Day 24: Wagons Ho to Madison

Today, we felt that we had a relaxing day with a few hours of driving to go to reach Madison and catch up with some friends/colleagues. Wouldntchaknowit but a pickle ball court crossed our path and we had to go break those nice new courts in. The place is Sparta, Wisconsin and the pickleball bug has come to these parts. It was a little breezy at first and cloudy. The rain was already threatening but we decided to take our chances. 2 other people were on the courts but by the time we had warmed up, they were ready to leave. That left me and Kasey with 8 pickleball courts on a Tuesday morning. 

We must have played singles for a couple of hours. Kasey had some really good placed shots that I just could not reach. I prevailed in most of the games but he has some really wicked serves that caught me off guard. All of the games were close and we enjoyed the activity.

Just as we got to the motorhome, the windshield started showing droplets of water accumulating. Good timing. And away we went toward Madison to meet up with Zach and Amy. 

The ride was filled with endless fields of corn and lined with hardwood forests. Some were starting to turn colors which provided a wonderful and scenic aspect to our drive.

As we came into Madison, Kasey dropped me off and Zach, Amy and I navigated the campus to a seminar in biology stuff. 

Zach and Amy were on the Tyee owl project back in 2019. Since then, they have been finding really cool places to attend higher learning. Amy is keeping with the owl theme and studying barred owl diets for her degree. Her funding was recently cut though and she has been teaching. Zach is getting into beetles for his degree. The implications could be a discovery of ways to withstand cold temperatures. His funding is so far intact.

The buildings on campus have a lot of character. I took a few pictures of some interesting ones in the area. The capitol dome peaks out of the landscape in the background.

The seminar included a talk about the San Miguel Fox, an endemic and isolated subspecies on the Channel Islands off Southern California. The excitement over parasites came through from the presenter and made for an interesting topic. When someone is excited about something, you sometimes get caught up in the enthusiasm. After the seminar, I got a chance to see where Amy works. The halls of higher learning always seem to fill me with excitement no matter the subject. Also Leopold is a really famous conservationist that called Madison his home. The display with his history, family details, and his connection to the University were displayed in a nice case on the wall next to stuffed specimens of the extinct passenger pigeon. Usually, his famous book A Sand County Almanac is required reading for budding conservationists. I still have my copy. The connection to Roseburg Oregon is through the only woman Graduate Student of Leopold's, Fran Hammerstrom. She studied the endangered greater prairie chickens and also hawks while studying under Leopold. She received her Master's degree in 1940. Her daughter, Elva Paulsen is a Roseburg resident and excellent artist. She and her husband, Dale seek out nature and record it, tell stories, and share the appreciation of nature. Dale is a great photographer by the way. They both are members of the local Umpqua Valley Audubon Society. We tried to find Fran's dissertation among the shelves of dissertations but they did not have the ones before 1942.

We then went to dinner with Zach and Amy, took the dogs for a nice walk and then Kasey and I went to the Ace Hardware Parking lot where we spent the night. 

The rain picked up overnight but the sound was pleasant and relaxing. We slept well.