Saturday, September 23, 2017 - Wisconsin Dells Day Trip

Today was Member Appreciation Day at the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo, WI.  This organization has done such amazing things increasing the crane population, especially the whooping cranes, and has a beautiful location to see examples of all 15 crane species of the world.  Member Appreciation Day happens once a year and includes many talks and events with the highlight being a behind the scenes tour of Crane City where they breed whooping cranes for introduction into the wild, as well as a few other species.

One of their newest exhibits is the Grey Crowned Crane where we found our first active crane.  (They have plans to build expanded exhibits for many of their other species in the near future.)

Our next stop was the Blue Cranes.

At 9:30 a.m. there was a talk at the whooping crane exhibit with coffee, muffins/pastries, and fruit.  They had an individual from Texas who works with the self-sustaining population of whooping cranes that breed in Canada and migrate to Texas each winter along with a woman who works with breeding whooping cranes at the International Crane Foundation.  Besides being an interesting talk, the whooping crane exhibit is by far their best exhibit and the cranes put on a show for us, with one of them even catching a frog for its breakfast!

We took part in the 11:00 a.m. Behind the Scenes Tour of the Crane City.  Most of the breeding is done through artificial insemination as they have only had one successful natural breeding pair in the recent past and unfortunately the female of that pair got sick and passed away.  They carefully analyze genetics to match up good genetic pairs.  Each female will lay and guard two eggs at a time and so what the keepers do to increase productivity is take away an egg and give it to a non-breeding pair (often other species of cranes) to sit on the egg.  This encourages the breeding female to lay another egg.  They will do this until the female has laid six eggs.

Then once a baby hatches, it is either parent raised (by whooping cranes) or costume raised (raised by humans who wear crane costumes to model crane behaviors.  Many of these juveniles are eventually released into the wild either in the Louisiana non-migratory flock or the migratory flock that breeds in Wisconsin.

An egg of each species of crane

We finished our time at ICF with a trip to the Conservation Medicine Crane Care Unit where we learned a little about the work veterinarians do with the cranes and then a tour of the African Crane Building.

We found lunch at the HuHot Mongolian Grill as that was the only restaurant that I could think of where we could find something to eat that complied with the Whole30 diet.  Plus I am always up for a good stir fry.

After lunch, we decided to try out the Dells Army Ducks.  We have both taken the Original Wisconsin Ducks trips many times but neither had tried the Army Ducks.  The tour is very similar.  Some of the jokes are even the same.  They claim to spend more time in the water, but it really didn't seem like much more time in the water than the Original Ducks.  Regardless, it was fun.

We finished our day with a round of mini-golf at Timber Falls and some candy from a candy store downtown.

Friday, September 1, 2017 - Twin Cities

My husband picked me up from work at 12:34 p.m. to start our long weekend trip to the Twin Cities.  We stopped in Eau Claire to say hi to a friend and made it to Eagan in time to have dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant, El Loro.  We pulled into the hotel at 6:52 p.m.  Our hotel is the Quality Inn & Suites in Eagan.

We traveled 350.9 miles, filled up with 14.7 gallons, for a calculated mpg of 23.9.  We drove the 2016 Mustang GT convertible with a Roush 670 hp supercharged V8, traveling about 74 mph on cruise control with the air conditioner on.

Saturday, September 2, 2017 - Twin Cities - Mall of America

After breakfast at the hotel which wasn't bad (my husband really enjoyed the eggs), we washed the car and stopped by BitterSweet, a gluten free bakery.   Unfortunately, they had a sign up indicating they were closed for the holiday weekend.

From there, we headed to the Mall of America and found our favorite spot on the fifth level near Macy's.  It is an end spot with a walkway on the other side (so no chance of door dings).

Since we didn't spend any time at the bakery, we were a bit early (about 9:15 a.m.)  A few stores opened at 9:30 a.m. but most didn't open until 10:00 a.m. so we just wandered the mall for a while.  It was nice to be in the mall when it was so quiet.

The mall now has electric go carts on the 4th level so at 10:00 a.m. we were one of the first in line for Sky Karting at SMAAASH and actually the only one in his heat.  He had a blast and one of his best laps was 44.689 seconds.  When he got out one of the workers asked him if he had done it before and when he said he had not, the worker said it was a really good first time.  Here is a video of the lower level (the track was a multilevel track).

Before we left home, we stumbled upon a Groupon for the Amazing Mirror Maze on the third floor of the mall.  We really enjoyed it!

Then we spent some time wandering the mall and starting our Christmas shopping before we had lunch at the south food court at Maki of Japan.  We spent some more time shopping in the afternoon and spent some time people watching.

Nickelodeon Universe seems even more packed with rides and has a few new additions including a zip line and high ropes course.

Before finding dinner, we did FlyOver Canada (part of FlyOver America) which was an amazing experience.  My only complaint is that I felt a bit of motion sickness but it was worth it for the views and camera work.

Then we ate at Freshii for an excellent dinner with fresh ingredients.  My husband had a brown rice bowl with avocado, corn, black beans, chicken, cilantro, spicy bbq sauce and aged cheddar cheese.  I had their Zen salad with chicken and a bottle of Perrier (in a glass bottle!).  Then I noticed that BitterSweet sold some of their cookies, muffins, and pumpkin bars there so we picked up a couple of cookies, a pumpkin bar, and another bottle of Perrier for dessert in the hotel room.  We left the mall about 6:30 p.m. after over 9 hours at the mall!