Baxter's Hollow

A couple of days ago I and a fellow worker decided to hike into Baxter's Hollow. It had rained in the morning but the sky was supposed to clear up in the afternoon. The skies hadn't cleared but we took a chance. As we headed out of the parking lot there were a few drops of rain. The majority of the drops were caught by the tree canopy and if we got wet, “Oh well.” Nature hiking was something new for my young companion; he thought we were going for a walk. Baxter's Hollow is a bit more like a walk as it's a black-topped road, although you seldom see cars beyond the parking lot. Again, being that it was late in the day, there was very little wildlife activity. The sounds of the creek flowing a bit faster from all of the recent rainfall and the chirping of chick-a-dee provided a pleasant back drop to our conversation. I don't know that he was particularly interested, but I stopped to point out the late season wildflowers. Near the stream I spotted the pure white tube-like flowers of a turtlehead, a first for me. Along the road the pale smooth blue aster blended with several white types. Here and there were the red grape-like seed bunches of false Solomon’s seal. Soon we spotted someone off in the distance so we held our chatter down to a low tone. During a short visit with the gentlemen we discovered the bird watcher had been in the Sauk Prairie area for a few days, although the license plate on his car indicated he had driven from Illinois. He told us that he actually lived in Washington DC. He said he wasn't having much luck birding but was enjoying the walk.

 

Soon we could hear the rushing of the water as it passed under the next bridge. Mother Nature knew that today I had my camera and she offered another chance to get a great photo of the cardinal flower (much closer than I would have had on the boat outing). Not only is the color of the bloom as red as the male cardinal but if you look close at the blooms you can see the shape of an origami bird. Its wings spread wide on each side with its head held high.

Soon we came to the gravel part of the road that leads to what years ago was called the Klondike Campground. This area is a bit more swampy; here we were greeted by the delicate orange, slipper-like flowers of orange jewelweed, accented by the pinkish-purple of ironweed. As we neared the end of the hike a pickup truck passed us and parked in the last parking area. As we approached, a couple came back down a short footpath. We struck up a conversation with them; like the earlier guy they were from Illinois but they were on a day trip. They had recently looked at old photos and came to see what was left of the campground that they and their children had enjoyed forty years ago. They were disappointed that the campground was gone but were pleased with what they found. As a child I had been here as a drive-through only visitor so their memories were very interesting. This prompted us to walk the footpath as they had. The entire area of the old campground was covered in the bright yellow spires of many types of goldenrod, including zig-zag, gray and giant goldenrod. Along the wetland edges, massive patches of Joe Pye weed created a backdrop of purple.

When we got back to the car we had spent two and a half hours in nature and never once did my young companion lose interest or get out his cell phone. He agreed to go to Ferry Bluff so I may have awoken the naturalist in him.