Entry for July 20, 2008-Natureland Park, Whitewater, WI

Kind of a short report today, as we are revisiting a park that I was at last year. My sister was along today, she had not been with me on my trip last year.

The location is Natureland County Park along the shore of Whitewater Lake. The lake is a little south of the city of Whitewater, Wisconsin. This park is interesting as there are 4 distinct trails, each with it's own geography and eco-system. A pine forest, a hardwood forest, prairie, and a lakefront.

My sister and I were greeted to the park by an oriole.

The day was steamy and tropical, as you may guess from this shot of the lake.

A shelter in the middle of the pine forest. Either built by Bigfoot or some ambitious Boy Scouts.

The lagoon is looking kind of steamy. This area is directly fed by an artesian spring, which apparently is cooler than the lake water.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

The prairie field is in full bloom.

The head of the artesian spring was interesting enough to photograph. The water actually just runs out of the ground just out of the frame here.

Another look into the lagoon, after the mist dissipated.

More wildflowers by the shore.

I forgot to photograph the GPS, but we covered an even 4 miles, and explored some "unofficial" trail also. The mosquitoes drained a pint from each of us, but not so much after I broke out the 100% DEET spray. Also did a quick visit to the geocache to drop off a "travel bug" I picked up in another cache last weekend. Since I may not get out to another geocache for a couple of weeks at least, I decided to let it loose here.

Here's the hiking plot on topo map. Yes we did some serious hill climbing on that south route.

And the route on a Google Earth image.