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| -rw-r--r-- | picture-rocks.txt | 47 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | published/2018-05-18_keep-on-keeping-on.txt (renamed from 2018-05-18_athens.txt) | 22 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | published/2018-05-30_thunder-road.txt (renamed from road-again.txt) | 31 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | published/2018-06-02_alberto-and-land-between-lakes.txt (renamed from 2018-06-04_alberto-land-between-the-lakes.txt) | 37 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | published/2018-06-07_st-louis-city-museum.txt (renamed from st-louis.txt) | 0 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | published/2018-06-14_illinois.txt (renamed from garden-gods.txt) | 7 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | published/2018-06-24_wisconsin.txt (renamed from wisconsin.txt) | 5 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | published/2018-07-02_trees.txt | 86 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | published/2018-07-07_shipwrecks.txt | 56 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | published/2018-07-13_six.txt | 44 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | published/2018-07-19_lakeside-park.txt | 55 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | published/2018-07-23_house-lake.txt | 55 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | published/2018-07-30_crystal-lake.txt | 34 |
13 files changed, 402 insertions, 77 deletions
diff --git a/picture-rocks.txt b/picture-rocks.txt deleted file mode 100644 index e666647..0000000 --- a/picture-rocks.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,47 +0,0 @@ -I lay in the hammock looking up at the trees, watching the birch leaves fluttering in the light breeze, 100 feet above me, wondering what life was like up there. What would it be like the stand among those slender branches that would probably, some of them, support my weight. It's not impossible. People climb trees, there are even groups that get together and go climb trees. So I've been told. - -John Muir writes about climbing a tree in storm to see what it felt like to be blown around like that. I plan to do that some day, but I probably won't start there. I'll probably work my way up to trees in storms. One of the nice things about this life though is that I can lie here in this hammock and stare up at the trees. I can think about climbing them, I can think about other trees, other hammocks. Last summer, Colorado. A very similar vertical view. This summer it's birch rather than aspen, jack pine rather than lodgepole and ponderosa, but the overall feel of the place is very similar to Colorado and the vertical view is very close. - -A friend of luxagraf, who lives in Iran, but has traveled the desert southwest of the U.S. quite a bit has an interesting post about the visual and ecological similarities between the Sindh desert in Iran (where he lives) and the high desert region of eastern California into western Arizona. - -These similarities exist everywhere. I have no doubt that if you beamed me and this hammock into the right elevation of Ural mountains in Russia or the Andes in Peru or the Himalayas of Himachal Pradesh, I would have to work to find the differences. The world is made up of similarities more than differences, and I think that's true whether you speak of ecology, culture, religion or my preferred starting point for philosophical reflections -- the vertical views from hammocks. - -Significant ecological, cultural and religious differences exist between places as well. I think to certain extent that's part of what travel is about, finding those similarities and differences and holding them up before and trying to make sense of them. Why does the jack pine thrive here, and lodgepole pine thrive in Colorado? Why is there a massive body of fresh water here and a huge range of mountains there? Why do men and women hold hands here, men and men hold hands in India and no one holds hands in China? Why does reincarnation thrive in Himachal Pradesh and not here? Why is the arboreal forest that used to be here now 100 miles north of here? - -It's wrestling with these things that makes it interesting to go to other places. Seeing things is nice too, but the longer you're out here I think the less inclination you have to "see the sights". If you have two weeks in a place, I guess I understand that drive to see stuff. We watch people pulling out every morning to go do things while we're still cooking breakfast[^1]. But then if your time is limited, you want to see what you came to see, I suppose. Maybe. I'd still probably spend at least half my time "sitting around" because without that chance to daydream and reflect, what's the point? - -On this trip we can more or less stay anywhere as long as we choose. Camping limitations exist, but otherwise we're pretty open ended. Consequently we don't tend to rush out and see everything right away, if we see it at all. For instance, we've been in Pictured Rocks for well over a week and haven't seen the eponymous rocks yet. And I'll be fine if we never do. - -These days I'm pretty happy sitting here in the forest, watching the wind play in the trees, the birds building nests, the earthworms the kids dig up for pets. As more than a few writers have [demonstrated][1], you can spend years obsessing over a [single square meter][2] of forest and not exhaust everything it has to teach[^2]. - -At the same time, we don't sit around all the time. Some long term travelers I've met seem to look down on seeing things, like that's the status symbol that sets them above the common traveler -- they're too cool to see the sights. I think that's equally as silly as running around like the proverbial headless chicken. If I know long care what's around the next bend, over the top of that rise or on the other side of the horizon then I'd stop traveling. - -The answer is the third way, some sitting around, some seeing what's around the bend. In our case we walk around quite a bit. I walk slowly, the rest of my family not so much. Sometimes I can convince Lilah to hang back with me, that makes for nice hikes. Here there's a good 3 mile round trip trail out to a nearby lighthouse. That's about where Elliott is comfortable these days so we did it one day. The sandstone shelf we sat on extended nearly half mile out into the water without getting much more than six feet deep. Hence the need for a lighthouse. - -There was a fog bank to the east of the lighthouse that day, a thin layer that obscured all but the top of the dunes just to east of us, dunes that site some five hundred feet above the lake. The first four hundred feet were hidden by a fog bank that stretched out over the lake and curved back toward the lighthouse, losing density as it neared the point we sat on. We ate our food and watched wisps of wet cloud blow by us and down the coast, seemingly circling back down toward the dunes. - -It wasn't particularly warm and only Lilah and I stayed for long after lunch. We explored the shoreline for a while, looking for interesting signs of life. There weren't many. Superior is cold, clear, and seemingly not teeming with life. I've seen a few fish, including a very big trout in very shallow water, and Lilah and I found some curious insects, but for the most part it's pretty quiet around here, biologically speaking. At least on the water. The water average 42 degrees, there's enough life to support a fair number of fish, and the birds that feed on them, but not much else. - - -The weather those is completely left field. One minute it;s hot, the next it's cold. Sometimes that's just barely hyperbolic. - - -A good bit of my early travels were in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California. I've backpacked several hundred miles worth of travels and seen a good bit of "interesting weather". Lightning so close your hair stands up? Check. Hail the size of small oranges? Check. Snow in mid July? Check. Rapid drops in temperature as a storm approaches? Check. Well, maybe not check. - -I thought I had seen what wind can do, but here things are up a couple of notches. One morning, a particularly warm, humid morning, it was 8 AM and the temperature was already climbing steadily. Every morning I do a bit of discursive meditation for about 15 minutes. This morning I closed my eyes to world that was bright, sunny and about 80 degrees. When I opened them 12 minutes later -- because what was happening around me was so bizarre it broke my ability to focus on any particular train of thought and I stopped early -- when I opened my eyes again the sky was so dark it looked more like night than night, the temperature had dropped well below 55, and the wind was tossing the leafy crowns of the birch trees around like a salad spinner. It was the most complete reversal of weather I've ever experienced anywhere in the world. - -It was also very localized and didn't last long. The wind faded quickly and within an hour the nice cool temperatures were gone as if it had never happened. Curiously though, it happened again around 2PM and again around 8PM. My best guess is that somewhere inland it's heating up enough to pull some air off the lake and the lake is definitely cold enough to drop the air temp by 30-40 degrees. - -Lake Superior is the coldest large body of water I've ever swam in. It's almost as cold as the Sierra lakes I used to swim in during the early season, that still had fields of snow leading down into them. When its 85-90 though Superior feels pretty good. At least for a minute or two. Then you get out and air around you feels insanely humid and hot and you want to slip back into the lake, but it starts to be too much, you get a sort of pins and needles sensation in your feet after a while. And so I'd climb out, sit on the rocks, play with the kids and warm up just enough to get back in the lake. - -The second time we went down to beat the heat we learned something else about the wind. When it blows onshore it keeps the black flies at bay. When it blows offshore, look out. It's not quite as bad as what I remember about Maine, but they're annoying enough to drive you off after a while. For whatever reason I have no problem with mosquitoes. Some recently asked what we do about mosquitoes and I told them we have Thermacell, which works pretty well and we use it during the times of day the mozzies are really bad, but the rest of the time, honestly, I just let them bite me. I swat them when the hurt, but mosquitoes are supposed to bite. Where I come from though flies are completely benign, perhaps that's why biting flies bother me, it just seem extra cruel to take an ubiquitous and already fairly annoying creature and then make it capable of a painful bite? Screw that.:w - -[^1]: Not that we're late risers, by the time we make breakfast I've usually been out birding, meditated and drank my way through at least two moka pots worth of coffee and Corrinne has generally walked 5 miles or so. -[^2]: This is to me the best argument against travel, is that it doesn't allow for the sort of depth of study, again be it ecological, cultural, whatever, that is possible when you stay in one place. For me though, staying in one place leads to complacency, less awareness and a tendency to take the world for granted. - -[1]: /books/gathering-moss -[2]: /books/the-forest-unseen - - -it was too hot to hike, the air too still to drive the flies from ht ebeach and right thing to do seemed to be sitting in a hammock and gently swinging. I even made a movie of it. - diff --git a/2018-05-18_athens.txt b/published/2018-05-18_keep-on-keeping-on.txt index 35c8b14..8ec25a5 100644 --- a/2018-05-18_athens.txt +++ b/published/2018-05-18_keep-on-keeping-on.txt @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ -One day we fired up the bus and finally headed off St. George Island. We hugged the coast for a while before pointing our nose north, toward our former home in Athens, GA. +One day we fired up the bus and finally headed off St. George Island. We hugged the coast for a while before pointing our nose north, toward our former hometown, Athens, GA. <img src="images/2018/2018-04-24_095547_beach-house-ii.jpg" id="image-1341" class="picwide caption" /> @@ -14,15 +14,15 @@ We stopped overnight at Reed Bingham State Park in south Georgia. It had been se <img src="images/2018/2018-04-24_143704_reed-bingham.jpg" id="image-1338" class="cluster picwide" /> </div> -After a little time on the playground, a good nights rest in the forest, and a dump of the tanks, we managed to make it the rest of the way to Athens. +After a little time on the playground, a good night's rest in the forest, and a dump of the tanks, we managed to make it the rest of the way to Athens. We had couple nights in town before I dropped the bus off at the mechanic's, so I spent the first few days in town frantically trying to get a dozen or so bus projects done. I pulled several panels of wood in the front (the little scoop air vents leak and I'm pretty sure they'll never stop so I cut new wood and sealed with fiberglass resin, if it's not waterproof now, it never will be), completely gutted our step area (the porch I call it), ran some new wires for new electrical outlet, repainted the kids' room in the back, and took care of at least a dozen other little "paper cut" annoyances that needed to be solved. And then we dropped off the bus at the truck mechanic's shop and became homeless for about three weeks. It was our longest stretch of homelessness to date, but at least we knew it was coming and we had friends and family to take us in. -We spent a week at my in-laws, a week with our friends who run [Eastern River Expeditions](http://www.easternriverexpeditions.com/) and have a house on the river, a few days in our trusty tent (the guest house, should you meet up with us on the road) and then back to the in-laws, back to our friends' house, and so on. +We spent a week at my in-laws', a week with our friends who run [Eastern River Expeditions](http://www.easternriverexpeditions.com/) and have a house on the river, a few days in our trusty tent (the guest house, should you meet up with us on the road) and then back to the in-laws, back to our friends' house, and so on. -Many thanks to everyone who put us up. Somewhere in there we managed to celebrated a birthday, have a mother's water balloon fight, and beat the unseasonably warm temps playing in sprinklers. +Many thanks to everyone who put us up. Somewhere in there we managed to celebrated a birthday, have a mother's day water balloon fight, and beat the unseasonably warm temps playing in sprinklers. <img src="images/2018/2018-04-28_112128_athens-ga.jpg" id="image-1343" class="picwide" /> <img src="images/2018/2018-05-05_105439_athens.jpg" id="image-1350" class="picwide" /> @@ -35,20 +35,24 @@ Many thanks to everyone who put us up. Somewhere in there we managed to celebrat <img src="images/2018/2018-04-26_103313_athens-ga.jpg" id="image-1342" class="picwide" /> <img src="images/2018/2018-04-28_115632_athens-ga.jpg" id="image-1344" class="picwide" /> -We also made sure to stick nearby a river. We have two friends that live backed up to rivers and Watson Mill State Park has a river running through it as well so we had plenty of water to keep cool in. Lilah and I even managed to catch a small bass and a sunfish of some sort. Neither was any bigger than my hand, but they were the first we've managed to land since Texas. +We also made sure to stick close to a river. We have two friends that live backed up to rivers and Watson Mill State Park has a river running through it as well so we had plenty of water to keep cool in. Lilah and I even managed to catch a small bass and a sunfish of some sort. Neither was any bigger than my hand, but they were the first we've managed to land since Texas. +<img src="images/2018/2018-05-02_051015_athens_MJHGOe4.jpg" id="image-1361" class="picwide" /> <img src="images/2018/2018-05-13_084820-1_athens.jpg" id="image-1353" class="picwide" /> <img src="images/2018/2018-05-13_085528_athens_Uitqb5t.jpg" id="image-1354" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-05-12_065850-1_athens.jpg" id="image-1362" class="picwide caption" /> <img src="images/2018/2018-05-02_123714_athens.jpg" id="image-1346" class="picwide" /> <img src="images/2018/IMG_20180503_155321420.jpg" id="image-1359" class="picwide" /> <img src="images/2018/IMG_20180503_161349657.jpg" id="image-1360" class="picwide" /> -The bus brakes ended up taking about three weeks. Not because they were that complicated, but because the mechanic is essentially the only truck mechanic around and he's very, very busy. The brakes turned out to be less complicated, and less expensive than I thought they would be. In the end the main problems was that the rear self adjusting screws froze up. Or rather they got so gunked up they no longer worked. When this happened I'm not sure. I know the rear brakes were smoking coming down the pass into California, but that could have been do to the axle issues. It's possible, likely even, that we've never had rear brakes. That meant the front brakes were the only thing stopping the bus for quite some time, which then wore down those shoes much faster than it should have. +The bus brakes ended up taking about three weeks. Not because they were that complicated, but because the mechanic is essentially the only truck mechanic around and he's very, very busy. The brakes turned out to be less complicated, and less expensive than I thought they would be. In the end the main problem was that the rear self adjusting screws froze up. Or rather they got so gunked up they no longer worked. When this happened I'm not sure. I know the rear brakes were smoking coming down the pass into California, but that could have been due to the axle issues. It's possible, likely even, that we've never had rear brakes. That meant the front brakes were the only thing stopping the bus for quite some time, which then wore down those shoes much faster than it should have. Now that we have new shoes in the front and working adjusters in the back I have a full pedal of brakes and she stops like a nice lightweight sedan. -Three weeks of bouncing between houses and camping, with stuff here, stuff there, projects half finished in three locations, eventually it takes it's toll. I can't tell you what a relief it was to have the bus back, I don't know about the kids, they seemed more or less fine, but I was approaching desperation by the end of those three weeks. +Three weeks of bouncing between houses and camping, with stuff here, stuff there, projects half finished in three locations, eventually it takes its toll. I can't tell you what a relief it was to have the bus back, I don't know about the kids, they seemed more or less fine, but I was approaching desperation by the end of those three weeks. -We got it back on a Monday and for about 48 hours all I did was eat, sleep and work on the bus. I re-installed all the panels, ran new wiring, fixed the dinnette seat cushion, and gave it a good tune up and an oil change. Just for good measure I got some new rear shocks installed on the Volvo and changed it's oil too (many thanks to John and Mike for help with the shocks). +We got it back on a Monday and for about 48 hours all I did was eat, sleep and work on the bus. I re-installed all the panels, ran new wiring, fixed the dinnette seat cushion, and gave it a good tune up and an oil change. Just for good measure I got some new rear shocks installed on the Volvo and changed its oil too (many thanks to John and Mike for help with the shocks). -We had a perfect weather window lined up for a Monday departure, but then somehow I got talked into staying until Wednesday, which brought plenty of rain. It was, as Snoopy would say, a dark and stormy morning when we finally pulled out of Athens. It was nice to see our friends and family and spend some quality time with everyone, but if anyone was wondering if we'd decide to move back, uh, yeah, that'd be a very emphatic no. We love the bus and we're still looking forward to what's around the next bend. +We had a perfect weather window lined up for a Monday departure, but then somehow I got talked into staying until Wednesday, which brought plenty of rain. It was, as Snoopy would say, a dark and stormy morning when we finally pulled out of Athens. + +It was nice to see our friends and family and spend some quality time with everyone, but if anyone was wondering if we'd decide to move back, uh, yeah, that'd be a very emphatic no. We love the bus and we're still looking forward to what's around the next bend. diff --git a/road-again.txt b/published/2018-05-30_thunder-road.txt index 62f5df3..8c24e49 100644 --- a/road-again.txt +++ b/published/2018-05-30_thunder-road.txt @@ -1,18 +1,31 @@ -There was a line of thunderheads just north of us and another just south, but we managed to slide right through Atlanta with nary of drop of rain on the windshield. +There was a line of thunderheads just north of us and another just south, but we managed to slide right through Atlanta with hardly a drop of rain on the windshield. Sometimes I forget that most people drive cars that allow them to more or less disregard the weather. We don't. I can drive the bus through a storm, and I have, but if we can avoid it by staying put for a day or leaving a day early, we usually do. When we slide right between two of them, I won't lie, we feel a little more clever than usual. -We spent our first night back on the road at a small campground somewhere in Alabama. We got up the next day and hit the road early. As is par for the course, we didn't realize it was Memorial Day until it was really too late to plan for it. Most campgrounds we could find that took reservations were already full. We went with our usual plan, find a campground with no electricity. Take away people's ability to run the air conditioning 24/7 and you're pretty much guaranteed to find an empty campground. +We spent our first night back on the road at a small campground somewhere in Alabama. We got up the next day and hit the road early. As is par for the course, we didn't realize it was Memorial Day until it was really too late to plan for it. Most campgrounds we could find that took reservations were already full. We went with our usual plan, find a campground with no electricity. Take away people's ability to run the air conditioning and televisions 24/7 and you're pretty much guaranteed to find an empty campground. -And we did, right in the middle of the Natchez Trace, one of the oldest highways on the continent. It probably started with big game during the last ice age and then various tribes picked it