I’ve been exercising Callie on the rails to trails system in the small city of Ashland. Downtown, there’s an original opera house, being renovated into $400k condos.
I’m not a real estate expert, but I wonder who can afford these. This is not particularly an affluent town. If it was, I suspect that the opera house would not have been allowed to fall into such disrepair.
Just outside of town is a cabin.
Interesting.
I’m camped along the shores of Lake Superior at Wisconsin’s northern edge. I have a reason to be here in another week: the wedding celebration of a friend’s son and his bride. The bride’s family lives on an area farm.
My reason for being here early, ostensibly, is to make sure we have a campsite with air conditioning when we have to leave Callie here all day on the celebration day. It’s been hot in Wisconsin, even here in the far north, although the high will not hit 70 today.
My first view of the campground entrance was forboding. I decided to take a spin around and found one empty site. I quickly backed in. Before I unhitched, the friendly host was in my driveway and confirmed that it was my lucky day. Someone had just left, and this was the only site available.
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| Feeling Claustrophobic? |
However, the host continued with even better news. Your luck will be even better tomorrow. Hang around in the morning, and there will be a better spot if you don’t mind moving quickly. All sites here are first come, first serve.
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| Much better |
I’m here for a couple of weeks, enjoying breezes and cooler temperatures from Lake Superior.
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| Geese in early morning mist |
The river is very low, compared to times we’ve camped here in the past.
Julia took advantage of winds blowing upstream and spent some time in her inflatable kayak. She had to get out (and get wet) to get past the sandbars.
Callie is a fan of the river. I keep her leashed to avoid “exploring the other side” issues.
We ended the day at the Mississippi Brewing Company. The server started off with, “Don’t ask me about the beer because I don’t know anything about beer.”
Not a problem, I thought, ordering a milk stout from a Davenport brewery. Mississippi Brewing does not brew beer—just selling beers made elsewhere. My milk stout turned out to be a coffee-infused beer that barely had enough body to taste like a porter—nothing like a milk stout. I was tempted to pour it down the drain of the very cool keg fountain above. Of course, being frugal, I choked it down. Blech!
Next up. Heading north!
The sunrises are worth getting up for at Shady Creek.
Wildcat State Park is less than two miles from Shady Creek COE, and we always make sure to hike the trails here. When we arrived at about 9 a.m., there was a small wedding taking place. We backtracked to a different trail so we would not intrude.
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| Grist Mill |
Well, I didn't exactly win the Madtown Pickleball Open. We won some games but we also lost enough to get eliminated before advancing very far. My foot has been bothering me, so that gives me a good excuse to take a break from pickleball and get hitched up.
Last week, we drove to Shady Creek COE, one of our favorite Mississippi River campgrounds and just north of Muscatine, Iowa.
The new sign is a gift from Julia’s brother Scott.
We didn’t have any big plans. I spent some time reading. Callie kept an eye on things.
We made it to our favorite happy hour at Muscatine's Contrary Brewing, where Monday beers are $4.
Julia had a hazy IPA. I had a half pour of imperial stout, which I savored for just as long as Julia's larger beer. I'm not a huge imperial fan, but this was probably the best that I've ever had.
We made it back in plenty of time to enjoy an evening camped next the the big river.
I've been training hard during the last couple of weeks with my new pickleball partner for Wisconsin's largest pickleball tournament, taking place this weekend. After that, I'll be ready for a "pickleball break."
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| Thursday night Round Robin |
Julia and I made reservations at one of our favorite COE campgrounds on the Mississippi River next week, where we can now take advantage of 50% off with the Senior Pass ($10/night) with electric.
This morning, after taking Callie on a four mile hike in the country, I saw something very disturbing up near my Scamp.
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| Close Call |
It took about three hours today to cut up the part of the tree that blocked access to the Scamp,, move the rounds to my firewood processing area, and drag the small branches back into the woods. On a hot and humid day, I may have set a perspiration record. There is another twenty or thirty feet of uncut trunk going back into the woods. It will make quality firewood but will wait until a cooler day.
I ended up moving vehicles around and put the Scamp in our driveway until our camping departure. There is another double trunk tree nearby (to the right side of the photo above, and it has a severe bend without breaking yet. It'll be interesting to see if it's still standing when we return from our trip. The trunks are under far too much pressure from the wet branches to safely fell at this point.
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Julia recently spent part of a rainy Sunday at the Dennos Art Museum in Traverse City, Michigan. There are a lot of art pieces here and only a few "Julia photos."
There's a short Julia video of another piece here, but it's a "short" and doesn't want to embed in this post.
On the trip home from Michigan, we had an issue with the Scamp's brakes
not releasing, putting future Scamping on hold until a service
appointment could be arranged. I picked up the Scamp on Friday. The
brakes seemed to be operating as intended after an adjustment, and I
took the opportunity to also let the local utility trailer company repack the
bearings, all at a very reasonable price (less than $100). If all goes well, they will have at least one new customer for years to come.
I'll end with photos of an outing with Justin last night at the Mallards baseball game (the Mallards are amateur college baseball players getting some additional experience during the summer). They lost, but baseball at this level is more about the food and between-inning entertainment.
Julia and I recently returned to Sabino Canyon to hike to Seven Falls. In retrospect, we could have been started at the Sabino Canyon Recre...
