Wisconsin

Well, here are the last of the updates from our great north country expedition with Gran and Papa. After leaving the Upper Peninsula, we headed into northern Wisconsin and camped for about 4 days near Hayward, WI. You may not have heard of Hayward, but this turns out to be the place where the international lumberjack competition is held every year. Also close by is the scenic Chippewa Flowage, where we camped for a couple of nights. I think this campground was universally agreed upon by us to be the best pace we stayed on our trip. We had a nice wooded campsite with a backyard....

and blackberry bushes!!!!

They also had a nice visitor lodge where you could rent Italian bikes. (We told our friends from Italy about this and they assured us that people do not actually ride these things in Italy).

You could also rent boats for $35 a day.  Here's Maggie on her first motor boat ride.

It's hard to see, but there is actually a bald eagle in this picture.  I'll try to find a better one.  It was hanging around one of the islands near our campsite.

The boat rental gave dad and I some time to fish.  The first day we caught a few small fish trolling, including a walleye and a small mouth bass.  We later found out that trolling is illegal in most of Wisconsin.  I have still not figured out why they have this law, other than to give cheap tickets to people form out of state.  Here was the big catch from the second day.  Look at the excitement on dad's face.

We didn't get many fish the second day, but it was a nice evening and we took some cool pictures.  Here are some geese flying low over the water.

Here's El Capitan workin the 8 horse.

Finally, here are some great sunset pictures we took on our way back to the campsite.

I have a few more pictures from Wisconsin that I'll post in a couple of days.

Opening Day of Dove Season

Well, I didn't know what to expect on my first Illinois dove hunt. My friend Alex and I met another friend at Moraine View State Park and wildlife management area, about 30 miles east of Champaign. On the first 5 days of the season, you can only hunt doves from 12 - 5 PM, and you have to request a spot to hunt (at least at he place we were hunting). One of the guys with us had hunted there before, so he picked us a spot with a nice big sunflower field surrounded by nice trees. We picked a line of trees to hunt that was sandwiched between two sunflower fields.  I brought a fishing poll just in case we didn't see any doves.  As it turned out, I didn't need it (vide infra).

The remnants of hurricane Isaac were moving through the area on that day, but we didn't get much violent weather. Instead, it was turbulent, windy, and drizzly all day. Apparently, doves love that sort of weather, because we saw hundreds and hundreds of doves.  HUNDREDS OF DOVES. However, only about 500 of them flew within shooting range. I shot my limit and most of my friend's limit within about 2 hours.  I was a little rusty, though - it took me a little more than 2 boxes of shells to shoot 25 doves. At about 3 PM, the doves really started flying. There were several different times when there was well over a hundred doves flying over the field we were hunting.

My friend Alex shot these pictures while we were leaving. Had we been a little more lawless, we could have easily filled a substantial portion of my truck bed with doves. It kind of reminds me of those old pictures you see of guys with hundreds of dead passenger pigeons.

That night, I plucked them all whole. The following night I pot roasted them, and by 3 nights later, they were gone.

1st gymnastics class

Interruption of vacation blogging

Maggie started school a couple of weeks ago. This is her first preschool class and their main focus this year is learning to be more independent. Here she is walking with her Dad to class on the first day. The lead instructor was her old toddler instructor, so she was already familiar with her elders.

She will continue to enjoy ballet and gymnastics this Fall. More extracurricular activities = less drugs.....right???? Last, here is Maggie being wild on our bed.

Tahquamenon Falls, MI

Before leaving the Upper Peninsula, we took a short drive from the Newberry KOA to Tahquamenon Falls. It was a nice little state park with a couple of easy hiking trails that led to the upper and lower falls.

The upper falls were pretty cool.....

...but Maggie wasn't too impressed.

Here's Maggie chilling out by the campfire at the Newberry KOA.

Finally, on our way out of the UP, we stopped at a gas station in Ironwood, MI. Next to the pumps was a little pond and a park. I tossed a panther martin in there and look what I caught!

(It's a northern pike, in case you couldn't tell). In a few days, I'll finish off our vacation blogging with some lovely pictures of our exploits in Northern Wisconsin, including our stay on the awesome Chippewa Flowage. Also on the horizon: Opening Day of Dove Season in Illinois.