Hike 'em!

We headed out early on Monday morning making a congested drive down 41 and through Madison.  The view of the granite dome is still an impressive sight and worth a little extra traffic.  At any rate, this time we were only passing through the Capitol as we headed farther west to Gov. Dodge State Park to meet up the munkly Arky and the Bryan Clan.  The boys got there at the same time as we did and then it was time to camp, munkly Arky it turns out hadn't even left his house yet and he wouldn't show up until a great deal later.  We set up the tents and immediately headed out for a couple hour hike.  The park is beautiful and it was a nice topographical change to what we had become accoustomed to seeing.  The first night dinner basically took care of itself as we engaged in an age old event of stripping a wild plum tree of all its fruit.  In truth this time of year, there is little reason to pack any food as the woods is so bountiful.  We gorged on plums and Tuesday we supplemented the plums with black caps and couple not quite ripe apples.  Late in the day the call from "DuBecks" came in that she was on her way and it didn't take long to convince her to stay the whole trip as well.  The kids spent time practicing thier ax techniques by splitting pennies on a log, and riding thier bikes around the park and to the playground.  They also set up the screen tent and ate most of the snacks we packed while playing poker.  With campfires and smores to accompany the star filled sky we all rested quite peacefully, after the adults were reminded that quite hours start at 11.  Tuesday we headed out to find the Cave.  We bushwacked a trail behind our campsite down a 120 foot descent and then stated playing in driftless hills.  The cave was very cool, both literally and figuratively.  They kids had wisely planned ahead and brought flash lights so we could climb into a good sized cavern and check it out thoughly.  Our total changes in elevation were just over two thousand feet on that hike, thanks to the GPS recording and we returned with some calorie weakened legs.  We gorged on luch and slept off the lactic acid from the rapid hillside ascent back to camp.  Late afternoon we fished a bit and the kids continued to play in and around the campsite.  We chased around some coons in the early morning hours and after breaking camp we stopped for on more hike to a waterfalls.  It was cool, damp and bug free in the deep ravine into which the falls splashed.  A beautiful way to end a three day stay before making the long drive back home.  "We" did choose a different route to return by that took us through some beautiful rolling hills and old homesteads before a gas station lunch filled our bellies for the final push homeward.