There are good reasons for us to paddle Mirror Lake into Del-boo Creek on our first paddle each year.
- There might be nesting cranes
- There are two alternate put-ins if something is amiss (like 2019)
- There is a boat rental if we forget something (once we forgot our paddles!)
- There are people around if we need some kind of help
Since year after year we have done this, we don’t expect much new – just a warm up to getting our paddle season going. But thing is, we always see something of interest. This time we did not see nesting cranes, but we saw nesting trumpeter swans and we saw various sized goslings.
Since the water was low we did not explored the sloughy area in the reeds which always feels like an adventure. Instead, after going to a particular point on Del-Boo Creek we returned to the city ramp and kept paddling toward the State Park canoe rental area. There are some nice bluffs between the launch sites.
And what is “going on in the world” at this time is the pandemic vaccination campaign is still going on. We are wearing face masks a bit less and we are seeing friends and vaccinated family members again.
In Wisconsin it turned warm after this day… as in just a degree or two off of record high temperatures. This state, like many others are in a drought. Thus water levels are low and we assume that wherever we have seen algae and muck in our past that it would be found right now. As a result, we really don’t know when we will get back on the water. We don’t tolerate 86+ temps with 66+ dew points very well any more.
