The Last of the Summer Fun

We are getting dangerously close to the beginning of September and the start of the school year. Once again we packed our lives in the pickup and headed northeast to Bayfield, WI to tent camp for four days. This is our third year in a row of camping here with our good friends who haven't yet packed up their gear midweek and changed campsites.

We had near perfect weather for the third year in a row also. Hot during the day and cool at night. The animals liked the cool night too because we were visited by many. The first night there was the noisiest night we have ever had to sleep through. The raccoons made not one but three separate passes through our campsite looking for food. In between raccoon raids, two White Owls were hooting back and forth like an Owl Idol competition. Then just as things quieted down for a whole fifteen minutes, and my eyes started to close, a pack of coyotes started to howl and yip. All these noises of nature would have been kind of pretty to listen too if it weren't for the thin piece of nylon tent being the only protection between my head and sharp teeth.

Perhaps the animals were drawn to our tent by our festive string of battery operated blue tent lights. Actually, they are Christmas lights but we didn't tell the raccoons that.

The second night we found out that duct tape doesn't hold lights on nylon very well. So the festive lights only lasted one night. Surprisingly, there were also no more nights of howling coyotes. Hmmm.

The weather was so nice this mermaid washed up on shore one of the days.

Our friends also rented a paddle board for the day. I don't think the kids did much paddling though. Instead, they used the board for a lot of falling in the water.

Later in the afternoon, we spotted some teenagers climbing all over a fifteen foot long log which had floated into the bay. They were about a hundred yards out. When the teens got tired and abandoned their find, Lady Di and her friend Kerry decided that they wanted that log. So they both jumped into the kayak that we had rented for the day and paddled out to get it. It took them about ten minutes to get to the log and about 50 minutes to tow it to shore. It was big and waterlogged and heavy. When they were within 20 yards of shore, a young swimmer told his dad, "Hey, I want to play on the log!" His dad, who had been watching LD and Kerry the whole time said, "For as much work as those two have gone through for that old log, I don't think they want to give it up so easily."

But it was so worth it. As soon as the log arrived, everyone from our two families immediately wanted to get on it and float. The boys even tried to pull it back out to sea but soon realized that they didn't want to invest 50+ minutes in the endeavor. Who would have thought that a big old log would be the hit of the beach?

The log is half submerged in this picture. It was also so slippery that a picture with all four kids actually standing on it was rare.

Since we usually camp the last week of August, it usually falls on Number One Son's birthday.

Here he is blowing out his birthday citronella candle surrounded by cupcakes. That orange ball on the table is our homemade ice cream maker. There is a metal cylinder inside the ball which holds the cream and vanilla. Ice and salt go inside the outer area of the ball to cool the cream. Once each section is filled with appropriate ingredients, it's up to the kids to play soccer with the ball to mix it into ice cream. It was a delicious thirteenth birthday party.

So that puts a cap to our summer of 2011. Now we can look forward to school starting in a couple of days. How will we ever get the kids to go to bed without White Owls lullabying them to sleep?

The Island Awaits

Last week, we ushered out our summer vacation with a bang. We took a family camping trip to Madeline Island in Wisconsin. This was our very first attempt at 'tent camping' as a family. We were warned by many of our friends and relatives. Almost everyone we told said, "Oooo. Goin' all da way up der, huh? Do ya want ta borrow my generator? Ya know it's goin' ta frost at night, don' cha?"

Despite our friends' efforts to scare us, we loading up the pickup and took off. And when I say we 'loaded' the pickup, I mean we had stuff stacked so high under the tarp, we looked like pioneers in our covered wagon. All we needed to complete the look, was a frying pan dangling from the side and a milk cow walking along behind.

We had every nook and cranny packed with something. The kids were separated by two duffel bags of clothes, four pillows and Sweet Pea had a case of bottled water under her feet. They were so cramped the back windows had the kids' cheek marks on them.

So with our back end scraping the driveway as we backed out, I yelled, "Who's ready for camping!" Both kids screamed, "Me!" Lady Di just sighed, "Oh Clark."

After our rousing start, we proceeded down the highway for our four and a half hour drive north to Gramma's house. We stayed with them for two days before beginning our trek 'Into the Wild.' Which was another four and a half hour drive east to Bayfield, Wisconsin. It was a pretty ride though. The leaves were about a week away from starting to turn their colors. The kids played video games. They did take a short break from Nintendo to see a bear, though.

Once in Bayfield, our adventure continued aboard a ferry ride to the island. I had never driven on a ferry before. I was kind of hoping to be just a little late and arrive just as the ferry was pulling away. Then I could say, "Hold on Honey! We can make it!" and then gun the accelerator off of the dock and do a Dukes of Hazzard jump over the water, to the boat, to much amazement and applause.

But we were on time.

We went with another family whom Lady Di has known since grade school. They wanted to play a trick on us and asked the ferry ticket lady to ask for our passports when we came through the line. We were completed suckered and our mouths dropped in bewilderment when we thought we really needed our very absent passports. But rubes will be rubes, so the rest of the camping trip was spent trying get them back.

We got across the lake without mishap and drove to the state park. We checked in with Ranger Rick and made sure to mention to check the pickup following behind us for illegal importation of firewood. Sorry about that guys. I had no idea they strip search you for that.

We got to our campsite and found it small but fine. Our traveling partners come here every year, so they got the elite campsite complete with large open area, natural gas bonfire pit and digitally timed, Glade pine scented air fresheners on each tree. We got free mosquitoes and extra bees.

Since they have camped before, 'Joe' just backed his pickup into the site, pressed the 'eject' button in his cab, and all their camping stuff flew into the air and set itself up as it landed.

I had a little more trouble.

Did you know tents had really necessary instructions? Once we had our site set up it was already getting dark and starting to cool quite rapidly. We got our sleeping bags and inflatable mattresses ready when 'Mrs. Joe' came sneaking over to our site. "Guess what!", she said with some slight irritation. "We forgot our mattresses!"

"What? The professional camping family forgot that? Oh, you must be so embarrassed.", I said with mock sympathy, try not to snicker.

Lady Di stepped right in, "We have two. You can have one of ours. We'll make do."

"Now wait a minute.", I protested.

But it was already a done deal. Luckily, we had packed two cots along with our mattresses for the kids. Unluckily, one of the cots ripped on the first night. So Number One Son, Lady Di and myself got cozy laying crosswise on one inflatable mattress with Sweet Pea getting the other cot. When we were finally all set in our sleeping bags, Sweet Pea said, "I'm so tired and my bed is soooooo comfortable. Good night." And then she started snoring. While Lady Di and I had to lay flat on our backs with our arms at our sides and my knees hanging over the edge.

We made it through that night, fixed N1S's cot with duct tape the next morning, and the rest of the week was much better.

I will write about day two in my next post. Stay tuned.

And so you don't get the wrong idea, our camping partners are still our friends. They helped us out greatly and made the trip a lot of fun. I only poke fun at them because they are such good friends. Right guys? And I'm not just saying that to get invited next year. Honest.