TR--KICKAPOO: Turkey Raptors/UFO baffle TT'ers!!!

“We are back. We made it out... ALIVE, THANK GOODNESS!!!

We were invaded by the prehistoric-ish, monstrous, evil sounding and even worse looking Turkey Raptors, every bit right out of Jurassic Park!!! (shhh, but we even saw their large tracks on the rock bluffs lining the Kickapoo River while paddling Saturday... AAAAACK!!!!! EEEEEEK!!!!)

And Friday night there was the disappearing, silent... well, just WHAT THE F*** WAS IT in the Kickapoo darkness flying overhead??!?!? Silent... and crazy fast!... and... then totally black and gone!??!?!!?

(Was it dropping off more Turkey Raptor babies????!?)

A fun, but somewhat skeery time was had by all, I think.

At least we had enough food to stand off any Turkey Raptor invasion before sacrificing any of our own........”

“They crashed a satelite into the moon Friday night.”

“Pictures?”

“I am weird, where the F*** was this? Ha ha ha”

“Graska took the most photos, I think. We have big expectations from her. ;-)

Me? My camera calamities continue. I took my back-up camera from work. Fine, but long shots zoomed in suck. Also, it's more easily shaken. (But then, maybe SO WAS I!!! Turkey raptors! A UFO!) Then Ike wanted me to take a picture of him with his camera. The battery went dead. THEN Graska wanted me to take a picture of her with her camera. The battery went dead. And my GPS was acting weird. (Perhaps the aliens came to TAKE ME BAAAAAAAACK???!??!!?!?)

Did I also note we took on a whole series of wicked, wild felines and vanquished them all, even as we were holed up in a hollow by a mountain lion??!? YES!

We also finally figured out, after perhaps having to think about it a little bit toooooooo much, just which bathroom with "Knothole" and which bathroom was "Woodpecker." (Perhaps it was because we'd been traumatized by SPURS!~ on boots near our bare, ready-to-go-paddling ankles by that time)

Spiff, welcome, you can get the trip location by clicking on the trip link on this page. It was in southwest Wisconsin between La Farge and Ontario, in the Kickapoo (River) Vally Reserve.

Final question: Just who ARE "THEY????"”

“I'll have some pics along shortly, too.”

“Computers hate lizs. That's all there is to it.”

“Who got probed?”

“Lizs I love your trip report! I will upload my pic to webshots tomorrow! I promise! The river pics will be dropped at walmart pronto too.”

“graska, this is where you go to say silly things about others... go for it, girl!!!

(Did we mention just where graska spent HER first night of the trip?? hmmmmmmmm??!?!)

LOL! ;-P (but seriously, ask her... hehehe)”

“lizs, I just know I met a great group of people, and I can't wait to take another TT trip! How did the weather turn out after I left???”

“Mebbe Tropical Cane John (Juan?) blew in some California condors. Or perhaps they were turkey vultures... or their smaller cuz the black vulture.

The ufo was prolly an owl. They're prolly still busy teaching this year's clutch about the hunt. I hear their "Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you?" coming from all darkened directions on a nightly basis. Their relatively short but broad wings are all about silence. Deadly stealth. Poor wittle wabbits... It is kinda eerie to see their large, dark sillhouette(sp) swoosh by w/o the "swoosh".

Coulda been a great blue heron. They spook easy and take flight 24/7. Their fly-by is often accompanied by a "skwaaak!". Did ya hear anything like that?



“They crashed a satelite into the moon Friday night.”
~bacpac

True dat. Did y'all hear any French accented offers for surrender? Mebbe they got off course and went Columbus-esque in assuming y'all were Moontians...

BTW - Didn't Apollo XII land in the Sea of Trankickapoo?”

“Okay, here's the beginning, I will bring in my water camera today. Dryfoot, will get those group shots going, and Ike has some river pics. Especially the muskrat!http://community.webshots.com/album/553810871lZvObC”

“GET REAL. Owls don't carry big round lights in their claws as they fly over, do they? And even if they did, I don't think they'd have them on a dimmer switch and then turn them off. A UFO is a much more reasonable explanation.

As to who got probed? We all volunteered, but "they" didn't come back to take us up on it.”

“ill have my pics posted later tonight hopefully. viva la turkey raptors! i have officially changed my religion to theirs!”

“great stuff... thanks!”

“I guess I failed to mention the UFO had lights! ;-P

The turkey raptors went nuts Sunday morning when dryfoot and Mata were making trips early to the cars. Mata got a pretty good pic of one later. She directed dryfoot and I to where we could see them. and we did.

So, do ya think dryfoot's 8-10 ft. tall estimate was accurate??!???

HEY ... and no one's asked if we saw any mud bikinis???? YOU GUYS ARE SLIPPING!!! LOL!”

