Labor Day Weekend is for Hiking!

Usually for me, Labor Day weekend is very boring and mundane because most years, the semester is in full swing and I have way too much to do.  This year, the fall semester doesn't start until after Labor Day (tomorrow...yikes!) so I was able to go out and play a little!  My mom came down to visit and we decided that yesterday would be a great day for hiking!  The weather has finally cooled off enough that you can go hiking without finding yourself in a pool of sweat or being completely enclosed by mosquitos.  For some reason, I carried my camera in my backpack the entire hike but did not take any pictures!  This is bizarre to me as I usually take too many pictures!  I'm not sure what happened!  To keep this post from being way too boring, I'll add some pictures from previous hikes.  The photo of me to the right (my profile) is from coring trees at Devil's Lake last spring.

Mom and I started the day a little late.  We noshed on coffee, eggs, pumpkin yogurt (plain Greek yogurt, pumpkin, spices, agave syrup; original recipe is here, my new favorite blog to follow!), and a banana to fuel up for our big hike.  Then, we packed up my hiking backpack, loaded up the car, and were off!  We headed to Devil's Lake State Park, which was expectantly packed as the weather was cool and it's Labor Day weekend.  If you are heading into the South entrance of Devil's Lake, you see the SkiHi apple orchard, which was open for the season!  Fresh caramel apples and cheese curds were the star for us before our hike!

If you've been to Devil's Lake, you know the trek up East Bluff is a good workout but we both climbed up the bluff with no issues.  I go on a field trip to Devil's Lake with my students every semester and the first time I went, I had such a hard time getting up the bluff!  This time, no problem!  I guess this working out stuff is paying off.

View of South Shore from the top of West Bluff.  This is where I typically start hiking.

View of East Bluff from the top of West Bluff.  This is what we climbed yesterday.

After completing the East Bluff Trail, we sat down for a snack of grapes, carrots, & peanut butter on the North Shore.  Then, rambled our way along Tumbled Rocks Trail to get back to our car.  Of course, about 1/4 mile from our car, it started pouring, go figure!

After some Subway salads and Culver's ice cream, we decided to end our day by running the stairs at the M in Platteville.   If you do not know anything about the area, here's a little background.  The Platte Mound is an area of resistant cap rock, part of the Niagara Escarpment, that has not eroded away yet, so it looks like a big, random hill in the middle of no where.  There is a giant "M" formed in white painted rocks on the hillside with a tall staircase on the right side where you can climb to the top of the mound.  The "M" stands for the School of Mine, which was the big deal in Platteville, WI back in the day and, as far as I know, is the largest "M" on a hillside in the US.  That area of the mound is owned by the local university so anyone can climb whenever they want for free.

Platteville M.  Stairs to get to the top are on the right of the M.

View of Platteville, WI (distant area) from the top of the Platte Mound.

My mom was hilarious there!  We pulled up and she immediately said, "oh!  That's it?"  Like all those stairs were nothing!  It looks benign, but I guarantee your heart will be racing by the time you reach the top!  We ran the stairs twice in hopes of working off the ice cream and caramel apples and let's just say that after climbing East Bluff at Devil's Lake and running the M twice, our legs were jelly!  It felt so good to workout outside though.  The weather was beautiful and my sinus infection is just starting to clear up.  It was a great day and a nice way to get back into working out after 2 full days off.

It took me a few minutes to work out the stiffness in my joints and muscles this morning but now I'm ready for a little Ripped in 30(gym is closed today!) before I start cooking meals for the week.  The semester starts tomorrow so I'll be starting weekly meal planning and cooking today!  Getting ready for the craziness!  I hope to post on my meal plans from here on out, as well as my ongoing saga on attempting to eat some sort of veggies with breakfast every morning.