Temperature Relief and Update

When I arrived home from the southern Illinois misadventure, the high temperatures continued in Wisconsin with our warmest days of the year.  With our well-shaded home, we rarely use the air-conditioning, but it received its first work-out of the season.  

Callie and I took early morning walks (5 a.m. before sunrise) to get our steps in.  Then we both retreated to the basement for most of the rest of the day.  

The weather finally turned this week.  Julia was up in Door County with some girlfriends, so I played pickleball every day.  One of the guys I recently got to know at pickleball turned out to be the fraternity roommate of my dormitory roommate.  Small world.  We both like pickleball and good small breweries, so we've gone out for beers a couple of times too.  I had pretty much lost touch with our mutual friend Joe, but Mick has stayed in contact, so it was fun catching up.  Maybe we will all get together someday for a beer.

I completed the repair of the Scamp bathroom door after consulting my friend Dean.  The door was previously held in place by small screws from the inside bathroom door trim to the outside bathroom door trim. After 22 years, the screws had backed out or stripped.  I drilled bigger holes and put in machine screws with fender washers and an acorn nut.  It seems  much better secured.  

In the last few days, the weather has been much cooler with lows at night in the 40's.  I celebrated with hikes at Gibraltar Rock and at Pheasant Branch.  I also restarted my sourdough starter and baked some bread to take the chill off.  I like fall.

I have no September plans to Scamp.  Allie will be home again this weekend  and staying for a week before she stands up in a friend's wedding the following weekend.  At the end of the month, Julia leaves for a long-planned trip to South Africa with a girlfriend from optometry school.  I may take a trip then but probably will travel within Wisconsin.

Why am I not going to Africa?  It's just not a place that I have any current desire to visit.  Ten years ago, I wanted to hike Mount Kilimanjaro, but that desire has faded away.  Julia is going to do a safari, and that doesn't sound like fun for me, especially given the expense.  I'm glad she has a girlfriend to go with, and so is the girlfriend's husband who also declined not to go.  

Next year will likely be a big travel year for us here in the U.S.  I'll save my pennies for those trips. 

If a Tree Falls in the Forest

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."  

 

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.

Close Call

We had been experiencing a severe drought, and then over four inches of rain dumped on Wednesday and Thursday night.  The branches and leaves of the trees eagerly soaked up the moisture, causing severe stress for the now top-heavy oak. The trunk snapped and landed about two feet from the tongue of the Scamp 

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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Dennos Art Museum and Family Time

 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.  

Dells of Eau Claire County Park

 

Julia took a trip back in time at this 28 site campground along the Eau Claire River near Aniwa, Wisconsin. On a Monday night, we were one of four rigs present. An Ice Age trail thru hiker came in late on Tuesday night and was breaking camp in the rain early Wednesday morning. 

Sites are $21/night plus the $7 required  Reserve America tithe. All sites were electric. No generators permitted. A water spigot is available at the firewood station. No dump station. 

Julia’s family tent camped here several times when she was a child. She remembers bullhead fishing, and her Grandpa doing a big fish fry.

We were here to start training for longer hikes in preparation for the Inca Trail trip later this year. The Ice Age trail has a segment in the park and another segment only a few miles away. That hike will be the topic of the next post.

The Dells of Eau Claire are a set of rocks and rock walls through which the river runs. The rock formations were beautiful. The water quality appeared  less than ideal with soapy scum piling up in places.

April Camping: Take Two

 Our early April camping attempt met nasty weather. Last week, Julia started a kitchen cabinet project that drove me out of the house to the safety of the Scamp. The cabinet guy is good at what he does. In fact, he installed the original cabinets in this house thirty years ago. But I didn’t need to be around while the kitchen underwent open heart surgery.

So I fled for Iowa and the Mississippi River. Callie was happy to go too since she would have been staying in a basement crate to keep her out of the way. We decided to stay at Clinton’s waterfront park, which is an urban campground associated with the Clinton marina. 

First come, first serve, I picked a concrete slab furthest from the train tracks and the inoperable bathroom(waiting for parts).  For the inconvenience, camping was only $15/night and included electric, water, picnic table, fire ring and dump station.

Colorado Trip: Scamping at Olive Ridge

The weather outside is frightful, so we will turn on the time machine for awhile and document last June's trip to Colorado.

