Ghosts of Weekends Past - Girls Get the heck out of Dodge

Time for the annual girl grab your bitch(es) and get the heck out of dodge trip.  Now if you know me and my main girl partner in crime, the steppie, you know that we generally disappear on a river or in the woods.   This time around it was checking out three state parks.  One of these we backpacked/camped at.  Alright let's get on with our travels.

 

First off for this trip we had three other girls join us on the excursion, L and her two daughters (A and K).  Oh and let's not forget that my other regular was along, the grumpy old man, Bullet.

 

 

On the way up we stopped at a wayside for some lunch and to check out the geological marker.  Yes, we were halfway to the north pole.

 

Stop numero uno was Peninsula State Park. According to Wikipedia, Peninsula State Park is the 3rd largest state park in Wisconsin with over 8 miles of Green Bay shoreline.  Our master plan here was to see the Eagle Bluff lighthouse and hike the Eagle Trail. Right after I promptly stopped to take a picture of the turtle xing sign.  Sadly there were no adorable turtles crossing the road that day.

 

 

We stopped at the Nature Center quickly before heading to the light house.

 

Visitors are able to tour Eagle Bluff Lighthouse to learn about the history of the lighthouse and some of the personal stories of the lighthouse keepers of the past.

 

Bullet and I by the wall next to the lighthouse that faces Green Bay.

 

Our next stop in Peninsula State Park was the Eagle Trail.

 

The trail is posted as difficult, which I would attribute to the steep climbs of the bluffs.  This trail runs along the Niagara Escarpment.  Here is the view from the top looking out towards Green Bay.

 

As we progressed down the trail, it reminded me quite a bit of the ledge park that is close to our home.  Now this completely makes sense since the ledge is also part of the Niagara escarpment.

 

 

 

 

After having some fun peeking in the caves that have been carved in the rocks, the trail takes you to the shoreline of Green Bay.  Here you are treated to some crystal clear waters.

 

If you notice boats stopping at the clearing in front of you while you are gazing at the water, I highly recommend that you turn around.  The views behind you are glorious too.

 

As nice as it would have been to climb this that was just not possible.  Instead though we found another ledge for my brave steppie to climb too.

 

And we figure that ledge area is about 20 feet in the air.  Basically only attempt if you are confident and brave.  Here are her pictures looking down and of the cave area.

 

 

After the little climbing adventure, we continued on the trail working our way back to the top.

 

Now as we began reaching the top, mother nature decided that we could use a shower after the hard work and it began to rain.  ok, let me rephrase that...it began to pour.  We opted to take the road and cut the hike short.  We made it to a shelter by eagle tower and hung out with a person on a pedal bike until the rain let up.  

 

After our little shower it was time to head out to state park number two and our base camp for the next two days....Newport State Park.

 

 

We breezed into the park just as the office was closing.  Thankfully the lovely lady stayed a bit longer to get us checked in plus give a little tip on a trail to take with the garden cart.  Even though this was a backpacking trip.  We stayed at a "walk in site" and were able to pull a garden cart. A garden cart let's you bring a few extras like wood to guarantee you get a campfire in the evening and a cooler with some ice for a cold beverage at camp. The site was about 1 3/4 miles in. 

 

 

The site just fit our two tents and had the perfect amount of shade.  A short walk away was a pit toilet that we shared with two other sites.  A little tip, when camping always bring toilet paper, you never know how bad the tp situation is going to be.  Now even though there were other sites in the vicinity, you could not see them nor hear the inhabitants of those sites.  A few more pictures of our little area...

 

Food storage boxes.  No bears, but there was supposedly raccoons and porcupines.  Knock on wood we did not see either nor have issues.  The nice lady at check in did inform me though that we should not leave anything out that is drenched in sweat either.  The porcupines at the park supposedly like the saltiness of the sweat and have messed with people's icky clothing that was left out.  Gross. 

 

Protector of the site.

