaches located within the park on my last visit, but only walked about 1/3 of the trail system. I wanted to see it all today.

This trip I left my usual pack behind and brought most of my camera gear in my sling-bag. I was hoping to see wildlife and started out with my 70-300mm lens.

Spent a little time experimenting with flowing water photos.

Turned down an unexplored trail and found an archeological site.

They have a lot of work to do yet.

This turned into a beautiful wooded trail along the creek.

There is some very new observation decks in a couple of different places.

I changed to smaller zoom lens here since there was seemingly no wildlife to this point.

Looking for fish in the pool here. Saw nothing - anywhere.

Another experiment in flowing water photograpy.

Now a wallpaper shot.

A recently-mowed hayfield. This part of the trail is dual-use hiking/horseback riding.

Back into some woods.

A meadow in between woods.

The prairie flowers here were really colorful.

The bees thought so too.

Hey, I have my own pond, and didn't even know it.

It's a scenic pond too.

We approached the parks scenic rock formations towards the end of the walk. I've been here before, so I didn't take many new photos.

Looking down into the creek from high on the rocks.

Well, we did check-up on one of the geocaches that we walked by. There was a Magic 8-Ball inside today. We asked it if my sister won PowerBall the night before, but we found out later that the stinkin' thing lied to us.

After exploring the previously unwalked trail, and some of the rest, we went about 4.3 miles. That was good enough for not being out for a couple of weekends. Here's the path walked on a Google Earth image of the park.

It was a nice, sunny day for the most part. In a couple of more weeks the leaves will be turning color, and that will signal the end of this hiking season. Hope we continue to have mostly favorable weather.