February 22nd, 2017

​In the last few weeks I have been sluggish in my work to re-write the manuscript to my third novel.  In part because I’m waiting for feedback from two beta readers who are both reading the last chapter.  I need to have that sense that the last chapter is effective so that I can build the story to that point successfully.  I’ve changed the last chapter several times and in particular I changed the perspective of my protagonist in a turnabout in the last chapter based on comments from a beta reader several weeks ago.
I used that excuse for at least two weeks and the energy to continue re-writing fizzled.  I needed something to rejuvenate myself.  Often I turn to nature for a way to give myself the space to become creative again.  In recent years I’ve become a devotee to birding.  Birding allows me to get out into nature and focus my attention on being a witness to the marvels of the bird world.  When I learned that modern birds are the remnants of dinosaurs I was hooked.
Winter in Wisconsin and the Midwest is a great time to watch eagles.  Eagles like to hunt in open water to catch fish so dams on rivers attract eagles.  Sauk City, Wisconsin is close by and a dam on the Wisconsin River is an excellent place to watch eagles.  We’ve been there many times so I searched for a new location.  A nature magazine outlined the benefits of going to Lock and Dam 12 on the Mississippi near Bellevue, Ia.  We left one early Friday morning and encountered more traffic than expected.  I also didn’t check the mileage in order to have some idea how long a drive it would be.
We entered Dubuque Iowa after two hours of driving and I was ready to take a break but we bore on because we were close.    South of Dubuque we turned off onto an Iowa state road that ran parallel to the Mississippi.  The weather changed to be overcast and very windy.  I noticed that Iowa Highway trucks were spreading beet juice on the road.  I checked the weather before leaving and there was no rain in the forecast.  The Subaru has weather tracking but in the rolling hills of far eastern Iowa there was no reception.
We arrived in Bellevue about thirty minutes after leaving Dubuque.  The entire town is about three blocks long one side because the river is on the other side.  There was a park and a place to view the eagles.  That day a crew was cutting down trees, making a horrendous noise that the eagles didn’t like any more than I did.  Down river there were about thirty boats in the water with people fishing.  The eagles would never compete with that many stalwart Iowa fisherman.
Walking through the viewing area we did spot two eagles soaring upriver to the dam.  I guessed they were a pair by the way they flew and floated on the thermals.  They must not have been too hungry because they soared for a few minutes and then flew off north east to their nest.  It was magnificent to watch but cold and windy with a storm brewing so we scampered back to the car.
Back at home in the late afternoon I laughed when I realized we drove about 300 miles to watch two eagles.  We could have driven to Sauk and driven less than a hundred miles.  Yet, the trip did clear out all those cobwebs that sometimes grow in my mind.  I went back to work on re-writing for story and knew the trip was worth every mile.