Prairie's Edge Wildlife Drive

Zimmerman, MN 

Francis enjoying my lap.

Sherburne Wildlife Refuge

Today we drove about an hour to take 2 hours to drive 7 miles.  The Prairie's Edge Wildlife Drive is a 7 mile nature loop within Sherburne Wildlife Refuge.  We have been on a few of these wildlife drives and they have been great.  You drive your car along a dirt road (usually) and stop and stare at wildlife.  There are turnouts and boardwalks to get out but it's mostly driving.  Francis enjoyed smelling the air while sitting in the back with all of the windows down.  We saw a ton of great birds, the cutest ground squirrel you ever did see, and a deer.  

They tried to make this feel like a Bald Eagle's nest with all of the sticks.  It was a pretty cool way to teach people about Bald Eagles.

We didn't choke on the choke cherries.

Sandhill Cranes!

This is a Thirteen-lined Ground Squirrel begging.

They were so cute and wanted a hand out so badly.  We had seen it eating seeds as we walked up so it's getting plenty of food.

Here's a deer butt for you.

This is what most of the drive looked like from my POV.

Most of the birds were pretty far away so no really good photos but we got good views with our binoculars.  It was a really great nature loop and I whish there was a list of all of these.  You just kind of have to happen upon them.

After the birding we stopped by Lupulin Brewing for lunch and a beer.  They recently won some awards for their beers and they had a ton of my favorite styles on tap.  My favorite styles aren't compatible with driving so had a small pour of a triple IPA with my lunch and got some beer to go.  Oh they also had pinball so we both played some.

Got your nose!

We got the special hot dog

And the meatloaf sandwich.  Both were very good.

Francis looks like he is driving a bus.

Donna took similar photos with Francis while I played pinball.

That was our adventure for the day.  We got 2 new counties and some more highway miles too.  If you missed A Walk, A Fancy House, and Pinball check it out.  I go into way too much detail about the price of pinball.