“*Yawn*
mud bikinis....


I went Muddin' on four wheeler ATVs with two 18 yo girls this weekend. They were so cute covered with mud..... ;-)”

“Hey Liz!!!!!
Did you see any mud bikinis??? And where did Graska spend Friday night???
See ya later.
Randall”

“"Kickin' back" was appearantly taken to heart by Lizs as documented @ Bessie L's photo page.”

“OK, here was the itinerary:

FRIDAY

dryfoot arrived early to set up the massive compound (Remember! The Rainbow Family was in the area. I'm sure after they heard the name "lizs" mentioned at the visitor's center umpteen times -- and were concerned we might have 20 people there WITHOUT A PERMIT (GASP@!!!), they were pretty sure we had a super-secret-selective RF PRE-gathering going on ;-)

ike and roxyruby also arrived. dryfoot called me up to let me know I'd forgotten to send some of the poles for the screen tent part of the compound. DRAT!!! The worship of rainbows would have to occur elsewhere. Then again.... the massive tarp part of the compound would suffice...

I arrived around 6:30 after seeing all kinds of wonderful, scenic Wisconsin hillsides and bluffs. Took County Rd. P in and got to go through backwoodsy Amish country, as well as pass by the blink-and-miss-it burg of Dell -- which would host the Rainbow gathering come Tuesday, Sept. 5.

Upon arrival, I was overwhelmed with turkey raptor tales!!!!! Had we landed in some amazing Kickapoo Jurassic Park??!?!?

We made some food and managed to have some select beverages with NO glass bottles, per Kickapoo Jurassic Park rules.

Later Bessie Lou and her friend Donna arrived.

Oh yes, and the screen tent was set up. And my lovely big-but-leaky-(in rain), cheap-a** car camping tent was set up and also covered with a blue tarp for extra protection. SURELY THIS would drive the rainy forecast away!!!

As we sat around the campfire, checking the wondrous view of the sky and constellations, the strange white light came across the sky, above the river and fairly low. Was it a jet with take-off lights yet on from Madison or La Crosse? But it was stealthy, NOOOOOO(!!!) noise. Then it dimmed a bit and, boom, disappeared.

hmmmmmmmm......

And we settled in for the night, wondering where-oh-where Graska might be???? Little did we know...”

“SATURDAY

As we rubbed our respective eyes and tweaked our respective ears after hearing the scary morning turkey raptor cries, we arose to see a figure coming across what we'd thought of as a foggy moor the night before and was now a dewy field in daylight.

It was Graska!! She had run into problems getting left Friday and while she got to the Kickapoo Valley Reserve around 8 or 8:30 Friday night, she opted to go back to Ontario to stay at a motel, hit the local bar and make the natives our friends for life. Thanks for the sacrifices, Graska ;-P LOL!

She brought breakfast items to be made/cooked. Which included bacon, turkey sausage (ike's doing, but good), scrambled eggs (dryfoot's contribution) and pancakes and syrup.

So... we were stuffed! Then, as the weather looked excellent -- and now we had Graska with her kayak -- we decided to hit the Kickapoo River for around a three-hour tour (Oh, Skipper, can you and Gilligan save us???) Bessie Lou and Donna decided to kick back (on the Kickapoo) and rode bikes to the visitor's center and drove around some (did I see pizza in camp later??? YES! ;-P)

roxyruby and ike rented a canoe in Rockton. A canoe rental place/bar called the Rockton Bar/Kickapoo Yacht Club. (Could it get any better??? Well, yes, if only it had direct river access. I mean, it was all OK after we figured out the "woodpecker"/"knothole" thing... and avoided the spurs!). dryfoot shuttled his canoe and Graska's kayak and we followed the canoe shuttle driver to Bridge 7. We would paddle to Bridge 14, which was just upstream from our Walling campsite. (We could have taken our boats right to our site, but then would have needed to portage back to vehicles.)

As we put the canoes in the river right next to Highway 131, we first saw a water snake float by. LOL, Jurassic Park, indeed! We all got in our boats without mishaps.

The river is very crooked. Not only that, but you also have to zigzag on the river to avoid downfall. However, there were few rocks. It had a wild feel to it, with beautiful bluffs at times overhanging the water (BUT damn those freakin' huge turkey raptor tracks on them!!!)

ike was great at striking poses for Graska's camera. And she enjoyed taking vanity shots, lol. Later, Graska and ike changed boats, so roxyruby got more of a workout trying to steer, it seemed, hehehe... and ike??!? He was going backwards a lot, but still flexing his muscles for us when begged!

Below Rockton we had a muskrat keep us company for awhile, absolutely no problem with the three boats inching up on him. (He seemed like a possible appetizer for a turkey raptor!)