 

Now another point was that this was a "waterfront" site.   We were rather saddened that we could not see the water from the site, but we were able to hear it.  There was a path behind one of the tents which appeared to lead to the shore.  It did, but the shoreline was thick with trees and we could only see the water coming up thru the rocks.   That was made up for though when we went looking for a geocache that was located on the point behind the sites.

 

Clear beautiful water again

 

And Gillian found the geocache.

 

Everyone had a blast playing on the rocks and watching the water there.  Bullet was like a mountain lion jumping around everywhere.  

 

We also took some time to spend at the beach in the park.

 

 

Sadly the shoreline was a little rocky here.  Then around lunch we realized that someone (me) forgot a lighter and we only had two options, hike back in or go to town.  We opted to head to town since they have ice cream there.

 

L scored some matches from Sister Bay Automotive and we had lunch in a little park area before taking a walk.   The city was Sister Bay and my Christmas list got really long....

 

No need to put them under the tree santa, just leave me some GPS coordinates where you parked it in Sister Bay and I will be ok.  Our timing was perfect as we walked the shore and just got back to the car before the rain hit.  Then of course, we found ice cream.  Amazing ice cream, which I have no pictures of due to a dying phone battery.  It was glorious though and that place has now been added to my must stop when in Door County list. Rest of the day was chilling and hanging by the campfire.

 

 

Our last day, after packing everything up and saying good bye to Newport beach, was spent at Whitefish Dunes state Park.  The path to the park had structures replicating times past. 

 

 

It was a nice little hike to the puppie beach area.

 

The water was clear the day was hot and everyone had so much fun playing in the water we didn't have much to show in the way of pictures.

Bullet did enjoy his swim and trying to chase other dogs toys that were thrown in the water.  We learned that we need to pack toys that Bullet can fetch out of the water.

 



 

My minion also found his people.  It was an intense battle, but he made it home to see another day....right along with the rest of us girls and old man.

 

Three days...three parks, and a ton of memories.

 

 

 





 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bubbling over

Oh hey there!  It's a Tuesday.  Master plan was for the long weekend post to be put up on the cyberweb. Clearly this will not be happening.  I was rather busy this morning booking one of my dream backpacking trips!!

Previous Backpacking Adventure Picture

 

My farmers almanac arrived the other day. Last night, I selected the perfect days.  This morning I started looking up the sites.  Then I basically pissed my pants when I found out each site was available for the day I needed(wanted) creating the perfect backpacking itinerary.

This will be the longest backpacking trip that I have taken.  I will be spending the next months educating my self on water filtration/sterilization in the back country, looking for some creative flavorful back country meals, and learning how not to make friends with bears.

I am so excited that the words on this page can not even give you a clear picture. 317 days and counting!!1

Ghosts of Weekends Past - Up North and Medieval Nonsensory

Wow, I got a major case of the summer lazy going on over here.  I just checked and the last post was a weekend one also, say what?!?  Not time to cry over spilled milk though, we will just move along.  This last weekend was a long one.  It started for me on a Tuesday.  Originally, we were suppose to go kayak camping for the first time ever, but uummm mother nature did not provide enough rain and I already had a backpacking trip scheduled, so we headed up north instead.

Tuesday, I took my sidekick, Bullet, and headed up ahead of everyone.  It was glorious being able to get settled before everyone arrived.

Wednesday morning, we had a beautiful quiet morning. I did some fun little crafting and then we went for little walk down the road.

My homemade camp sign. 

Beautiful flowers that I brought back from our little walk to grace camp with.

 

Wednesday afternoon the hubbie and steppie arrived.  Since we didn't have too much time before dinner, we went and checked out one of the lakes where we were thinking about putting in the jetskis.

Then dinner, with no pictures, was spaghetti.  A completely weird camp dinner, but it completely rocked.   It was prefect with fire warmed garlic bread. 

 

After dinner, we headed out to the ski show.  The show was free and you only paid $5 to park unless you had a county park pass.  It was put on by a local ski club. 

 

While each ski group was getting ready, they also had little skits going on to entertain the audience.

 

Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny made an appearance.  Oh Elmer Fudd still did not get the rabbit, but did get taken away by some little police officers.