After a great time with friends in Fort Collins, we hitched up the Scamp at Boyd Lake State Park and took Hwy 34 to Estes Park before turning south on Hwy 7 to Olive Ridge Campground, located between Allenspark and Meeker Park at highway marker 14.  Elevation is 8350.

This national forest campground did not have electric hookups, water, dump station or Verizon service. There were pit toilets, firewood for sale, a camp host, garbage service, and bear lockers.  Coming in on the dirt road, the reservation loop was to the left, and the first come, first serve sites were to the right.  We arrived mid-morning on Tuesday, June 8th, and had several first come, first serve sites to choose from. The reservation loop was fully booked during our entire stay. By Thursday night, both loops were full for the rest of the weekend.  

Our campsite turned out to be a good choice, and we ended up staying for six days at $17.25/night.  There was enough solar for parts of the day to top off our battery

I would return again because it was an excellent base to explore Rocky Mountain National Park, the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests, and Estes Park.  Also, we had a moose visitor just beyond the fire ring.

Anniversary Camping

I have a very good wife. However, if it were not for the pandemic, we would probably celebrating our 32nd anniversary at a fine restaurant. A small silver lining, I guess. We are camped in southwestern Wisconsin at Gov. Dodge State Park for another mid-week adventure.

About a month has passed since our last state park campground, and I have to say that occupancy has significantly increased, even though it’s the middle of the week. Fortunately, the sites are large and well-spaced. We aren’t using any of the public shared spaces, although many people are using the bathrooms and showers.  

The weather is amazing in the kind of way that almost makes up for Wisconsin’s long winters: mid 70s during the day and 50s at night.

After a beautiful night by the campfire, we got up this morning for fresh-roasted Peruvian coffee made with a manual drip cone, followed by a big egg scramble and Julia-baked zucchini bread. Then we walked out of our campground and hit some beautiful uncrowded trails.

I haven’t been to this park in over thirty years, and I’m not sure why. I had the mistaken view that it was mostly flat and open. There are some beautiful restored prairies.

However, a lot of the park is heavily wooded and hilly. Our favorite trail is the Lost Canyon Trail, which leads to another side trail and to waterfalls.

We have a bunch of issues to work through with our adult children after this week’s escape. Getting caregivers for Justin to return to college is always a challenge, but we’ve hit a major roadblock at the moment. Allie has been pitching in as Justin’s primary caregiver, but she wants and needs to start her own life after graduating from college last December. 

For a few days, we will hike, have some good food/drink and enjoy each other’s company in the great outdoors.

Not Much, How About You?

I wish that I had something exciting to blog about. 

I've been puttering about the house mostly.  This week's big project was replacing a garbage disposal leaking from the bottom.  From my research, a disposal is pretty much burnt toast when that happens.  I watched some YouTube videos to see if it was a do-it-yourself and pretty much concluded that I would be calling a plumber on this one. 

Then I watched a video by this young woman named Sarah that convinced me that I could do it myself.  Honestly, she had the best video on this installation, although her language and enthusiasm might be a bit much for some.  Lots of people must agree on the video's value because she has almost 700,000 views, despite only a couple of thousand subscribers.

Anyway, with Sarah's help, it was a very quick job and easy swap out.  The broken disposal came out easily.  The new one went into place with more difficulty, but no leaks so far.  I'm not very handy, but YouTube is an amazing resource and a confidence builder. 

I also swapped out my shower pump in the Scamp, which stopped working after 19 years. 

Old Shurflow Pump

I couldn't find an exact replacement, but I found something that worked for about $40 on Amazon. 

I rarely use the shower, but I do take sponge baths with a bucket of water.  It's quite handy to pour the bucket of water over my head when done and have the pump take away the water to the gray tank.  Gravity would be preferable, but my Scamp wasn't designed that way, so it has a pump.

Yesterday, I took my usual walk out into the country during which I pass by some bees.

The first thing you might notice is how high the bee boxes are stacked. During the winter, they are stacked about four high. The beekeeper keeps adding boxes throughout the summer to give the bees room for expansion and honey production. 

We had a storm last night that rocked the bees' world. 

Dominoes

The bees in the toppled tower were understandably upset.

Other than that, we are just muddling around here in the fly-over state of Wisconsin, hoping that our tower doesn't topple.  If things don't get too bad, there will be a fall trip with the Scamp either north or west

A Few Days at Blue Mounds

Julia and I hitched up the Scamp on Wednesday, got our motors runnin' and headed out on the highway, looking for adventure and whatever came our way.  

