Badger State Trail Photos
Tunnel to Belleville and Back to Monroe

This is the northern entrance to the Badger State Trail Tunnel as the sun was going down (I took this one on my way back from Belleville).

And finally, the last tunnel photo as I continued north from the tunnel and into the town of Belleville. Belleville is a little less than 4 miles north of the tunnel and I was running short on time (since sunset was around 6:30) so I don't have any photos (other than this one) between the tunnel and Belleville. It was a nice wooded ride but no major photo ops that I noticed.

The photo above is of "Library Park" in Belleville where I took a short break before I started my ride back to Monroe. I was reading the plaque next to the sidewalk here and this park has quite a bit of history dating back to 1851.

It crossed an Indian trail, was the site of a "tent city" for rail workers, was a village hall, library, firehouse and jail. This was a nice place for a break and I felt good here. I must have felt some of the history generated from this location.

Finally, I am on my way back to Monroe. The photo above and the following photos were from my way back and fairly late in the day. I wasn't sure what was up ahead in the trail at first but I stopped and zoomed in with my camera and found that it was a squirrel having his dinner just before the bridge. I tried to get in for a close shot but he took off. You know how those wildlife shots go... :-)

I remembered that there were a lot of bright red sumac trees on some of the other trails that I had ridden at this time of year including the Jane Addams Trail (that connects to this trail at the Wisconsin/Illinois border) and I tried to get a few photos of them on the way back (like the tree on the right above).

There were also a lot of places along the trail where you pass through rock walls on one of both side of the trail as you can see on the right in the photo above. I assume that this is from when the original rail workers blasted their way through the area in order to keep a flat surface for the railway.

This is just the "Warped Bridge" that I saw on the way back from Belleville. I wanted to get some photos that give you the feel of passing over the many bridges on the trail and this one just seemed a little more interesting due to its imperfection.

As you can see I was really fighting daylight here (I didn't want to get stuck on the trail at night) but I liked the way that this field looked as the sun was starting to set. I believe that the red and green bush in the foreground was another sumac bush/tree.

...And finally, one last view from the Badger State Trail as the sun was going down and casting shadows on to the field in the distance.