No Peak-ing

Since it was in the 60s and sunny, our paddling crew decided to hit the Wisconsin River today for a fall color tour. The good news was that the weather was absolutely beautiful. The bad news was that the trees were... not so much.

Water was perfectly calm but the leaves are at least a week away from peaking, in our amateur meteorologist prediction. So the weather is just going to have to cooperate another weekend so we can go again and see color!

So I did the best I could and probably captured photos of all 8 trees along our route that had turned. Ha.

Do Mike and Jim look relaxed? They are! While the water was calm, there was enough of a current today that we weren't forced to paddle the whole time. Plus, we weren't crunched for time either. Got out at 1 p.m. so had plenty of daylight to work with!

No commentary needed on most of these... river... reflection... pretty.

This tree was funny because it was so green and just had color on the tips only, like it was a paint brush dipped in color.

Ooh. Gotta make sure I have a fall selfie! And yes it was nice enough to go sleeveless. And yes I got a little red!

Hey look, it's our empty next!

Fallen leaves had floated up against a log. You can see how dirty the river water is.

But I still had to investigate closer!

See what I mean by sporadic fall color? One branch on a whole tree? Really strange fall we're having.

Cindy stepped into my photo studio so I could at least get one picture of her with the popular Autumn background!

And she returned the favor.

We lost the guys for awhile. Apparently just paddling a bit got us way too far ahead. We sort of sat and waited when we got hungry and they had all the snacks!

We went around the big island again, which has the paper mill and dam at the "turning" point.

Had this mission to get a pretty leaf in the water. Wanted one more colorful but I made it work.

So we're cruising along and after taking this picture, I look to the shoreline on my left side and spot an eagle! I was so excited. It looked huge! I paddle closer and get out my good camera and... the display screen says "battery exhausted". What? Oh no! I checked it before we left home but it must have been on its last juices when it worked.

Tried to zoom in with my phone which is never close to the same. Oh, I so disappointed. He sat there plenty long that I would have gotten a few super photos. Dang. But that wasn't it...

Was taking another leaf photo when over my head flies another eagle! Are you kidding me?

Seriously, he lands in this tree and sits there long enough to watch the gulls overhead and take a poop. Not kidding. Could have gotten more nice pictures with my good camera... again.

And all I have is him flying away with my dreams of a great photo!

Still, it was a fabulous afternoon! So relaxing! The Packers are on bye and the Vikings play tomorrow night so we had time to not keep track of time. That's how a Sunday should be. And hopefully, we'll get our peek at the colors in peak on another Sunday.

I'd skip football for that, wouldn't you?