Much too soon, the three-hour tour ended, Thurston and Luvy smiled, and we took out at Bridge 14. I shuttled dryfoot back to get his trailer, then took off to see the town of La Farge and also to go to the Kickapoo Valley Reserve visitor's center. That was a cool place. I met Marcy, the reserve director, who said, "OH, SO YOU ARE LIZS!!" lol, my reputation (??!?!) precedes me!!

Perhaps best of all, a Rainbow person wandered in. Marcy gave her a map to the location of the gathering. I just stood there and thought, "Yep, that fits the Rainbow species."

Back at camp people were resting... and happy to see the arrival of Mataharihiker -- and her many trinkets and gadgets that always keep us talking. (I mean, my god, you should have seen roxyruby and Graska jump up and run over, slobbering over some coffee thingy she had the next morning!! then again, Graska does have trouble with coffee ;-P)

Here Phil enters our story, kind of. HI PHIL!!! dryfoot made Phil's Dutch Over tamale meal, which was TO DIE FOR!!! (and yes, we see why your wife likes pork best!) (dryfoot found this recipe on the Net. LOL, he didn't realize some of us -- ok, ME -- have met Phil!) dryfoot was ready to make dessert for us and each of us said, "NO NO NO. Let us clean out some more of that tamale dish for you!!!"

Bessie Lou and Donna then figured they'd had enough camping for the weekend and decided to pack up. They'd slept badly the night before. (Damned turkey raptors anyway!) It was good to meet them... and I hope they get out on a lot more hikes in the future.

We talked and yapped and Graska told dating horror stories that lizs could almost top from her past. (Graska had the guy on probation. Well, lizs had the murder suspect hoping to meet what had become his favorite columnist!!)

Finally all retired.... hopefully to sleep well and not be picked off by turkey raptors!”

“Great trip report! Thanks lizs, we all owe you for doing our homework. I tried to upload the river pics, but my computer wasn't in the mood. Tonight is Harley night ; ) so I'll get back on that tomorrow, after I drop the TB from our caching adventure.”

“*flexes*

hhahahaha. one day you'll see my ugly mug on the cover of a Canoe Monthly and you'll understand the reason behind my madness!”

“...and then Ike, exuberant with the success of finding three (I think) of the geocaches first, made another find, ahem, of some female Harley Davidson intimate wear. Ike's quote: "I'm not touching those things."”

“And by the way, I do not slobber. I maybe drooled a little.”

“Very cool! I like the Dutch oven part!”

“hey, I actually got on this site from home right now! Wonder of WONDERS!!!

Yeah, Phil, isn't that cool??!? Great recipe!!

SUNDAY (AND EVEN MONDAY!)

On Sunday Graska hauled five of us to Wildcat Mountain State Park in Ontario, just to the north of Kickapoo Valley Reserve, where we took on the wicked felines. Actually, there was a series of seven geocaches to be found, all named after wildcats. We had two GPSes (GPSi, is that the plural form???) and I'd organized the paperwork and printed helpful maps (both from National Geographic Topo! and from the Mapsource program used by Garmin)

OK, SO I'M A MAP NERD. GONNA MAKE SOMETHING OF IT??? I'LL SEND IKE OVER TO FLEX FOR YOU AND STUN YOU!!! ;-)

Graska and I are geocachers (after nine Sunday with the group and five more on my own on the way home Monday, I'm sitting at 190 finds). Graska logged all her finds for Sept. 4... hmmm, is she in a time warp??? LOL! dryfoot proved even more extremely adept at finding regular-size caches after someone told him to look for "unnatural looking stuff." (WHO DID THAT??!?!? ;-P)

Ike also was adept, well, except for when he sprained his ankle (ya gotta watch him!) and then found that Harley underwear. LMAO, I'd forgotten about the underwear. :-)

So we did the series of six and got a coordinate number from each to plug into the seventh/final lattitude and longitude coordinates. We had to go down, down, down, down to find it. Then spent an hour setting up a timer photo of the geocachers extraordinaire. (Did I mention I seemed to zap battery power from both Ike's and Graska's cameras??? yep)

We also did two more caches that were close by. A tally of NINE!!! WOO HOO, WE RULE AND KICK @SS!!!

Graska then had to leave. waaaaaaaaaaah!!! Nice to meet her. She seemed to start an exodus, as when we got back to camp RoxyRuby and Ike also packed up and left. (or was it the rain that was starting???)

When Matarhari got back from a hike up to Blackhawk Rock, she also had cool news and a "find" of her own. I'll let her share when she checks in.

So now we were down to three and it was a steady rain from around 3 or so until 7 or so Monday morning. I further checked out Mata's NEW (and often coveted) Henry Shires Double Rainbow Tarptent. (But there were no coffee drinkers left to drool over her coffee thingy. hehehe)

Oh yeah and around 6 or 7 Sunday a.m. the turkey raptors truly were not liking anyone in "THEIR" FIELD!! Raucous (sp?) cries were heard!!!

