A Little Trip on the Chip

Again this weekend, by choice, we were able to live outdoors.  Spent a couple hours on Friday afternoon hiking through the hunting woods.  It is of course a tangle of briars and low brush this time of year but it made economic sense to stop.  We were headed to EC for a canoe trip and I wanted to set some stands before the bow season started so rather than drive back and forth twice we just included the EC forest in this trip as well.  It did make for a longer drive but the kids enjoyed the short hike.  We were really dressed wrong in shorts and flip-flops and after about a hike of slowly picking our way through the berry bushes, tag alders and prickly ash, we had all had enough and it was time to head to the car.  The woods was very thick and Sophia said she only liked that woods in the Winter and Merrick didn't want to go back until everything was dead.  We will be back in October and I think they will both enjoy it as much as they have in years past.    I did take the kids through the old neighborhood showing them all the places I did stupid kid things and stopped into visit the Great-grandparents as well.  Everybody walked away with a loaf of banana/zuchinni bread appropriate for their size. We were able to go out to eat with Grandma when we arrived and then had a pretty chill evening and morning before heading to the dark waters of the Chippewa River.  The ladies of the families dropped us off at Hobbs with three deer watching from the opposite shore and we headed down river.  The kids were excited to do everything at once and after about 6 minutes in the canoe they started asking when we were going to get out and camp.  We pushed on for several more hours and didn't make camp until around 5ish, stopping along the way to play on some smaller islands and scout for descent place to camp.  We passed up several below par camping areas before settling on a large island and a great site.  We think the island is called Pasture Island.  With camp set and the kids off exploring and making forts supper was started and wood was gathered.  We watched the sun set and the rain clouds move in but as the day disappeared we did play about an hour of "Telephone" around the fire which lead to breathy giggling whispers in everyones ears and some of the best campfire entertainment that I have had in a very long time.  The kids were exhausted and went to sleep with the start of the rain and slept until almost 8 the next morning.  We stayed dry and warm and slept as well as anyone sleeps on the ground.  Sophia did wake up once and ask what that sound was, our tent was only 15 feet from Grandpa's tent and his snoring was clearly audible.  When I told her it the noise was grandpa snoring she snuggled back into her bag says that the bears would get him first.  After a leisurely morning of coffee and breakfast and slowly packing up we again hit the water and headed downstream.  We had been seeing eagles and herons but this morning we also saw two golden eagles.  Merrick caught good size bass while in grandpa's canoe.  Ollie and Evan munched on black licorice in my canoe while Jake fished like crazy in Brad's canoe.  Jake's persistence paid off and he too landed a small mouth bass.  We hit Caryville just a little before Becky and Mom pulled in with the shuttle vehicles.  We pulled back into the real world, with dirty hands and faces, puffy faces and swollen eyes, some new scrapes, scratches (and a bear tick that would also drive back to GB) and more memories of the commoraderie and  beauty of outdoor living.  (**All photo credits go to Brad, as I remembered my camera but not to charge the batteries).

3 Seasons in a Day

For the second year in a row, August has the feel of September after scorching July temps.  These are wonderful days, in which the mornings are cool and damp like spring and the summer sun heats the midday and gives way to evenings of fall that are dry and cool.  It has been an adventurous week, but with the return of school just around the corner it also seems that we are repeating some of the activities from earlier in the summer.  The changing seasons are beneficial in that it also allows us to change up our outdoor activities as the seasons dictate.  The rollerblades have been seeing a lot of attention for really the first time all year, and we did a combination rollerblade trip and geocaching excursion early in the week.  The 'treasure' was along a portion of the East River trail on a portion called the Bellevue Arboretum.  There are over a hundred different species of trees planted along this portion of the route and yet strangle the treasure was hidden under a large invasive buckthorn and even some really old barbed wire fencing apparently tossed in for good measure.  At any rate it was a nice way to spend a late morning and after lunch it was clearly time for a nap.  Neither kid was convinced that they needed a nap, even after they awoke nearly 2 hours later.  It is Shark Week as well, and this is the first year in many that we didn't make hats or even watch many of the new shows, we did head back to the Botanical Garden again.  We handed been there since the spring and I am always amazed at how beautiful it is as well as how much the grounds continues to grow.  It has become almost too large for a single day wandering and yet they continue to push back farther into the woods and cultivate and sculpt the landscape.  The kids watered the topiaries and ran through the maze near the the koi. Even made use of the new Hobbit inspired restroom built into the side of a hill with large round doors.  The fantasy continued with a trip to the Fairy Gardens.  Sophia, and I admit myself as well, became quite hooked on the idea of creating a fairy garden here at home.  So we spent the better part of a morning working with small herb plants to cultivate a large terracota pot on the patio into some fairy real estate. We did spend some time researching which plants would be best suited for their magical properties or at least warding off evil spirits. We have a lazy morning planned and then will head to the EC county forest for a short hike to check on some deer stands and then push on for some canoeing and camping on the Chippewa river.  It will be the kids first overnight canoe trip and I am hoping to hook them and have them hook a couple of fish.