up as well. By the time Europeans arrived it was pretty much a highway connecting the Choctaw, Natchez and Chickasaw nations. These days it's a nice road that semis aren't allowed on. +<img src="images/2018/2018-05-24_144414-1_meriwether-lewis.jpg" id="image-1363" class="picwide" /> + +And we did, right in the middle of the Natchez Trace, one of the oldest thoroughfares on the continent. It probably started with big game during the last ice age and then various tribes picked it up as well. By the time Europeans arrived it was pretty much a highway connecting the Choctaw, Natchez and Chickasaw nations. These days it's a smoothly paved road that doesn't allow trucks. The Meriwether Lewis campground is somewhere in the middle, a bit toward Nashville. It's where the explorer lived and died I believe, though honestly we never made it to the monument. -The campground was one of those head scratchers for me. It's really nice, up on a ridge in the middle of a mostly beech and oak forest, cool breezes, plenty of shade and pretty level sites, a water spigot, bathrooms with flush toilets, trash pickup and yet totally free. I mean I get it, my tax dollars at work. But why not charge a few bucks to cover some of the costs? Like everyone else, I love free camping, but when something is free I don't expect luxuries like picnic tables and bathrooms. I expect to not be hassled about where I'm parked and not much else. Amenities and free together doesn't seem sustainable to me, but then I've never been over the Interior Department's books, so what do I know? +<img src="images/2018/2018-05-25_072726_meriwether-lewis.jpg" id="image-1364" class="picwide caption" /> + +The campground was one of those head scratchers for me. It's really nice, up on a ridge in the middle of a mostly beech and oak forest, cool breezes, plenty of shade and pretty level sites, a water spigot, bathrooms with flush toilets, trash pickup and yet totally free. I mean I get it, my tax dollars at work, but why not charge a few bucks to cover some of the costs? Like everyone else, I love free camping, but when something is free I don't expect luxuries like picnic tables and bathrooms. I expect to not be hassled about where I'm parked and not much else. Amenities and free together doesn't seem sustainable to me, but then I've never been over the Interior Department's books, so what do I know? + +Whatever the case we claimed a spot on Thursday and didn't leave all through the weekend. Memorial Day, survived. We didn't get a lot of sun, but we managed. By the time we left nearly a week later our batteries were way lower than you should ever let your batteries get. Somehow though ours keep on going though, sorta. -Whatever the case we claimed a spot on Thursday and didn't leave all through the weekend. Memorial Day, survived. We didn't get a lot of sun, but we managed. By the time we left nearly a week later our batteries were way lower than you should ever let your batteries get. Somehow though ours keep on going though. +We sat out some thunderstorms, sweating a bit in the bus. Those gloriously huge windows don't do you much good with it's storming too hard to have the awning out. -We sat out some thunderstorms, sweating a bit in the bus. Those gloriously huge windows don't do you much good with it's storming too hard to have the awning out. It wasn't all rain though, usually just a couple of thundershowers around midday and then it would overcast, but plenty warm enough to head down to the creek and cool off playing in the water, catching frogs, chasing minnows, throwing rocks. + +It wasn't all rain though, usually just a couple of thundershowers around midday and then it would be overcast, but plenty warm enough to head down to the creek and cool off playing in the water, catching frogs, chasing minnows, throwing rocks. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-05-25_131850-1_meriwether-lewis.jpg" id="image-1368" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-05-25_133424_meriwether-lewis.jpg" id="image-1369" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-05-25_135453_meriwether-lewis.jpg" id="image-1370" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-05-25_135615_meriwether-lewis.jpg" id="image-1371" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-05-25_141141-1_meriwether-lewis.jpg" id="image-1372" class="picwide" /> We tried to get in the water every day to make sure we got the ticks off us. This part of Tennessee has ticks like nowhere I've ever been. Most of them are not deer ticks thankfully, but ticks suck even if they don't carry some disease. @@ -28,8 +41,8 @@ I called a few auto parts stores in the area looking for fuel tank straps, but n Nothing makes a creek bath feel sweet like an afternoon of sweating, fiberglass, and resin. -That night we were sitting around the fire after dinner when a pair of summer tanagers flew right up to us, chatting away as if we didn't exist. The male sat up in the tree, chirping away, almost like he was giving suggestions to the female that was down on the ground gather sticks and pine needles in her beak. Then they'd fly away and come back a bit later for more. The whole time they didn't seem bothered by our presence, even the kids playing quite loudly, at all. It was the start of something of a running theme the last couple week in Tennessee. Birds just fly right up to us. This morning a hawk landed about 10 feet from us and just sat there on the ground, occasionally looking over at us, but for the most part seemingly unconcerned about our existence. - +That night we were sitting around the fire after dinner when a pair of summer tanagers flew right up to us, chatting away as if we didn't exist. The male sat up in the tree, chirping away, almost like he was giving suggestions to the female that was down on the ground gather sticks and pine needles in her beak. Then they'd fly away and come back a bit later for more. +<img src="images/2018/2018-05-27_131014_meriwether-lewis.jpg" id="image-1373" class="picwide" /> -[^1]: Last time I said that someone emailed me to ask why I was so opposed to free. It's pretty simple, free is not sustainable. +The whole time they didn't seem bothered by our presence, even the kids playing quite loudly, at all. It was the start of something of a running theme the last couple weeks in Tennessee -- birds just fly right up to us. This morning a hawk landed about 10 feet from us and just sat there on the ground, occasionally looking over at us, but for the most part seemingly unconcerned about our existence. diff --git a/2018-06-04_alberto-land-between-the-lakes.txt b/published/2018-06-02_alberto-and-land-between-lakes.txt index 6f8b8e9..d91b18f 100644 --- a/2018-06-04_alberto-land-between-the-lakes.txt +++ b/published/2018-06-02_alberto-and-land-between-lakes.txt @@ -1,12 +1,12 @@ -We outran the storms of the better part of a week, but eventually the remnants of Alberto caught us up in northern Tennessee. We spent a couple nights at Mousetail Landing campground, mostly because it was on a ridge, no flooding to worry about. We got there early, barely lunch time. On the way up we passed this sign, which gave me pause. +We outran the storms of the better part of a week, but eventually the remnants of Alberto caught up to us in northern Tennessee. We spent a couple nights at Mousetail Landing campground, mostly because it was on a ridge, no flooding to worry about. We got there early, barely lunch time. On the way up we passed this sign, which gave me pause. <img src="images/2018/2018-05-29_113845_mousetail-landing.jpg" id="image-1381" class="picwide caption" /> -I dropped it in first and we made the top. It was a pretty good grade, but not than bad. We had the campground to ourselves the first night, well most of the night. I took the kids down to the playground for a while before the rain started. +I dropped it in first and we made the top. It was a pretty good grade, but not that bad. We had the campground to ourselves the first night, well most of the night. I took the kids down to the playground for a while before the rain started. <img src="images/2018/2018-05-29_121933_mousetail-landing.jpg" id="image-1380" class="picwide" /> -The rain kicked is about three that afternoon and didn't let up for about twelve hours. Luckily we keep plenty of rainy day activities on hand, though no matter how much there is to do eventually patience wears thin. +The rain kicked in about three that afternoon and didn't let up for about twelve hours. Luckily we keep plenty of rainy day activities on hand, though no matter how much there is to do eventually patience wears thin. <div class="cluster"> <span class="row-2"> @@ -29,16 +29,31 @@ Land Between the Lakes is one of the places we run across every so often that dr We stick out like sore thumbs at these places, but that's fine, at this point we're pretty well used to the attention. I'm not sure it'd feel like camping if half the campground didn't stop by to say hi and ask about the bus. Meeting new people is why I travel so I like it. Usually. I do wonder about the people who come up to me at the dump station, but otherwise. What interests me about these semi-permanent residents at campgrounds like this is that they're actually living the way the semi-nomadic people of the world have always lived -- winter in something designed for warmth, summer in something with easier access to outside. I often wonder why more of us don't do that, it's still fairly common in much of the world. -Land of lakes is what is says it is, a huge chunk of land wedged between two large reservoirs. Most people seem to come for the fishing and boating. We drove around a bit and more or less felt like we had the place to ourselves. We discovered a road with a bridge that was out, found a herd of buffalo, saw a bright yellow flock of Goldfinches flying through a field of wildflowers that looked like you'd imagine a prairie would look if you didn't know what a prairie looked like, which I don't. +Land Between the Lakes is what is says it is, a huge chunk of land wedged between two large reservoirs. