Something I had always wanted to do was to take a trip where I could do whatever I wanted to do for two weeks. A trip where I would make all of the decisions for everything that was done. It would be a trip to roam all over the place and drive for miles and miles to many epic birding locations. I wanted to rent and be responsible for a rental car on my own for the first time. For such a trip, I knew that it would be expensive. Something that I picked up early in 2020 was working overtime at work. When I found out my favorite band, Amaranthe, was coming to the United States in fall of 2020, I decided I wanted to attend the first show of the tour in Baltimore, and then the fourth show of the tour several nights later in Philadelphia. I decided to work my butt off at work by working as many overtime shifts as possible. Working overtime became an addiction for me, and in less than a month, I already raised over a thousand dollars of overtime money and set it aside for Amaranthe's tour. The funny thing is that Amaranthe had Arizona on their tour and I had tickets for that, but I wanted to rock with them as much as possible and I thought it would be fun to take a trip to see them along the east coast. On the birding side of things, I could also see some key life birds near Baltimore, such as Saltmarsh Sparrow. It was a win-win for everybody at work because they needed the help too and I needed the extra money. During the time I saved for Amaranthe's tour, the working sparked something in me. I wanted to work extra for other things right away too. While I didn't have it in my mind at first to work overtime for my main birding vacation, that quickly became priority too. As soon as I put the money aside for Amaranthe, I started working towards saving close to two thousand extra dollars for my vacation, by working overtime. I was relied on at work a lot, and I worked and worked for it. Before I knew it, I got to a point where I reached enough overtime money to be able to go on a nice trip based on overtime money alone. On another note, I also got employee of the month for two months in a row because of how much I was working. It continued to be a win-win for everybody.
Thankfully, I did all of this before freaking Covid-19 hit in force. Once it hit, I couldn't work overtime anymore, and I got 17 overtime shifts in in about two months. I questioned whether any of these trips that I worked so hard to afford were even a possibility, and most of the time, I didn't think about the trips at all because of how scary Covid is. For the birding trip, I figured things would work out for me to go, and they did as time went on. I decided to buy plane tickets at a very cheap price that would take me on a trip flying into Minneapolis and having a vacation from June 1st through 11th. In that time frame I planned and hoped to scour across the northern parts of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. As my plans and ideas developed, people were being asked to take time off of work because the hospital got very slow. I then extended my vacation to the three states from May 27th through June 11th as my boss, Jennifer, gave me more time off. With the adjustment, I would then have 14 full days of vacation up in the far northern part of the lower 48. After flying in late on the 27th of May, I would have two weeks of hardcore birding and fun until I would fly out of Minneapolis early on June 11th. That's if it would work out for me to go.
For two weeks or more leading up to my vacation, I was doing careful research for a few hours everyday on eBird for the birds that I was wanting to see. It was a strategic approach that required a lot of computer time and study. A rough draft of my trip was to go straight to Grayling, Michigan to try and see and photograph Kirtland's Warblers. For however long it took me to succeed, I would stay in a Michigan hotel in Grayling. At first, it was hard to plan a hotel stay because of Covid and the Michigan governor's orders were very strict for awhile and it limited the opportunities to stay in hotels other than essential travel. There are a few Kirtland's Warblers in Wisconsin that are harder to see, but are present and could be attempted for if Michigan couldn't get worked out. I wanted to bird Michigan's Upper Peninsula for a few days, bird northern Wisconsin for a few days, camp in Minnesota for close to a week, and spend some time in eastern North Dakota as well as a day or two southeastern Minnesota, northeastern Iowa, and southwestern Wisconsin. The plan sounded exhausting, and it was. But it was also an epic stretch of ground to cover. Modifications took place constantly. What it boiled down to was making a target list for what I primarily wanted.
Three species of warblers were at the top of the list. Kirtland's Warbler was the biggest deal due to it's limited range and for the fact that I really wanted to see a Kirtland's Warbler. A trek to Michigan was a key part of the trip because it was a long drive from Minneapolis. Two other warblers were also likely that would be lifers: Connecticut Warbler and Cape May Warbler. While Cape May is one that I figured wouldn't be too difficult, Connecticut Warbler was one that I know is difficult. They love impenetrable habitats such as spruce bogs. I went out and bought a pair of rubber boots because of Connecticut Warblers and bogwhacking for Connecticut Warblers. Other lifers that were marked down as huge targets for the trip were Spruce Grouse, Greater Prairie-Chicken, American Woodcock, Yellow-bellied Flycatcher, Alder Flycatcher, and White-winged Crossbill. A few other species that went down as huge targets were ones that weren't lifers and ones that I had had in the past as heard only species or birds I wanted better looks at. Kirtland's Warbler was actually one of those as a heard only in the past in Wisconsin, but it still went down as my most wanted bird of the trip. Other birds that filled that list were Black-billed Cuckoo, Black-throated Blue Warbler, Henslow's Sparrow, and LeConte's Sparrow. There was also Mute Swan that I could get as a lifer in Michigan, but I didn't consider it as a huge target. On the side of the huge targets were just a bunch of other epic birds that call the north home ;) And this region is also home to numbers of my favorite creature, the Gray Wolf. I would trade any bird for a wolf sighting. It's also home to Moose, Lynx, and from looking at my odes book, lots of new dragonflies and damselflies.