Even cousin Eddie showed up for the party (that may have been one of my favorite parts, hilarious)

 

It was wonderful.  I believe we will go back again to check them out next year.  My Wednesday evening was completed by a little trip to the laundry mat after one of the dogs (Little Man) peed on the bed.  Guess who will be kenneled from this point forward...Little Man.

 

 

Now let me present to you the Laundromat story....

 

Searched my phone for a Laundromat or shall I say the address to the Laundromat, this is not our first time in which we had visited one here, the last being when our tent leaked. I was all excited because I recall that there was a shower there too.  Loaded everything up and headed the 10 miles to town to laundry mat.  Only to discover this one did not look familiar. Oh well a laundry mat is a laundry mat and we are not sleeping in a piss laden comforter.  

 

Then the moment hit where I felt like I was at wits end,  I was standing in this run down Laundromat where it seemed as if everything was marked out of order and there was no soap in the dispensers to purchase, now what. Thankfully an older guy, Tim, saw this look of utter defeat on my face.  He is like I am going to help you out.  Gives me laundry soap, dryer sheets, and helps get the machine going plus offers some tidbits related to the secret of the dryers at the place.  Of course while the laundry is going we small talk about pets, town talk aka the big golf course going in, and randomness.  The time passed rather quickly.  His laundry finished before mine.  I thanked him for all the help and generosity he showed me.  He in turn said, "no thank you for making me feel like I was able to do something good for someone today".   My reply was  your welcome, thank you again and have a great evening.  - The End -

 

Thursday morning was spent taking the kids to the dog park.  And there was no one in the little dog area, so they (we) were able to enjoy it without issue.

 

Bullet also got to go for an off leash walk/run in the big dog park.  He did fantastic.

 

Chuck, our happy little chiweenie.

 

After that excursion we dropped off the dogs at the trailer (kenneled little shit oops I mean man) and headed to the beach for some sunning and jet skiing.

 

There was also a moment where we had a genius idea, a willing teenager, and a raft (seen above) for this

 

Yeah, tied to a jet ski.  Well it worked for like 3 feet and the rafts rope broke. Probably for the best as the steppie said she was getting massive water spray. Crazy ideas and great stories.

 

In the evening back at camp we had a little craft time painting some garden gnomes.

 

And went for a walk to find this little creek that was down the road.  Now the steppie and I believe that there was some creepy animal stalking us around the creek area.  We also saw a deer on the way back to camp.

 

Friday found us back at the beach.  Early in the day though  we tried the puppie park only to find it was rather busy, so we attempted to take the dogs for a swim.  And Little Man can swim, yay!

 

We headed back to the beach,.  A rather windy day though.

 

With the wind, it gave us an excuse to go on a quest for a geocache that was located close to the beach.  It was a multi-cache. 

 

The first was micro-cache that contained the coordinates to the second cache.  Check out how tiny that was.

 

After a lovely walk on a trail in the woods next to a stream, we were able to find the second cache.

And our little minion managed to find himself a baby.

 

 

Then it was time to head back to camp, pack up and head home.

 

Saturday found us at the Renaissance Fair.  Now I am not sure what I expected, but it was not like what I was thinking and was kind of disappointed.  Basically, I felt like I paid $25 to go into an overpriced flea market.  We did see where they put on a joisting performance, but otherwise it just seemed like a pay to play this game or food stands.  Now the food was good though.  Here are some scenes from the day...

The tomato throwing was hilarious or should I say the guy who was getting the tomatoes thrown at him.

And our minion found himself another new friend....

We may need him to make better choices.

 

Our day ended having dinner at Texas Roadhouse and heading home.

 

Sunday, was the basic cleaning and getting ready for the week.  No water time since it was very windy and they kept saying storms.  I did manage to get the concrete cleaned at least.  And as always the closure to our weekend was a little family dinner...except this time we tried some backpacking food.

Not a very big hit with the family, well except the freeze dried eggs with Forest.  Those have always been his backpacking food jam.  And that brought to the end a very long, much needed weekend.