Just Sit Right Back

"Just sit right back", the opening words of the jingle for a television show that was on the air when I was a child.  This show came to my mind Tuesday of this week when my spouse and I took a trip to Devil's Lake State Park, just south of Baraboo, WI.  We go to Devil's Lake a few times, some years several times a year.  Most often we are at the south shore, but road our normal route was closed for road construction and we headed to the north shore, and it was from there that our "three hour" tour began.

moss on a downed tree

We arrived at the north shore about 9:00 am, and decided to walk up the east bluff trail and down the east bluff woodland trail, a route we have taken several times in the past.  We were the third car in the vast parking lot.  As frequent visitors to the south shore, the balanced rock and pot-hole trail are the most common route on our itinerary. On the marker map our planned route was about a 2.4 mile trek, In Gilligan's day it was a three hour tour that turned into a shipwreck.  Our situation was not near so bleak. It was a perfect day for hiking, in the 60's for temperatures, a breeze, and a mostly clear sky.  If it was hot and humid, it would not have been as pleasant a hike.

Cave on the east side of the east bluff

Just sit right back, and you will hear a tale, a tale of a fateful walk, it started at the north shore, without our walking sticks.  The mate was a mighty walker, the skipper organized and true. (The reader can make the decision as to who is who) Two people set walking that day for a 2.4 mile hike, a 2.4 mile hike.

caterpillar on an oak tree

Somewhere, after we reached the top near the balanced rock trail, we made a wrong turn, even though we followed the trail marker, and our 2.4 mile walk turned into a five mile, two and one-half hour tour.  Instead of heading back north on the trail, we ended up on the rescue road and were going south.  We realized our error when looking at a map at the confluence of the rescue road, the CCC trail and the Stinke basin trail.  At first my wife thought the trail marker was in the wrong place.  We tried to decide what route to go, part of me wanted to go back and figure out what we did wrong, but in the end we decided to hike the Steinke route north and then head west to the campground, on a route parallel to the highway, and then back south to the lake.  My wife, who with her Fitbit tracks her steps, exclaimed, "Well, we will get more steps in." Me, I wanted to get back and get something to eat.  It is not too often I go 2 1/2 hours with out a snack.  Yes, I like my food.

Devil's Lake 

While the trail, in parts, looked similar to the planned excursion route down on the woodland trail, this trail lacked the steeper slope, and the stream crossings, But, it also provided a few interesting sights:  caterpillars climbing an oak tree, a rock outcropping to the east of the main bluff where I could hear, but not see the climbers, although I saw their rope.  I think they were making their way up the bluff face on the other side.  Years ago, when I was a boy scout we once camped in a wood CCC building with the heat provided by a wood stove.  I recall hiking the south part of the east bluff to get a certain mile hike in for the day.  I recall another scout, Randy Fabian,  asking if we had to go that amount, and the leader saying if he could find 500 piles of rabbit turds, he would grant him his wish to end the hike at that point.  What the leader probably knew, but Randy never realized is that to find 500 piles of rabbit scat, you probably would walk well more than the amount we were wanting to get in for the day.   Randy tried to allow each little turd to count as a pile, but the leader would have not hear of it. Funny, what one can remember.

Back of bluff on which I heard climbers

On our way home, my wife commented that we had an unintentional hike.  She did not wish to claim we were lost, because the signs showed us our location, and after all we were still in the park.  I responded, that we were simply exploring new territory.  (I majored in geography, and a professor once told me that geographers do not get lost, they are simply exploring new territory.)  I also noted that the park, at more than 10,000 acres, it would be difficult to get to the edge.  Yet, in our trek north, we were within 200' of the edge of the park.  While our unintentional hike of five miles, compared to 2.4, was more than expected, we received did get a chance. like a good geographer, to explore new territory.  It could have been worse, we could have been stranded on a deserted island in the Pacific. Sometimes something unintentional is not bad a experience to have.

Marker that first showed us we were on an unintentional hike

Wildflower

Photos by author on 6/27/2017