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-06-01_061058_land-between-lakes.jpg" id="image-1383" class="picwide" /> + +Most people seem to come for the fishing and boating. We drove around a bit and more or less felt like we had the place to ourselves. We discovered a road with a bridge that was out, found a herd of buffalo, saw a bright yellow flock of Goldfinches flying through a field of wildflowers that looked like you'd imagine a prairie should look if you didn't know what a prairie looked like, which I don't. + +<img src="images/2018/20180601_150310.jpg" id="image-1394" class="picwide caption" /> Then we stopped at the 1850's era farm that's been preserved. I find these places somewhat tedious, but Corrinne and the kids love it. I like the history aspect, especially in this case because people are actually still running the farm as it would have been run in the 1850s, in period correct clothing no less. It's living history, and that's pretty cool. -That said, it's probably no surprise that I my interests lie with the more nomadic people of history. I like the mystery of people who left only fire rings and animal bones here and there. The sort of people that left archaeological finds that tell little other than the obvious -- the ship lost its anchor in this little cove, the hunting party paused for a fire in the shelter of this cave, the hazelnuts were processed at this camp by the river, the clam shells where dumped in a mound here and so on. What these people thought, believed, loved, hated, revered, despised, or just did all day -- all lost in the fog of time. +<img src="images/2018/2018-06-01_160325_land-between-lakes.jpg" id="image-1393" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-06-01_152944_land-between-lakes.jpg" id="image-1390" class="picwide" /> + +That said, it's probably no surprise that my interests lie with the more nomadic people of history. I like the mystery of people who left only fire rings and animal bones here and there. The sort of people that left archaeological finds that tell little other than the obvious -- the ship lost its anchor in this little cove, the hunting party paused for a fire in the shelter of this cave, the hazelnuts were processed at this camp by the river, the clam shells where dumped in a mound here and so on. What these people thought, believed, loved, hated, revered, despised, or just did all day -- all lost in the fog of time. As one of my favorite characters says, referring to her desire to not have a gravestone: "I do not need a marker of my passage, for my creator knows where I am.... I lived a good life, my hair turned to snow, I saw my great grandchildren, I grew my garden. That is all." Still, I completely understand why the rest of my family loves to visit places like the farm. It's a way to step into the past and momentarily feel like you're part of it. +<img src="images/2018/2018-06-01_152149_land-between-lakes.jpg" id="image-1388" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-06-01_152022_land-between-lakes.jpg" id="image-1385" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-06-01_152040_land-between-lakes.jpg" id="image-1386" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-06-01_152113-1_land-between-lakes.jpg" id="image-1387" class="picwide" /> + + We're probably something of a letdown to the re-enactors though. We shuffle into a two room house and they say something to kids along the lines of "can you imagine if you all had to live in something this small?" The kids stare and don't know what to say and then we explain that we actually live in something smaller right now and that two rooms is fairly palatial by our standards. Then there's an awkward moment of silence. And it is interesting to see how the various European immigrants did things a little differently depending on what they were used to back home. But in every case so far, when I see how people chose to live I can't help sitting there thinking, why...? Why were you fighting against the land? Why spend all this effort reshaping the land to meet your preconceived ideas of what it should be when others had been living off it for millennia working considerably less than the average newly arrived agriculturist? @@ -49,8 +64,18 @@ That's not to say the farm didn't have its clever ideas, and clever uses of limi Whatever the case, the kids had fun wandering the farm and we happened to be there when they were feeding the animals and putting them in the barns for the night. We watched chickens and ducks get driven into the coop, sheep and pigs fed and led to the barn and we even managed to get let back into the big barns to see the largest mules I've ever come across. +<div class="cluster"> +<img src="images/2018/2018-06-01_155750_land-between-lakes.jpg" id="image-1391" class="picwide" /> +<span class="row-2"> +<img src="images/2018/20180601_161434.jpg" id="image-1396" class="cluster pic5" /> +<img src="images/2018/20180601_161118.jpg" id="image-1395" class="cluster pic5" /> +</span> +</div> + And of course there was the hawk I mentioned in the last post. It just flew in a hung out one morning. The minute we left Tennessee the birds stopped being so friendly. I have no explanation for that. +<img src="images/2018/2018-06-02_084949-2_land-between-lakes.jpg" id="image-1397" class="picwide" /> +On a totally different note, a couple luxagraf readers have asked where we're headed this summer. We're not entirely sure, but the rough plan is to visit Wisconsin, go around the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, then back west into Minnesota and the Dakotas, then south through Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, and down to either Texas/New Mexico. I mention this because if you're in that route and you want to meet up, drop me an email. -A couple luxagraf readers have asked where we're headed this summer. The long answer is we're not sure, but the plan is to visit Wisconsin, go around the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, then back west into Minnesota and the Dakotas, then south through Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, and down to either Texas/New Mexico. I mention this because if you're in that route and you want to meet up, drop me an email. And, if by chance you have a place somewhere roughly between Dallas and Santa Fe that would work to store the bus for about six months, starting in mid October, please get in touch. +**Also, if by chance you have a place somewhere roughly between Dallas and Santa Fe where we could store the bus for about six months, starting in mid October, please get in touch.** diff --git a/st-louis.txt b/published/2018-06-07_st-louis-city-museum.txt index b4133e8..b4133e8 100644 --- a/st-louis.txt +++ b/published/2018-06-07_st-louis-city-museum.txt diff --git a/garden-gods.txt b/published/2018-06-14_illinois.txt index 40a0f42..d98e31e 100644 --- a/garden-gods.txt +++ b/published/2018-06-14_illinois.txt @@ -1,10 +1,10 @@ After the City Museum there didn't seem to be any real reason to stay in St. Louis, and the temperatures kept rising. We're generally okay until about 95 during the day, after that it's rough without air conditioning in this humidity. There were no electric sites left at the St. Louis campground so we headed north, to a campground just over the river in Illinois. Unfortunately that one turned out to be full, so we pushed on further north and found Beaver Dam State Park. -One of the few guidebooks I actually like is Smithsonian's various guides to "natural" America[^1]. The one for Illinois starts off with something to the affect: "Only one state has less public land than Illinois". I read that back when we were in Athens and I thought, okay, well, how bad can it be really? Turns out... While it does have a few places in the southern part of the state, generally speaking, Illinois got used up before the push for public land preservation of the late 19th century could get much of it set aside. +One of the few guidebook series I actually like is Smithsonian's various guides to "natural" America[^1]. The one for Illinois starts off with something to the affect: "Only one state has less public land than Illinois". I read that back when we were in Athens and I thought, okay, well, how bad can it be really? Turns out... While it does have a few places in the southern part of the state, generally speaking, Illinois got used up before the push for public land preservation of the late 19th century could get much of it set aside. For the most part, Illinois is a desert of corn. -From researching the seed strains and brands I saw advertised it would seem that the vast majority of the corn is not for food, but goes to the production of ethanol which (unless you're lucky) ends up in your gas tank. Author and adventurer Craig Childs has an essay about hiking through these lifeless fields of corn in his book, <cite>Apocalyptic Planet</cite>. The only thing Childs finds living in the field, besides himself and corn are two spiders and a species of fungus. +From researching the seed strains and brands I saw advertised it would seem that the vast majority of the corn is not for food, but goes to the production of ethanol which (unless you're lucky) ends up in your gas tank. Author and adventurer Craig Childs has an essay about hiking through these lifeless fields of corn in his book, <cite>Apocalyptic Planet</cite>. After two days of hiking in Iowa cornfields the only living things Childs finds, besides himself and corn, are two spiders and a species of fungus. <img src="images/2018/2018-06-08_132613-3_beaver-dam-st-park.jpg" id="image-1428" class="picwide caption" /> @@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ The kids would jump up out of bed in the morning and run to the front of the bus <img src="images/2018/2018-06-09_152619_beaver-dam-st-park.jpg" id="image-1429" class="picwide" /> <img src="images/2018/2018-06-09_152631_beaver-dam-st-park.jpg" id="image-1430" class="picwide" /> -Corrinne and I mostly sat around the read, there's wasn't anything else to do really. There were a ton of red headed woodpeckers in the campground, probably because it had the only trees for hundreds of miles, so I took probably 200 photos until I got a couple I was happy with.. +Corrinne and I mostly sat around and read, there's wasn't anything else to do really. There were a ton of red headed woodpeckers in the campground, probably because it had the only trees for hundreds of miles, so I took probably 200 photos until I got a couple I was happy with.. <img src="images/2018/2018-06-11_064239_beaver-dam-st-park.jpg" id="image-1431" class="picwide" /> @@ -49,4 +49,3 @@ Unfortunately, the minute we hit the road north, a heat wave plowed through and [^1]: I really wish they also had a series, Guide to Unnatural America. Or would change the title of the Natural America series to "wild" America or something similar. -[^2]: diff --git a/wisconsin.txt b/published/2018-06-24_wisconsin.txt index 108847b..b4e998e 100644 --- a/wisconsin.txt +++ b/published/2018-06-24_wisconsin.txt @@ -1,8 +1,8 @@ -The drive from the border of Illinois to Harrington State Park, half and hour north of Milwaukee, was the most dramatic climate change we've experienced on this trip. It was partly weather related, but we went from temps of over 100 with 72 percent humidity to 60 degrees and not much humidity at all once the rain stopped. It was a rather amazing and welcome transition. +The drive from the border of Illinois to Harrington State Park, half an hour north of Milwaukee, was the most dramatic climate change we've experienced on this trip. It was partly weather related, but we went from temps of over 100 with 72 percent humidity to 60 degrees and not much humidity at all once the rain stopped. It was a rather amazing and welcome transition. We stopped at Harrington because it gave reasonably easy access to Milwaukee and because if you run your finger along the edge of Lake Michigan starting at Chicago, it's the first green spot you hit. The day we arrived it was overcast, cold enough to pull out sweatshirts and pretty much exactly what we were looking for after weeks of sweating through Tennessee, Missouri, and Illinois. We ended up staying almost a week. -As soon as we arrived and got settled I took the kids down to see the lake. We are, I think, with one possible exception, water people. Put us on a shoreline and chances are we'll be happy. There's one of us that insists the shoreline have salt water, but the rest of us aren't that picky. By the time we got to the shore of Lake Michigan the storm we' been just ahead of all day finally caught up. There was a steady drizzle and the wind was blowing hard enough to drive even the kids back the bus in short order. +As soon as we arrived and got settled I took the kids down to see the lake. We are, I think, with one possible exception, water people. Put us on a shoreline and chances are we'll be happy. There's one of us that insists the shoreline have salt water, but the rest of us aren't that picky. By the time we got to the shore of Lake Michigan the storm we'd been just ahead of all day finally caught up. There was a steady drizzle and the wind was blowing hard enough to drive even the kids back the bus in short order. <img src="images/2018/2018-06-19_141357_harrington-st-park.jpg" id="image-1439" class="picwide" /> @@ -29,6 +29,7 @@ We ended up hanging around Harrington Beach for a few more days so I could get s Once the storm that followed us in was gone we had gloriously sunny days, highs in the mid 70s, pretty close to perfect. We ended up spending a lot of time down at the beach. Unlike the first couple of days, once the sun came out we did not have the beach to ourselves. +<img src="images/2018/pano-lakemichigan.jpg" id="image-1468" class="picwide" /> <img src="images/2018/2018-06-23_150934_harrington-st-park.jpg" id="image-1447" class="picwide" /> <img src="images/2018/2018-06-23_151017_harrington-st-park.jpg" id="image-1448" class="picwide caption" /> <img src="images/2018/2018-06-23_151606_harrington-st-park.jpg" id="image-1449" class="picwide" /> diff --git a/published/2018-07-02_trees.txt b/published/2018-07-02_trees.