Eagles

We left Minneapolis and drove to Wabasha MN to the National Eagle Center. They have four resident eagles; Dan, Harriet, Columbia, and Angel, who are all flightless due to accidents. We got to see them and to see 4 ( or maybe 5, it's hard to tell when they're moving) eagles on the river. Turns out Eagles are opportunistic birds who sit on the ice and wait for the fish to float by! We saw one doing just that. Angel put on a show for us, the volunteer said she wasn't really very angelic, but she ate her fish and didn't throw her food at anyone. It was definitely worth the side trip! We have visited the wolf center, the bear center and the eagle center all in MN and enjoyed all of them. I think everyone should go, but winter is best if you want to see wild eagles.

This is Larry with Dan, a California Golden eagle.

After we left there we headed home, sort of. We decided we'd drive US 63 south thru MN and then IA. Think we may have had the idea that we'd drive clear through to Columbia! It was a beautiful drive, good highway for the most part and we really enjoyed it UNTIL it began to be time to quit for the day. We left the atlas at home and didn't have an Iowa map but we knew we'd hit I-80 sooner or later if we just keep going south so we did. Intersected with it about 46 miles east of Des Moines so we are sleeping here tonight. Guess we'll be home fairly early tomorrow as it's only about 3 hours from here, and we intend to take the interstate!