Smiles in Stanley

It was a forced trip for Merrick but he had fun in the end and a good time was had by all.  We headed out early and meet in the Stanley woods a little after 9 in the morning.  The goal was to find some diamond willow and after pounding the swamps for awhile B-rad took home enough to keep him busy in the new hobby.  By luck it was Grandprize's Bday and we had some shooting to do and even had him set of a big chunk of tannerite...to the amusement and even shock of us all.  The weather was amazing the sky was the bluebird sky you can only get in early spring.  

 

A little normal

 

Not Robins or Tulips but there are signs of life returning.  The kids are all back in school and Grace has hit the Basketball court again.  There has also been a strange resurgence of Wii Dance Party every evening in the living room, but such pictures aren't necessary.  Grace has also started archery club, and while she is enjoying it she certainly doesnt want me hanging around watching her...all antics made that abundantly clear to this curious sole.  The snow has had a slow melt and you can feel the the days getting longer.

 

Slope time

 

We are getting some snow and the polar vortex has moved off (apparently to create a mess in TX) so we sneaked off for a some slope runs in the UP.  An early morning drive with bluebird skies, crisp single-digit temps and a thermos of coffee.  Merrick and I hit Pine Mountain for some great skiing conditions.  Plenty of jumps, a few crashes and great day.  Merrick brought a friend and I was able to ski along with them sometimes...although I was not allowed to nap on the way home like they did.

Like the Pre-times

 

Send them back, Send them back.  The decisions were changing weekly and reevaluated every Monday night and in the end the kids have went back to school  It was a Back to School (version 2) morning and everyone is adjusting to the 5 day in person school schedules...and the morning shower and lunch making routines that had all but been forgotten over the past year.  But like most occurrence's, the more they change the more they stay the same.  The older two and slinging pizzas after school and Grace is Backing as often as she can....almost made literal "Lava Cakes" when the oven temperature probe stopped working and sent error code beeps and smoke into the kitchen.  She did nail a cake roll earlier in the week.  The dogs are taking the new schedule in stride, but they would prefer their people home during he day.

Marching with the Mammoth

 

Up before the rest I finished a book about Wrangle Island, the last foothold of the Wooly Mammoth and by the afternoon we were hiking along the Ice Age Trail.  The IAT is of course the yellow-blazed 1200 mile hiking trail that follows the southern most point of the Glaciers during the last ice age.  Four of us, the older two were busy, headed to the Eastern Terminus of the IAT in southern Door County.  Each journey starts with the first steps and we did a little left foot, right foot for the first few miles of the trail as it winds along the lake shore in Potawatomi State Park.  The ice was hanging off the cedars from the waves splash and I did find out that the shore ice wasn't able to hold my weight.  Only wet to the new it didn't slow us down at all.  Grace did point out "that I should have listened to mom" while shaking her head in teenage disgust at my actions.  We spent some time skipping rocks on the smoother portions of lake ice and listening to the cool sounds that emanated from our efforts.  The trail was pretty busy, but that is too be expected on a nice winter hiking day.  Our return trip was halted to watch two coast guard ice cutters bust up the ice in the channel.  On our way out of the park we even decided to swing into an Arby's for a quick bite, hadn't been there in over a decade and other than the curly fries we remembered why we had stopped going.

Early drives and late miles

 

Not terribly early but we hit the road about 7:30 am with a promise of a coffee stop for Grace that didn't happen until closer to 9.  We had about 4 hours of road time to log before reaching Copper Falls State Park.  The headwaters of the Bad River is a beautiful crashing water falls continuing to cut away at post ice age granite.  The temperatures were perfect winter walking and we even logged some steps on the North Country trail.  The day was still young and Amy loves Lake superior so...why not it is only another 40 minutes north so we headed to the great inland sea and played around in Ashland a bit before racking up the miles on hwy 2.  51 north, 8 and 2...not possible to be on these roads and not lead to an adventure.  With just short of 550 miles we were still home on the couch for a Packers win.  That is a quality way to spend a day.

tree and treats

The year keeps clippin' along.  We did head out and cut down the tree right after T-day and found a great little tree named Shawn.  It is a cut your own place in which each tree is named and you can only cut the trees that have been named...not sure if the owner is crazy or just a good business ploy.  The lights were put up and the tree was trimmed.  Herbie is officially on non-moving supervisor duty at this stage in the game. Talks are starting about sending kids back to school and I suspect by next month they will be back at least some of the time.  We did get some cookies made as well and it likely goes without saying but Grace made the dough ad it was some of the best cookies we have every had. There was corn startch in the dough and left really clean edges.  Ella was able to crank out a large number of lobster cookies.  Everyone has got much better and the decoration of the cookies