March 2025 in Davenport
A Month in Davenport, IA | Hiking around Credit Island | Duck Creek Trail | Downtown Davenport Riverfront Trail | March 2025
Just like last year, we spent almost the entire month of March in Davenport, IA. For the most part, it was just as enjoyable as we remembered it being last year. Curtis worked the day shift, and we looked forward to our nights together either dining out or getting takeout and hanging out together at the hotel. The weather was just as unpredictable as you’d expect from March in the Midwest — we saw it all, from lows in the 20s to highs pushing 80, wind, rain, snow, and even some tornadoes and hail. This year, Curtis didn’t have as many days off as last, but at least that was because he was working in the role that interests him the most. He had the first two weekends of the month off, then had to work every day until the outage ended. We sort of lost the first weekend to sickness, but thankfully had two beautiful and sunny days to spend outside on the next one.
On Saturday, our first destination was Credit Island. Located just a little ways down river from Downtown Davenport, Credit Island was a mostly undeveloped little island in the Mississippi, similar to Sylvan Island, but with less trails. As we drove onto the island, I spotted so many bald eagles flying high overhead! We drove clockwise around the island until we found a spot to park, then started wandering up the road towards a clear foot path that follower the river bank.
The theme of this hike was interesting bird and other nature sightings, which is neat for an area that’s so close to the downtown area, and within ear shot of an interstate. It started with the eagles, then we also spotted a couple of pelicans. Then the trail became littered with things these birds had left behind…mostly dead fish. Thankfully we avoided any incidents with Charlotte rolling in them, but it wasn’t easy to avoid them along the sometimes muddy and overgrown trail! There was one where it looked like the bird had plucked off the fish’s scales and left them scattered around, which looked like sparkly sequins on the ground from a distance.
Overall, it was definitely an interesting hike and fun to try someplace new, but there really aren’t a lot of maintained trails here so I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it over other trails we’ve tried in the area – especially when it’s muddy. After we looped back to the car, we started to return the way we came, but stopped downtown to go for another walk along the river — this time on pavement, with less wildlife.
The next day, we ventured back into Illinois to go for another walk on the Hennepin Canal Trail — this time starting at the Western terminus along the Rock River in Moline. We parked near the boat ramp and walked about a mile heading East. We didn’t see as much wildlife as the day before, but we did see some turtles in the canal. Now we can say we’ve hiked either end of the canal, but we have quite a long distance between those points that we have yet to see!
After that, it was all work for Curtis until the end of the outage. Charlotte and I had a couple of other adventures during the month though. In the middle of March, my Nanna turned 90, and we were able to drive to my parent’s house for the day to celebrate with her and my family. Then another day, my parents and their dogs came over to hang out, and I gave them a short tour of some of our favorite places to walk, including Sylvan Island, the river front trail downtown, and one of the many parks along the Duck Creek Trail.
When the end of the month rolled around, the outage finished up and we moved out of the hotel. Up until the last week here, Curtis didn’t have any more outages on his schedule and we started thinking about what we could do with a couple months off before his summer schedule began. However, at the end of March he ended up getting assigned to the plant in Southeastern Pennsylvania once again, so those tentative plans went out the window. Thankfully it wasn’t like last year though, when we had to drive straight there after being in Davenport, and go right into another long outage. This time, we had two weeks in between, which was the perfect amount of time to visit both of our families, decompress, and take our time driving East. More on that, coming up next!