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..630b3bd --- /dev/null +++ b/published/2018-07-02_trees.txt @@ -0,0 +1,86 @@ +I lay in the hammock looking up at the trees, watching the birch leaves fluttering in the light breeze a hundred feet above me. From down here it's a confusion of light, color, motion, and shadow. What's it like up there though? What would it be like to stand among those slender branches that would probably, some of them, support my weight? What kind of perspective on the world would you get up there? + +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-03_141942_picture-rocks.jpg" id="image-1485" class="picwide" /> + +People climb trees, adults I mean. Probably kids aren't allowed to climb trees anymore. But some adults do. There are even groups that get together and go climb trees. So I've been told. + +John Muir writes about climbing a tree in storm to see what it felt like to be blown around. He climbed a 220 foot sugar pine in a storm. "Climbing these grand trees, especially when they are waving and singing in worship in wind-storms, is a glorious experience," writes Muir in <cite>The Yosemite</cite>. "Ascending from the lowest branch to the topmost is like stepping up stairs through a blaze of white light, every needle thrilling and shining as if with religious ecstasy." + +I plan to do that some day, but I probably won't start with 220 foot sugar pines in the midst of a storm. I'll probably work my way up to tall trees in storms, but I'd like to try it. One of the nice things about this life is that I can lie here in this hammock and stare up at the trees. I can think about climbing them. I can think about other trees, other hammocks. + +Last summer, Colorado. A very similar vertical view. This summer it's birch rather than aspen, jack pine rather than lodgepole and ponderosa, but the overall feel of the place is very similar to Colorado and the vertical view is very close. + +A friend of luxagraf, who lives in Iran, but has traveled the desert southwest of the U.S. quite a bit has an interesting article about the [visual and ecological similarities][4] between the Sindh desert in Iran (where he lives) and the high desert region of eastern California into western Arizona. + +These similarities exist everywhere. I have no doubt that if you beamed me and this hammock into the right elevation of Ural mountains in Russia or the Andes in Peru or the Himalayas of Himachal Pradesh, I would have a similar view of similar tress. The world is made up of similarities more than differences I find, and I think that's true whether you speak of ecology, culture, religion or my preferred starting point for philosophical reflections -- the vertical view from a hammock. + +Significant ecological, cultural and religious differences exist as well. I think to certain extent that's the part of traveling that I like the best, discovering these similarities and differences and holding them up before you and trying to make sense of them, finding the threads that connect places, the threads that exist only in one place and then weaving them together until in some way your journey makes sense to you. Why does the jack pine thrive here, and lodgepole pine thrive in Colorado? Why is there a massive body of fresh water here and a huge range of mountains there? Why do men and women hold hands here, men and men hold hands in India and no one holds hands in China? Why does the idea of reincarnation thrive in Himachal Pradesh and not here? Why is the arboreal forest that used to be here now over one hundred miles north of here? + +It's wrestling with these things that makes travel interesting to me. Seeing things is part of that, part of finding the unique threads of a place, the threads that bind things but that's not the end of it by any means. Round the world sailor and author [Teresa Carey][3] calls this kind of inquiry "a far greater adventure" than just traveling. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-06-28_141004_picture-rocks.jpg" id="image-1482" class="picwide" /> + +If you only have two weeks in a place, I guess I understand that drive to get out there and try to see everything you can. We watch people pulling out every morning to go do things while we're still cooking breakfast[^1]. A lot of people seem to go somewhere every morning. But then if your time is limited, you want to see what you came to see, I suppose. I'd still probably spend at least half my time "sitting around" because without the chance to daydream and reflect, to pull it all together what's the point? + +But then we're fortunate enough to be able to more or less stay anywhere we like as long as we choose. Camping limitations do exist, but otherwise we're pretty open ended. Consequently we don't tend to rush out and see everything right away, if we see it at all. For instance, we've been in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore for well over a week and haven't seen the eponymous rocks yet. And I'll be fine if we never do, that's not a thread that happens to interest me. + +These days I'm content with trees, hammocks (when I get some time in one), sitting here in the forest, watching the wind play in the leaves, the birds sharing food and building nests, the kids digging up earthworms for pets. As more than a few writers have [demonstrated][1], you can spend years obsessing over a [single square meter][2] of forest and not exhaust everything it has to teach[^2]. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-03_124025_picture-rocks.jpg" id="image-1488" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-03_151224_picture-rocks.jpg" id="image-1489" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-03_140218_picture-rocks.jpg" id="image-1490" class="picwide" /> + +At the same time, you can take that too far. We don't sit around all the time, we don't refuse to "see the sights". Some long term travelers I've met seem to look down on seeing things, like that's the status symbol that sets them above the common traveler -- they're too cool to see the sights. I think that's equally as silly as running around like the proverbial headless chicken trying to see it all. The opposite of one bad idea is often another bad idea. If I no long care what's around the next bend, over the top of that rise or on the other side of the horizon then I'd stop traveling. There is always a third option; some sitting around, some seeing what's around the bend. + +In our case we walk around quite a bit. I walk slowly, the rest of my family not so much. Sometimes I can convince Lilah to hang back with me though, that makes for nice hikes. The world is more fun when you have someone to share it with. + +Here there's a good 3 mile round trip trail out to a lighthouse. That's about what Elliott is comfortable doing these days, three to four miles. At the end there was a lighthouse and a few outbuildings connected with the lighthouse. We forgot the money for the tour of the lighthouse, but it seemed closed anyway. We marched right on past and scrambled down some rocks to the lake shore for a little lunch. The sandstone shelf we sat on extended nearly half mile out into the water without getting much more than six feet deep. Hence the need for a lighthouse. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-06-28_111802_picture-rocks.jpg" id="image-1478" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-06-28_115528_picture-rocks.jpg" id="image-1479" class="picwide" /> + +There was a fog bank to the east of the lighthouse that day, a thin layer that obscured all but the top of the dunes just to east of us, dunes that sit some five hundred feet above the lake. The first four hundred feet were hidden by a fog bank that stretched out over the lake and curved back toward the lighthouse, losing density as it neared the point we sat on. We ate our food and watched wisps of wet cloud blow by us and down the coast, seemingly circling back down toward the dunes. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-06-28_120330_picture-rocks.jpg" id="image-1481" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-06-28_120309_picture-rocks.jpg" id="image-1480" class="picwide" /> + +It wasn't particularly warm and only Lilah and I hung around after lunch we finished lunch. We explored the shoreline to the east for a while, looking for interesting signs of life. There weren't many. Lake Superior is cold, clear, and not exactly teeming with life. I've seen a few fish, including a huge trout in very shallow water, and Lilah and I found some curious insects, around the rocks, but for the most part it's pretty quiet around here, biologically speaking. At least on the water. The water average 42 degrees, there's just enough life to support a fair number of fish, and the birds that feed on them, but not much more than that. