Last week (10/6 ...) Suzanne and I visit Galena, Illinois for a couple of days and the hilly countryside nearby. Besides seeing Galena, we wanted to see eagles and any other wild life along the Mississippi River. Unfortunately it rained most of the full day we had to explore. We did see a Bald Eagle, a Cormorant and a few bugs plus a lot of winding roads, hilly farm land, cattle and turkeys.

This was our eagle. Beautiful even in the rain and far away (telephoto plus cropping)
Our shore view of the eagle and a narrow branch of the Mississippi ... yes it really was that gray.
The Mississippi River. There were several islands between where we were and the other side.
A fuzzy Cormorant with a frog.
Bunches of water beetles of some variety.
Cows in the rain ... apparently not a big deal.
Turkeys in the rain.
A very large combine ... also in the rain.
The area around Galena is really hilly. There are numbers of preserves although of those we visited it was difficult to see what the specific attraction was. For example, one preserved a number of native American burial mounds. However, at least as we could find, there was no description of which mounds were burial mounds and which were just mounds.
There were some interesting shopping opportunities.
The city of Galena has been fortunate enough to retain many of the buildings and homes that were built in the mid to late 1800's. In the

The next blog will provide some views of the City of Galena.