I (finally) reached 1,500 miles at the UW Madison Arboretum on Saturday!
November has been a slower month for progress compared to September and October. Without the structured training plan it's harder to make time to run, and the darker evenings don't help. I've returned to the indoor track and it's starting to get busy again. Although it was nice to have the whole track to myself, it felt odd so it's nice to see other people there.
UW Madison Arboretum
We were looking for someplace new to walk during the long weekend, and the UW Madison Arboretum sounded like a good place since it was both a natural area and far away from deer hunting.
The Arboretum is a collection of habitats, including Marsh, Savanna, Forest, and Prairie. 17 miles of well marked trails wind through the preserve. We only covered four miles, starting at the Wingra Oak Savanna. This part of the trail was varied enough that we saw woods, savanna, marsh, and pines all along one short trail.
Although you can see houses in the background, the area is quiet and you quickly feel like you're in a larger park.
True to its name, the Wingra Oak Savanna had plenty of oak trees, most prominently along the portion next to the street.
I couldn't help thinking of the Womping Willow in Harry Potter, even though it's the wrong type of tree. This tree looked posed for attack.
After the trail ended at a city park, we enjoyed a view of Lake Wingra then walked down Monroe Street and stopped at a coffee shop to return to the parking lot.
From there, we drove a short distance to the visitor center at main part of the arboretum, where we walked through the Curtis Prairie.
This trail connects to almost all of the full 17 miles of trails in the park, but it was getting late and we decided to come back another day to visit the rest of the trails. On our way out we saw a wooly caterpillar crawling across an icy patch of the trail.
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