We all started packing up after b'fast, figuring some sorta wet tents, etc. were better than sopping wet tents, etc. After dryfoot and I made our last trip out, Mata-- who'd been cruising around -- stopped by our vehicles and told us a FAMILY (NO, NOT RAINBOW!!) of turkey raptors were down by the canoe landing.

I WAS FINALLY ABLE TO SEE (KIND OF) THE EVIL, PREHISTORIC, REPTILIAN LOOKING BIRDS!!! Now, if only we could explain the UFO!!!!

Great, great weekend. Wish we could have hiked more on Sunday. I didn't get to see Mata's "find," so I'll need to get my butt back there (and maybe send an e-mail to the former president of the Ho-Chunk Nation, whom I met on a -- hint, hint -- ROCK ART expedition three weeks ago. See if he would share more such FINDS!!!)

dryfoot headed for home. I headed out and ended up geocaching steenkin' forever in Westby. (Who knew they had a park with freakin' huge, cool boulders??!? Where'd THEY come from??!? And who knew it would take me forever to find the two caches?!? Both very, very good hides. Would liked to have seen dryfoot going after these. ;-P)

On the way home I ate at Hooters in La Crosse, which goes against every bone in my body (prolly wouldn't hurt guys' bones though, I imagine), but it saved a trip to the far side of town. SOOOOOOOOoooo, the waitress sits down to be my chatty friend. AAAACKKKK!!!! I only thought they did this to guys!!!!!! Anyhoo, I found out she got busted for drinking on the Kickapoo last summer when cops were doing breathalizers to people coming off the river. But it's OK. She's a dancer and really doesn't need to be in the AA classes. LOL, (where oh where was chili when I needed a lesson in Hooters etiquette???!?)

And then I went home. THE END!”

“Nice trip report, lizs!”

“***MY*** photos



(you JUST MIGHT get a glimpse at the dreaded "turkey raptors!")”

“Take any pics in Hooters? ;-)”

“Click on the photo above to go to my Webshots page. :-)

SOOOOO sooooooooooorry, SS, no pics of my newfound Hooters friend. awwwwwwwwwww!!!!”

“Liz>>>>>
Those look like Sand Hill Cranes, but I guess they could be whatever you want em too be!! LOL, nice pics and killer trip report as usual. Looks like it was another good trip!! I hope to catch the next one!!
See ya later.
Randall”

“Hee Hee Hee......
I just have to snicker thinking about lizsbaby sitting and chatting with a Hooters girl.
There are better places to grab a meal lizs. ;-)”

“Nice pics, lizs!”

“I tell you, it was the scariest part of the whole weekend!! I wanted to just sit there, look at whatever I bring to read (in this case, ready to plot a backpacking trip in the KVR trails) and glance at the umpteen TVs.

OH -- and geez, I saw some chick pulling up her panty hose way up above her belly button cuz she had her top up somewhat to do it.

yes, totally horrifying!!! Then again, Ms. Raisins Girl -- you had to see South Park! LOL -- did see my map and told me about the breathalizer incident. We were relating, I tells youse! LMAO!!”

“(where oh where was chili when I needed a lesson in Hooters etiquette???!?)


lizs
12:24:02 AM
9/07/06

I am never more than a phone call away darlin.

I don't want to bust anyones bubble, but I suspect more than one Hooter's girl goes both ways.”

“YIKES!!!!

Ok... let's get back to discussing the trip.

:-)

I think backpacking there is in order, definitely!”

“LOL. Well, you implied you wanted advice.”

“Can you envision it? Hooters girl sits down across the booth to chit-chat with me. I whip out the cell -- AND CALL HOOTERS ETIQUETTE CONSULTANT CHILI ON THE SPOT!!! Chili to the rescue!!!

Maybe there's a new sit-com in this??!??!?”

“wunder if dem raptors iz gud eetin?”

“Wez thot they mite think wez waz gud eetin!”

“Lizsbaby would look quite cute in a Hooters girl outfit.
Maybe that Hooters girl "thot lizs mite be gud eetin!”

(I'm going to heck for that)”

“CRIKEY!!”

“Hmmm, me thinks that Graska might have a nice VANITY shot of herself in the kayak in her album now.... hehehehehe”

“I don't know about this Graska lady. Something about her going to a warm bed on friday night rather than sleeping on the ground with the TTers. ;-)
I bet she would have rented a cabin.”

“If I thought I'd have had any hope of finding camp I would have... all I wanted was a campfire and some liquid sustanance after the day I had. It was not meant to be, so I had to go into a town of 536 people and find lodging....”

“LOL, Stovey likes to rent cabins the first night out, ;-);-) (that would be "wink, wink" LOL)”