Well, maybe not.  Wisconsin state parks require advanced reservations for camping this year.  We made prior arrangements at Blue Mounds State Park to spend a couple of days mid-week, before the crowds arrived for the July 4th weekend.  Blue Mounds is about an hour from our house.

Hazy Jane IPA

Things have been a little tense with the four adults (more or less) in our house, staring at each other for the last few months.  The real grown-ups had to get away to preserve sanity.  Allie and Justin were left to fend for themselves and defend the castle.  They did remarkably well, despite some challenges, and we appreciated the chance to get away for some safe down-time with nature and each other.

Campground check-in was touch-less.  The office was closed.  A sign directs campers to go directly to their campsite.  You can print a copy of your confirmation to put up on the site or show your phone if asked.  No one asked us for anything.  Aside from waving hi and thanks to the workers cleaning the bathrooms several times per day and spraying down the water spigots, there is no interaction with park personnel.  We brought our own water and bathroom, so things were touch-less there too.

The pool is closed.  The towers are closed.  The playground was closed.  Trails are open.  We hiked the park's trails and also strolled the Military Ridge Bike/Hike Trail which passes next to the state park. 

After a daily five mile hike early in the morning to beat the heat, we spent the afternoons and evenings at the campsite:  reading, cooking, drinking, and staring into the fire.  We tried to remember the last time we enjoyed a dinner inside a restaurant.  But mostly, we tried to stay in the moment and enjoy this respite from the current days. 

Reading a book by the fire

When we first arrived on Wednesday, the campground was about one-third full.  When we left this morning, things were just about filled up.  Camping mid-week seems like a good way to avoid the crowds.  Julia has changed her work schedule to allow more of these outings. 

Lincoln County, Wisconsin

Tonight, I am camped on my brother-in-law’s property on Long Lake. On the way up here, I checked out the dispersed camping situation on Horn Lake, which is northeast of Merrill. Unfortunately, there are only two places to camp at the end of the road. There were already three trailers squeezed into two sites. 

In any event, it doesn’t look like a good option when I leave here. Scott’s flat spot turned out to be very nice. I even have house electricity. Actually, it is an extension cord running from his outhouse, but I’m happy to have it. 

 

Going Camping

Wisconsin state park campgrounds officially open on June 10th at reduced capacity.  Camping is by reservation only, and check-in will be self-serve. 

I have a feeling that it will be almost impossible to get a reservation on weekends.  Also, the reservation fee on top of Wisconsin's fairly expensive camping fees doesn't make me to too excited to sign up.  But...I suspect that it will relieve some pressure on some of the other camping opportunities that should be opening up soon--National forest campgrounds. 

For this first trip of the summer, the plan is to camp on Julia's brother's property up north.  Scott has a cabin on a small lake not too far from Rhinelander.  We stayed there quite often when he was married and from time to time since his divorce, but I haven't been up there since buying the Scamp. He has a lot of lake frontage on a sloping lot. Scott assures me that he has a flat spot to park on.  I hope so.  I don't have any back-up plan. 

Julia will drive separately and meet me up there after she finishes work. After a couple of days, she will head home.  One of my goals is to scout out some potential dispersed sites and/or primitive primitive campgrounds on national forest and county forest land.  If that's successful, I'll stay a couple of days longer.

This week, we celebrated Allie's 23rd birthday. 

My sourdough bread turned out great.  I've been having trouble working with wet dough, and I found a technique that helps with that issue:  flouring the top of the dough, flipping it over, and then turning the sticky dough into itself for shaping.

The weather has turned hot, so Callie and I have moved our hikes to sunrise.

The warming up of the weather means that my farmer neighbor no longer needs steers in his barn to keep the water spigot from freezing. This time of year, he moves half of his animals across the road, putting them on a hillside at the end of my front yard.  I like having them around. 

It's a small farm, and this farmer is definitely "old school."  Davey is about 70 years old and works like a dog, due to broken down equipment and limited resources.  His 40 acres is either too hilly or too wet.  I've never heard him complain.  This is his retirement job after working years as a gravel truck driver.  He inherited the family property from his mother.

Summer’s Bounty

About five or six years ago, I planted six fruit trees:  three apple, two pear, and one cherry.  At the house before this one, I had some great luck with the apple trees planted on a hillside.  However, conditions here are different:  steeper terrain, clay soil,and more wildlife and insects.  I lost one apple tree after it was run over by the neighbor’s escaping steer.  The other two apple trees have had issues with late freezes and insects, producing pretty much nothing usable.  The pear trees, which were purchased because they were different types known to play well together, have never even flowered.  The cherry tree was eaten up by deer and then pruned poorly by me.