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-06-27_153904_picture-rocks.jpg" id="image-1477" class="picwide caption" /> + +But what it lacks in life it makes up for in weather. The weather here is the most unusual and dramatically changing weather I've ever experienced anywhere on the planet thus far. It's completely left field. One minute it's hot, the next it's cold. And a good percent of the time that's just barely hyperbolic. + +A good bit of my early travels were in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California. I've backpacked several hundred miles worth of trails and seen a good bit of "interesting weather". Lightning so close your hair stands up? Check. Hail the size of small oranges? Check. Snow in mid July? Check. Rapid drops in temperature as a storm approaches? Check. Well, maybe not check. + +I thought I had experiences some rapid temperature drops, but Lake Superior is a different class with those. One morning, a particularly warm, humid morning, it was 8 AM and the temperature was already climbing steadily. It can get surprisingly hot and muggy around here, and I figured it was going to be a really hot day. But then, about five minutes later the sky was so dark it looked more like night than night, the temperature had dropped well below 55, and the wind was tossing the leafy crowns of the birch trees around like a salad spinner. It was the most complete reversal of weather I've ever experienced anywhere in the world. + +It was also very localized and didn't last long. The wind faded quickly and within an hour the nice cool temperatures were gone as if it had never happened. Curiously though, it happened again around 2PM and again around 8PM. My best guess is that somewhere inland it's heating up enough to pull some air off the middle of the lake and the lake is definitely cold enough to drop the air temp by 30-40 degrees. That particular day the last lake effect cooling timed nicely with bedtime. I still woke up sweating by 1AM, but at least we got to go to bed with a nice cool breeze blowing through. + +When it is hot here, and it is more than I expected it would be, especially after our experience in Wisconsin, at least there's a freezing cold lake to cool off in. And it is cold, cold enough that even the kids haven't been past their waists. I went under, but it took some effort. Lake Superior is the coldest large body of water I've ever swam in. The water temp right now is 55 degrees, but honestly it feels even colder. It's almost as cold as the Sierra lakes I used to swim in during the early season when there were still fields of snow leading down into them on the north facing slopes. + +When its 85-90 out though Superior feels refreshing and nice. At least for a minute or two. Then you get out and the air around you feels insanely humid and hot and you want to slip back into the lake, but then it starts to be too much, you get a sort of pins and needles sensation in your feet after a while. So you climb out, sit on the rocks, and play with the kids until you get hot enough that you want to try getting back in the lake again. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-06-27_153834_picture-rocks.jpg" id="image-1475" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-06-27_135811_picture-rocks.jpg" id="image-1474" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-06-27_153851_picture-rocks.jpg" id="image-1476" class="picwide" /> + +The second time we went down to the shore line to beat the heat we learned something else about the wind in these parts. When it blows onshore it keeps the black flies at bay. When it blows offshore, look out. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-06-30_143747_picture-rocks.jpg" id="image-1486" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-06-30_151316_picture-rocks.jpg" id="image-1487" class="picwide" /> + +For whatever reason I have no problem with mosquitoes. Some recently asked what we do about mosquitoes and I told them we have Thermacell, which works well enough, and we use it during the times of day the mozzies are really bad, but the rest of the time, honestly, I don't bother much. They bite me. I swat them when it hurts, and if I'm in malaria/dengue/etc areas I take mosquitoes more seriously, but mosquitoes are supposed to bite, that's what they do. + +Where I come from though flies are completely benign, perhaps that's why biting flies bother me. It seems extra cruel to take an ubiquitous and already fairly annoying creature and then make it capable of a painful bite. Screw that. I hate black flies. But then I hate when black flies drive me away from something I want to do, so I tend to stick it out until they get real bad. If you keep moving they don't bother you as much, so we spent most of our beach time walking, climbing rocks, looking for agates, good skipping rocks, gnarled driftwood, birds, fish and whatever else captures out attention. + + + + + +[^1]: Not that we're late risers, by the time we make breakfast I've usually been out birding, meditated and drank my way through at least two moka pots worth of coffee and Corrinne has generally walked 5 miles or so. +[^2]: This is, to me, the best argument against traveling -- it doesn't allow for the sort of depth of study, be it ecological, cultural, whatever, that's possible when you stay in one place. For me though, staying in one place leads to complacency, less awareness and a tendency to take the world for granted. + +[1]: /books/gathering-moss +[2]: /books/the-forest-unseen +[3]: http://teresacarey.com/ +[4]: http://newslinemagazine.com/is-it-california-or-is-it-sindh/ diff --git a/published/2018-07-07_shipwrecks.txt b/published/2018-07-07_shipwrecks.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f9ede42 --- /dev/null +++ b/published/2018-07-07_shipwrecks.txt @@ -0,0 +1,56 @@ +We were looking for something cool to do for the girls' birthday, something along the lines of [last year's train ride][1], when we stumbled across a billboard for a glass bottom boat shipwreck tour. Perfect. We checked the weather and made reservations for the next warm sunny day. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-06_083442_shipwreck-tour.jpg" id="image-1494" class="picwide caption" /> + +Somewhat surprisingly the weather was actually correct and we had sun, blue skies and just enough breeze to keep things from getting too hot. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-06_090619_shipwreck-tour.jpg" id="image-1495" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-06_094628_shipwreck-tour.jpg" id="image-1498" class="picwide" /> + +As I've written before, I generally eschew guided tours because most of them suck. In this case, however, it did not suck at all. The tour guide knew her stuff and we learned a ton of stuff about Lake Superior navigation and some of its less successful practitioners. The details are mostly unimportant if you're not actually here, but there's one important detail that makes this place unique, perhaps in the world -- the water temperature. + +On average Lake Superior is 42 degrees, the day we were there it was about 55. That makes for cold swims, but it also means that most of the organisms that eat wood don't live in Superior. That has two major side effects -- the water is insanely clear, and wood lasts a really, really long time underwater because there are no organisms the eat. Lake Superior is, I'd guess, one of the very few places in the world in intact wrecks of wooden ships from the mid 19th century. + +The first wreck we floated over in the glass bottom boat sunk in 1870 and was almost completely intact until a couple of years ago when one of the harshest winters on record froze the water all the way down to the wreck (7 feet of ice) and snapped off the stern railing. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-06_093350_shipwreck-tour.jpg" id="image-1496" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-06_093639_shipwreck-tour.jpg" id="image-1497" class="picwide caption" /> +<div class="cluster"> +<img src="images/2018/20180706_102610.jpg" id="image-1507" class="picwide" /> +<span class="row-2"> +<img src="images/2018/20180706_113313.jpg" id="image-1509" class="cluster pic5 caption" /> +<img src="images/2018/20180706_112207.jpg" id="image-1508" class="cluster pic5" /> + +</span> +</div> + +I found the first wreck to be the most interesting because it was a canal boat, a little reminder reaching across time to remind us that the only renewable kinds of energy on the planet are wind, water and animals. All three would have been used to moved this boat from Superior down to Lake Erie, across that, and then down the Erie canal to New York. Before interstate highways and fossil fuels good moved by water. After interstate highways and fossil fuels are gone I suspect the waterways will return to their former glory and boatmen will once again be able to make a living. We happen to be living in a brief span of history in which we don't have to navigate rivers. + +We didn't do the tour out to the cliffs that give Pictured Rocks its name, but we did come up alongside some smaller ones that line the coast of Grand Island. + +<div class="cluster"> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-06_103844_shipwreck-tour.jpg" id="image-1499" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-06_104925_shipwreck-tour_BD8R8mK.jpg" id="image-1501" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-06_104941_shipwreck-tour.jpg" id="image-1502" class="picwide caption" /> +</div> + +One afternoon I took the kids on a hike up through the Sable Dunes, a large dune area that's about half way to being not dune. Come back in a couple thousand, maybe even a few hundred years and you won't even notice there are dunes here. Like almost no one notices that the entire midwest is a giant dune, temporary held down by about ten feet of soil. At the moment though there's still a good bit of sand. + +The trail was closed in some fashion, though the only clue at to which parts were closed were some tiny, faded pieces of paper printed out and nailed to trees inside plastic baggies. Apparently, that's a real thing in Michigan. But closing an area by typing out a physical description is, well, hell if I know where they were talking about. Possibly we walked right through the closed area, possibly we did not. It was a nice hike anyway, and took us about as high above Lake Superior as you can get. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-05_141625_picture-rocks.jpg" id="image-1500" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-05_142814_picture-rocks.jpg" id="image-1492" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-05_145841_picture-rocks.jpg" id="image-1493" class="picwide" /> + +The last few days we spent down by the lake, where the river comes in. I've noticed an increasing number of rock stacks in the world. Up here they're everywhere, including in the middle of the river where the kids were playing. Apparently people [like to stack rocks][2]. We like to knock down stacks of rocks. Win-win. + +<img src="images/2018/IMG_20180708_151451461.jpg" id="image-1511" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/IMG_20180708_145439412.jpg" id="image-1510" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-07_151912_picture-rocks.jpg" id="image-1504" class="picwide" /> + +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-07_144929_picture-rocks.jpg" id="image-1503" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-08_141828_picture-rocks.jpg" id="image-1505" class="picwide" /> + + +[1]: /jrnl/2017/07/happy-5th-birthday +[2]: https://www.hcn.org/articles/a-call-for-an-end-to-cairns-leave-the-stones-alone diff --git a/published/2018-07-13_six.txt b/published/2018-07-13_six.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..79a9768 --- /dev/null +++ b/published/2018-07-13_six.txt @@ -0,0 +1,44 @@ +We gambled a bit for the girls' birthday this year. We couldn't stay in Pictured Rocks anymore, we'd hit our two week limit the day before their birthday. We considered trying to stay anyway, bribe the camp hosts or something. In the end we rolled the dice and drove on east, out to the edge of the upper peninsula hoping that the campground we'd found on the map would have a nice enough spot. + +It worked out perfectly. We ended up with a spot off to ourselves, beside a smallish lake, with our own private beach -- the perfect place for a sixth birthday party. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-09_131411_andrus-lake.jpg" id="image-1531" class="picwide" /> + +The kids tend to be up by 6AM these days, but on their birthday it was about 5. Don't let the light fool you, it's early. It's only truly dark up here for about five hours a day. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-11_045643_6th-birthday.jpg" id="image-1515" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-11_044825_6th-birthday.jpg" id="image-1512" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-11_044854_6th-birthday.jpg" id="image-1513" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-11_045519_6th-birthday.jpg" id="image-1514" class="picwide" /> + +One of the upper peninsula's endearing charms is its decided lack of consumer stuff. There's not much in the way of stores. I had to drive almost two hours and very nearly into Canada to find the girls their new bikes. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-11_055421-2_6th-birthday.jpg" id="image-1516" class="picwide" /> + +Elliott is still at the age where it's really hard to accept that there's a birthday and it's not his. We tried to cheer him up by pointing out that we'll be in Mexico for his birthday and that in Mexico they have exciting things like piñatas. Of course the minute that came out of my mouth the girls had to have a piñatas. You think it's hard to find bike in the UP, try finding a piñata. Somehow though Corrinne managed to come up with the perfect tiny piñata for our tiny home. + +<div class="cluster"> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-11_103307_6th-birthday.jpg" id="image-1519" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-11_103151_6th-birthday.jpg" id="image-1517" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-11_103229_6th-birthday.jpg" id="image-1518" class="picwide" /> +<span class="row-2"> +<img src="images/2018/20180711_114055.jpg" id="image-1523" class="cluster pic5 caption" /> +<img src="images/2018/20180711_113832.jpg" id="image-1522" class="cluster pic5" /> + +</span> +</div> + +We have still never fixed our oven. It can probably be done, but at this point we've already adapted. I'm going to be buying a waffle iron in Mexico because Elliott won't hear of not having waffle cake for his birthday. See what you started Taylor and Beth? Thanks for that. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-11_130117_6th-birthday.jpg" id="image-1520" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-11_130252_6th-birthday.jpg" id="image-1521" class="picwide caption" /> +<div class="cluster"> +<span class="row-2"> +<img src="images/2018/20180711_140537.jpg" id="image-1525" class="cluster pic5" /> +<img src="images/2018/20180711_140839.jpg" id="image-1526" class="cluster pic5" /> +</span> +<span class="row-2"> +<img src="images/2018/20180711_140519.jpg" id="image-1524" class="cluster pic5" /> +<img src="images/2018/20180711_114914.jpg" id="image-1532" class="cluster pic5" /> +</span> +</div> diff --git a/published/2018-07-19_lakeside-park.txt b/published/2018-07-19_lakeside-park.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9be1258 --- /dev/null +++ b/published/2018-07-19_lakeside-park.txt @@ -0,0 +1,55 @@ +<div class="col"> +<p>After the girls' birthday we had a few extra days before we needed to head south to meet up with my parents. We decided to stick around Andrus Lake a while longer. Who can say no to your own personal beach?</p> + +<p>We spent most of the time enjoying the warm lake water (relative to Superior). It's not a big lake, it's not a deep lake, but what it lacks in size it makes up for in character. I don't think I ever looked out at it and saw the same lake twice.</p> + +<p>Over the course of a full week we saw it choppy, red and frothy in the wind, glassy and mirrored, with morning fog softening the edges, silent and blue in the evenings, and completely obscured in a gray blanket of fog on our one rainy day.</p> +</div> + +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-09_141735_andrus-lake-pano.jpg" id="image-1506" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-12_060053_andrus-lake-pano.jpg" id="image-1534" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-10_061327_andrus-lake.jpg" id="image-1535" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-14_052017_andrus-lake.jpg" id="image-1536" class="picwide" /> + +Most days though, it was sunny and warm, making out little private beach just about perfect. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-11_144143_andrus-lake.jpg" id="image-1539" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-09_150344_andrus-lake.jpg" id="image-1533" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-11_150700_andrus-lake.jpg" id="image-1540" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-11_150839_andrus-lake.jpg" id="image-1541" class="picwide" /> + +There was also plenty of time for breaking in the new bikes. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-13_120949_andrus-lake.jpg" id="image-1543" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-13_121100_andrus-lake.jpg" id="image-1544" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-12_111907_andrus-lake.jpg" id="image-1542" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-15_111817_andrus-lake.jpg" id="image-1545" class="picwide caption" /> + +There were a few reasons we came up this way in the first place, one of them was to see a couple sets of friends who'd moved up this way in the past year or so. Another was reason was a book series I'd read to the kids. We picked up a copy of Louise Erdrich's <cite>[The Birchbark House](https://birchbarkbooks.com/louise-erdrich/the-birchbark-house)</cite> for the kids for Christmas, and they loved it. They obsess over it with the kind of enthusiasm and depth that only children and Shakespearean stage actors have. + +<cite>The Birchbark House</cite> takes place on Madeline Island and is the story of a young Ojibwe[^1] girl living through the changes that happened in this part of the world between roughly 1840-1870. It's part one of a five book series and we've read them all and, by popular demand, are re-reading them currently. So when Corrinne noticed there was an small Ojibwe powwow and re-enactment happening in nearby St. Ignace, we had to go. + +The Ojibwa Cultural Center in St Ignace turned out to be a really nice museum, complete with replica birchbark buildings, and the powwow had a bunch of stuff for kids. Ours got to make some necklaces out of beads and sinew and could have done something I couldn't parse out with porcupine quills. They also got the best face painting they've had on this trip. + +<div class="cluster"> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-14_105512_st-ignace-ojibwe.jpg" id="image-1549" class="picwide" /> +<span class="row-2"> +<img src="images/2018/20180714_112056.jpg" id="image-1546" class="cluster pic5" /> +<img src="images/2018/20180714_115612.jpg" id="image-1547" class="cluster pic5" /> +</span> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-14_102141_st-ignace-ojibwe.jpg" id="image-1548" class="picwide" /> +</div> + +The fascinating part for me was realizing that in the course of reading the five books to the kids I'd picked up about the same amount of Ojibwe as I ever did Thai, Laos or even French. Which is to say that when Ojibwe speakers greeted each other, said thank you, good morning, afternoon, and all the other sorts of small greetings and polite interactions you pick up when you travel in another language, I understood them. It was sort of odd since until that day I'd never knowing met any Ojibwe before in my life. + +The re-enactment portion of the festival was less captivating to the kids, but I picked up a bottle of real maple syrup that's so dark you can't see through it and tastes like pouring a tree on your pancakes. It has a wonderfully smokey flavor to it and is by far the best maple syrup I've ever had (sorry Vermont, previous home of the best maple syrup I've ever had). The only problem with it is that it has made all store bought syrup seem like bland sugar water. This bottle isn't going to last forever and I have no way to get anymore like it. Always buy two. + +The Ojibwe powwow itself didn't get going until midday. We saw what I would call the opening ceremony and then our friends from Traverse City got there and we headed out to walk the streets of St Ignace. It can get pretty warm up here if you don't have shade -- the temperature difference between the sunny and shady side of the street is striking up here. We ducked in an antique store to cool off for a bit, (our friend also collects 78 records and I'm never against looking for used camera lenses. One of these days I'll find that dusty Leica Noctilux 50mm f/1.2 for $50). + +After that decided that we needed to just sit outside in the shade and enjoy the beautiful afternoon, maybe drink a couple of beers while we're at it. Michigan is noted for its plethora of local of breweries; we've been in towns with fewer than a 1000 residents that nevertheless had its own brewery. But in St Ignace the best place we could come up was a restaurant which, if it would through a few shrimp shell buckets in the center of its table, could easily pass for a Florida seafood shack. Fortunately it had a decent selection of Michigan beers. + +It's strange to sit around "all afternoon" up here, because at 5 o'clock it still looks and feels like it's about 2 in the afternoon. But it's not. And we all had about an hour and half of driving to do, so we said our goodbyes, they gave us a basket of what turned out to be the best cherries we've ever had, and we all hit the road. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-14_115834_st-ignace-ojibwe.jpg" id="image-1550" class="picwide caption" /> + +[^1]: There's some variation in the spelling of Ojibwe. Louise Erdrich spells it with an e, the Ojibwa cultural center spells it with an a. I went with the e. diff --git a/published/2018-07-23_house-lake.txt b/published/2018-07-23_house-lake.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cdd2289 --- /dev/null +++ b/published/2018-07-23_house-lake.txt @@ -0,0 +1,55 @@ +On our way southeast to Lake Huron we first went northwest. Because that's how we roll. We wanted to see Whitefish point, which had a lighthouse and shipwreck museum we wanted to see. When we got there no one was into it, so we ended up skipping the indoor stuff to spend some time on the beach. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-16_093403_whitefish-point.jpg" id="image-1551" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-16_093421_whitefish-point.jpg" id="image-1552" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/20180716_110612.jpg" id="image-1565" class="picwide" /> + +Corrinne wandered off in search of rocks, I stayed to keep and eye on the kids, who were amusing themselves climbing up a rock retaining wall, or embankment really, not a wall, then they'd run over to edge and jump or slide down the sandy embankment next to it. The wall was adjacent to a little boardwalk area that you could get a view of the beach without getting any sand on you, something I've never really understood, but whatever. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-16_095011_whitefish-point.jpg" id="image-1554" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-16_094935_whitefish-point.jpg" id="image-1553" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-16_095029_whitefish-point.jpg" id="image-1555" class="picwide" /> + +At one point a family with a couple of kids came out onto the viewing platform and I overheard one of the kids ask their mom what my kids were doing. "It looks like they're climbing," she said. But the way she said it, there was such disdain in her voice that made it sound like climbing was the worst thing in the world. + +Naturally the little boy instantly said, "I want to climb." I was thinking, cool, maybe the kids can make a friend. And then the mom said, no, you can't climb up that you'd hurt yourself. I felt bad for the kid, but what can you do? I wanted to say, let him climb, let him find out what he can and can't do, let him hurt himself if he needs to, but I didn't. I sat there and felt bad for the kid. Then his mom added, "you'll get all dirty." + +That got me to stand up and turn around to see what sort of monster was near me. I have as much patience, and love, for these so-called helicopter parents as I do mosquitoes. Alas you cannot swat the former, so I glanced up and tried to focus on giving them my friendliest smile. It's not their fault really, this culture handed them a bum deal, made them afraid of everything. But I hate to see them passing it on to the next generation. Sorry kid, better luck next time. + +I sat back down and watched my kids climbing, getting dirty and possibly even hurting themselves. Such is life. It got me thinking about an even sadder possibility though. Possibly that parent knew their kids limitations quite well, knew they didn't have experience climbing sharp, quarried granite rocks, and knew they really would hurt themselves badly. Maybe those parents know their kids aren't capable of it. That's even sadder though. Get your kids outside, let them explore and learn for themselves. Let them fall down and get scraped up, that's how they learn. Pain tells you where the edges are so to speak, that's where you learn the edge of your current abilities and how to get even better. You fall down, and fall down, and fall down, until eventually you stop falling down. + +After we'd had our fill of Whitefish Point we finally headed south toward Huron. It wasn't a long drive, a little over an hour and we were setting up camp at Carp River, which alas, did not have easy swimming access. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-19_064743_carp-river.jpg" id="image-1560" class="picwide" /> + +Instead we headed over to the cottage on the marsh that my parents had rented for the week. The first thing the kids noticed, aside from their grandparents was the spiral staircase. I shudder to think what that lady would have done when confronted with a narrow all metal staircase perfect for climbing. And climb our kids did. Up and down, up and down, up and down. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-16_135249_carp-river.jpg" id="image-1563" class="picwide" /> + +I retreated to the porch and watched the red winged blackbirds diving in and out of the reeds and cattails. Whenever I see cattail fluff now I always think about how it's perfect for lining a babies diaper, that was the go-to material for nearly any tribe who had access to it. I grew up by a marsh full of cattails and I'd never even thought of that before. Necessity is the engine of ingenuity. + +We spent most of the week playing in and around the house my parents rented. It came, as most everything up here does, with a couple of canoes and kayaks, which we used to explore the river a little bit. Lilah even wanted to paddle on her own, so I dropped off the other kids and let her take me on a little canoe ride. All I did was steer, and even that I only had to do because of the wind. It reminded me of the unfortunate truth of parenting, in a few years they won't need me around much anymore. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-18_104435_carp-river.jpg" id="image-1556" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-18_105158_carp-river.jpg" id="image-1557" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-18_112310_carp-river.jpg" id="image-1559" class="picwide" /> + + +I finally gave in and went full tourist and picked up some smoked whitefish and lake trout, all of which turned out to be really damn good. I think we plowed through about four pounds in as many days. It took several more before the smell of smoked fish was completely gone from my fingers. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-20_135628_carp-river.jpg" id="image-1562" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-20_134951_carp-river.jpg" id="image-1561" class="picwide caption" /> + +I took advantage of the grassy field surrounding the rental house to give our solar panels a full day's sun, something they had not had in nearly a month. I took care of a few bus tasks as well, pulled my spark plugs and check them out, tightened some hose clamps, a few bolts and even pulled apart the wiring to the temperature gauge, which I'd still like to get working. + +I figure the gauge consists of three basic parts, the sensor and sending unit, which I can't get to, if that's the problem I'm screwed, the wiring, which is horrid and needs to be re-run, and gauge in the dash. Any one, or several of them could be the problem. The easiest place to start is the wiring, so I pulled out a ton of electrical tape (why do people use that stuff?) traced the wire, and realized the metal inside the little covered end that fits onto the sensor is cracked, not connected and may well be the solution to the problem. I made a note to stop in the next auto parts store I see and pick up something similar and see if that fixes the problem. Right when I figured that out though the kids needed me to do something and I went off and promptly forgot all about it until now, when I was looking over my notes and remembered. So still no working gauge, but the next auto parts store I see, I'm going to get that wire, I swear. + +<div class="cluster"> +<span class="row-2"> +<img src="images/2018/20180717_163034.jpg" id="image-1567" class="cluster pic5" /> +<img src="images/2018/20180717_162924.jpg" id="image-1566" class="cluster pic5" /> +</span> +<img src="images/2018/20180717_163312.jpg" id="image-1564" class="picwide caption" /> +</div> + +There wasn't much of a swimming beach at the rental house so one day we loaded everyone in the car and headed down the coast to Hessel, which had a little marina and swimming beach (and a wooden boat festival we'd just miss, damn it). We couldn't leave the shores of Lake Huron without going for a swim. It turned out to be like the middle lake it is -- warmer than Superior, colder than Michigan. diff --git a/published/2018-07-30_crystal-lake.txt b/published/2018-07-30_crystal-lake.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..27e1dde --- /dev/null +++ b/published/2018-07-30_crystal-lake.txt @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ +After we said goodbye to my parents, we packed up and pointed the bus west, tracing the Lake Michigan side of the Upper Peninsula. The first night we stopped at a place we'd intended to go after Wisconsin, but skipped in favor of Pictured Rocks. And I'm glad we did. It was all right for a night, but there was nothing much to make us linger for longer than that. + +There are three basic things our kids can find pretty much anywhere: 1) water the swim in, 2) things to jump off, 3) mud to dig in. Little Bay de Noc had all three. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-22_131053_little-bay-de-noc.jpg" id="image-1568" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-22_132817_little-bay-de-noc.jpg" id="image-1569" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-22_135446-3_little-bay-de-noc.jpg" id="image-1570" class="picwide" /> + +It also had something of a rarity in our limited experience up here -- west facing beaches with sunsets. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-22_201527_little-bay-de-noc.jpg" id="image-1571" class="picwide" /> + +The next day we headed north again, toward Lake Superior, but also west, back into Wisconsin. We had another one-night stopover at a place called Imp Lake, which is notable for having a nesting colony of Loons on the island in the middle of it. We were serenaded all afternoon and into the evening, if serenade is the right word for loon calls. I really wanted some of the deeper howls to be wolves, but they weren't. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-24_082843_imp-lake.jpg" id="image-1572" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-24_083321_imp-lake.jpg" id="image-1573" class="picwide" /> + +Quite a few people have asked if the mosquitoes are bad up here. In general no. At Imp Lake, yes. Bad enough that we didn't really go out much that night. Which was fine since we got up early and hit the road again the next morning. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-24_123032_imp-lake.jpg" id="image-1574" class="picwide caption" /> + +We pulled into Memorial Park in Washburn WI around 2 in the afternoon and grabbed spot. It was something of a change for us. After having been in the woods, largely alone for the better part of six weeks it was odd to be in a campground with neighbors a short distance from our door and downtown Washburn a mere five minute walk away. Luckily this part of Wisconsin is full of friendly people and we enjoyed ourselves in spite of the more crowded campground. + +The campground dated from at least the 1930s from what I read on some of the signs scattered around. It had a feel to it that you don't find much anymore. It still had an old lunch counter stand with these ingenious folding tables and chairs. No one knows who built it, the source of ingenuity is lost to the fog of time, but the lunch stand is still there, though, disappointingly, not in use anymore. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-28_165810_apostle-islands.jpg" id="image-1578" class="picwide caption" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-28_165735_apostle-islands.jpg" id="image-1577" class="picwide" /> + +The campground also had the kids of old school playground that was made of metal and tires and wasn't padded everywhere like some kind of outdoor asylum, which is what the modern plastic playgrounds always remind me of, the sort of you'd find outside Bedlam. Thank you Washburn for resisting, in however small a way, the notion that children should be coddled in padded plastic playgrounds. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-24_154053_apostle-islands.jpg" id="image-1576" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-07-24_153542_apostle-islands.jpg" id="image-1575" class="picwide" /> + +We came mainly because it was the closest campground to the Madeline Island ferry, but we were also glad to be back on the shores of Lake Superior. I've never seen a shoreline I didn't like, but, that said, there are certain bodies of water that seem to draw us in more than others and Lake Superior is one of them. Perhaps it's the clarity, though it's not nearly as clear over here, or the cold, though it's not nearly as cold here, or maybe some more vague, impossible to define quality. Whatever the case, the shores of Lake Superior is our favorite place to be up here. |