Honey Badger Don't Care! or Up Nort' at Hub's Hotel

 
 

The dust is just begging to settle and the laundry is almost done after more than a week in Minong.  We rented a cabin with the Bryan clan and put on our relaxation faces.  The weather was great all week on the Flowage and everyone had a great time. The first couple of days were filled with fishing, swimming, canoing , paddleboating, campfires and smores.  Everybody was catching fish of some kind or another, there were plenty of sunnies and bluegills as well as a nicely colored pumpkinseed and a walleye, redhorse and northern tossed in for good measure.  To that we added a couple more species on long distance catch and release, but we did cook up the panfish one morning for second breakfast and everyone was able to get a little. The kids were able to swim all around the dock area as well as walk out to an island and swim on the sandy beach there as well.  We did take the canoe in tow behind the 9.9 horse to the big sand island but we didn't stay long as it was also used as a depository for all of the pontoon boat dogs and quickly headed back to our own little beach on the flowage. The rid to and from the big island however was an absolute gigglefest as Brad pulled the canoe at speeds never reached by paddle alone.  With me in the back of the canoe and Sophia in the front, I am pretty sure that only the back half of the canoe was in the water.  We were able to hike on a nice loop not far from the cabin and had regular morning and evening hikes and the loose sand was great for tracking, and we even found some very fresh bear tracks meandering on the same route as we had chosen in search of the last straggling summer berries before the hazelnuts come into harvest. The kids were able to arrive at Pogo's in the boat and Merrick and Ollie kept us safe from any shoreline ambushes as they guard our water craft with their dollar store guns and enough imagination to turn our boat into the PT-109.  They did get a kick out of going to and from the restaurant in the boat, although some of that may have been overshadowed by the adults hemoraging dollars to feed the video games and temporary tattoo station.  We did do a couple of day trips, once to Hayward and once to Duluth.  Hayward mostly to break up the week and a candy store and wilderness walk excursion are a requirement when in the flowage area.  While DuBecks was reminding her kids to stay on the trail at Wilderness so we didn't get kicked out I did notice over her sholder that Merrick was evacuating his bladder on the backside of an animal cage. It was a hilarious juxtapostion but it did remind me that I need to remind him that sometimes outside is still public. By the end to the trip I think all of the boys had found a tree somewhere to claim as their own. He did much better at the "Big Muskie Museum," also mostly outside, and asked me "is this public?" I quickly grabbed his hand and headed for an 'indoor shrub."  The kids were able to fish in a small pound under the musky with cane poles catching some blue gills and we toured the old boats, old fishing lures and prompted by a pair of strange anatomically correct big foot statues we also made up a new song that isn't fit to print but was sung by the kids with plenty of laughing. A little lunch at the Angry Minnow, with an angry waitress and it was a quick pass through the candy shop and time to head "home."  We ended up in Duluth because it was a cool, rainy Saturday morning and we weren't quite ready for the vacation to end.  The weather became increasing nicer while we were in Duluth until it turned into the weather pattern we have come to expect this year.  We stopped at Pattison State Park on the way up and hiked back to look at the impressive waterfall.  In Duluth we had a nice picnic at Leaf Erickson park and then played in the waves and looked for rocks along the Lake Superior shoreline. It was the kind of vacation where the days bleed together and the kids think it is only Tuesday when sadly it is Friday.  In that time the kids became pretty adept in the water and took the paddle boat out several times to use it as a diving platform.  With all five of them on the paddle boat on a windy afternoon there was apparently enough squabbling about where to place the anchor that Merrick dove off the boat.  The adults were on shore and I heard the kids hollering at Merrick to come back.  With his life jacket on I watched him swim about 250 feet to the island and then walk back across to shore, about a 10 minute trip for him.  When he got to shore I asked him what he was doing, he simply replied "I couldn't take it anymore, I had to get out of there!"