But this year has been different–at least, for the cherry tree.  We’ve already harvested 8 cups of cherries.  Julia also went to a local farmer and picked strawberries last weekend., along with her own rhubarb. We’ve been enjoying fruit, pies, and smoothies.  There’s something special about walking up the hill to the Scamp and stopping to pop a few ripe sour cherries in my mouth.

Speaking of the Scamp, modifications are coming along slowly but nicely.  The old smelly carpet is gone, and some nice gray vinyl plank is in its place.  Also, I installed vinyl wallboard on the space between the floor and the walls.  The installation is far from perfect, but it’s acceptable to an ex-lawyer with few construction skills.  Function over form is my motto. 

The bed was also ‘the subject of an upgrade.  When I bought the Scamp, the previous owners were using a three-inch foam pad on top of the original cushions.  I threw out the foam pad and stored the cushions, replacing them with eight inches of memory foam.  Much better!.  I have taken a few afternoon naps to test it out. I’ll take some photos when I get closer to completion.  The new dinette table, created by someone with infinitely greater skills, will be the focal piece of the remodeled interior.

The electrical system is still in the research phase.  I will definitely upgrade the battery before my September trip and probably buy an inverter for laptop use. I may put off some of the other electrical upgrades until I take my first extended trip and see what I am capable of producing/using in amps.

We are continuing to put together the pieces of Justin’s puzzle.  There are some caregivers lined up for his college summer school in July.  He is working on backups in case something goes wrong.  We’re taking two steps ahead for every step back, but that is better than the other way around.

If everything falls apart, I may be going to college as a caregiver and living in the Scamp for a month.  If everything holds together, Julia and I have a special trip planned.  Stay tuned.

Black River State Forest

The Black River Forest is 68,000 acres of public land in Jackson County, which is about 2 hours northwest of Madison, WI and two hours southeast of Minne-apolis, MN.  The area is home to wolves, bear, elk, wild turkey and other critters. I headed up there last Thursday night in the Frontier, pulling the Brew Hut.  It’s likely my last trip of the season.

The days are getting much shorter.  I arrived at Castle Mound campground a few minutes after 7 p.m., and it was pitch black.  I was nervous about towing the trailer for the first time in the dark and setting up in the dark also for the first time. Aside from four whitetail deer straddling the entrance road to the campground, I didn’t have any problems.  In fact, thanks to pull-through sites, I didn’t even have to back up the Brew Hut in the dark.

After self-registering and paying my fees through the envelope slot at the closed office, I hiked around in the dark through the campground loops.  There were only a couple of other campers.  Back at the Brew Hut, I unwound with a couple of Spaten Octoberfest lagers, ate some pepper jack cheese & crackers,  and read a few chapters of Game of Thrones.  The campground is fairly close to Hwy 12 and I-94 so there was some truck/road noise, but I slept well, waking up Friday to the sun starting to rise and temps in the 40’s

I decided to warm up with a hike instead of breakfast.  The Castle Mound Nature Trail is about a two-mile hike that includes some ups, some downs, and some very nice views of rock formations and forest.

A steep set of stairs leads to the observation deck, where, unfortunately, a wasp nest awaited.

An instant after I stepped from the last stair to the deck, several wasps landed on me.  A single sting to my left hand cut short my visit to the top.  I rarely get stung and was a bit ticked off at my luck.  I prefer a good cup of coffee for my morning wakeup.  Still, I managed the header photo and one more before hiking back down.

 
Some bacon,, eggs, hash browns (from scratch), and fresh brewed Dominican Republic coffee soothed my pain.

After breakfast, I hiked the Perry Creek mountain bike/hiking trail, which was an in/out trail of about 5 miles round trip.  The trail had been recently mowed and was in good shape.  I didn’t see a mountain bike the whole weekend or more than a handful of hikers for that matter.   On this hike, my only company was a hen turkey who was too lazy to get off the trail to escape from me.  She did seem to be annoyed that we were going the same way.

Dinner was tostadas with seasoned pork, cilantro and raw onions, washed down with an inexpensive red wine from Portugal. I found some firewood left by the previous occupant of my campsite for a nice bonfire to end the evening.