My Aunt Gretchen and Uncle Larry own a cabin in Washburn County, Wisconsin where my grandparents lived. It is an awesome cabin, and it is near where my grandparents lived near Spooner, Wisconsin. My grandparents were very awesome and compassionate people, and their legacy is felt inside of that cabin. Gretchen was very kind and told me that I could use the cabin for my trip. It made my planning a lot easier and the cabin would be a great base for a staying place for a majority of the trip. Once Gretchen told me I could stay there, planning got a lot easier. I planned to spend my first days in Wisconsin and hang out with Gretchen and my Aunt Tabby, and that part of the trip would be a great way to start the trip out. From there I made reservations in Grayling, Michigan (who's restrictions got lifted!) from May 31st through June 1st for a Kirtland's Warbler adventure. After the Kirtland's trek, I would hope to take a 4-5 day camping trip throughout northern Minnesota. The final days of the trip would be reserved to go a little south of northern Wisconsin and Minnesota to try for Greater Prairie-Chicken and then to southeastern Minnesota, southwest Wisconsin, and northeast Iowa for some southeastern US Warblers who are at the northern part of their range. My buddy Josh Wallestad was planning to join me for some of my trip. With my target species and everything I wanted to do and see, the new plan seemed much more simple, but just as hardcore as before!
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| One of my earlier drafts. The itinerary changed a lot, but not the birds. |
Well, today is June 12th, 2020. I will say that I went on the trip and I stuck with that newer plan for the most part. This post is to introduce my big trip as a blog series, and I will call the series: Northerly Treks. Over the next few weeks, I will write posts for this new series of mine. Come along for the adventure, which I will say, was more like a journey. A TREK!
Since the start of the trip on the night of May 27th, a lot has happened. The world took a turn for the worst. Things have been scary. People are evil and discriminatory. Covid keeps lingering. Although not nearly as big of an extent to the world news, bad news came in for me that Amaranthe cancelled their tour. It was something I was looking so forward to, and that tour sparked a new inspiration in me and an addiction to work my freaking butt off for experiences that I want. This time period sucks for every single person on earth, and I feel bad for everybody. Everybody is losing something, some are losing much much worse than a concert, but it all hurts. In midst of worldly chaos and sad news, I knew that this trip would be my source of escape. Amaranthe's tour did ignite a lot of positive things for me, and if it didn't spark the passion to work hours and hours of overtime that led to other things, I wouldn't have been able to have taken this extent of a vacation that I did.
When the day of the trip came on May 27th, I was glad to get to the airport. My brother Tyler kindly dropped me off, and I wanted to get up to the North quickly. I had anxiety leading up to the trip and I questioned if I should go with everything going on. The night before I was going to leave I considered not going. I thought about getting sick while being far from home, I questioned passing sickness to someone else. I also thought, "what if everything went right". A reminder came to mind that fear is what gets in the way of us truly living. I ignored the fear and went anyways, and I will say, I'm glad I ignored it.
The rental car that I chose was a pickup truck when I made reservations. When I landed at the airport in Minneapolis at 9 P.M. on May 27th, the rental car company issued me a smaller car even though I CLEARLY selected a pick up truck. I flat out told the guy, "I want a pickup truck, that's what I asked for". He said "okay, but that will take 30 more minutes for us to get ready". I was fine with that, and thirty minutes later, I was driving an awesome Ford Ram 1500 out of the airport in Minneapolis to Gretchen's cabin in Wisconsin. The truck was huge and it took me awhile to figure out how to operate it. But my trip was underway. The first drive would be the first of many drives on the trip. The many roads and highways I would drive on would have many awesome birds and scenes to see. Whatever roads I was gonna choose to access birding grounds from, I would be sure to give my birding searches the all out effort. I hoped that whatever birds that would be lurking nearby when I approached would help me out and be cooperative..
Up next is the start of Northerly Treks, where there'd be plenty of mosquitoes and ticks to avoid..
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