Due North!

Tim and I just returned from a little escape to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  I have been to the U.P. before, but wasn't there long enough, nor was I quite mature enough to understand the true beauty that the U.P. has.  Where we went was a very northern area of the U.P. - the Keweenaw Peninsula.  It was just amazing!  Pretty much the entire time we were there it was snowing, but it was a light, gentle snow fall - lake effect.  The peninsula has Lake Superior on the west, north, and east side.  We spent time outdoor snowshoeing as well as spending time in the Houghton/Hancock area.  My favorite areas that we visited was the north west and north east side of the peninsula.  It was so beautiful!  Since the population is smaller, taking in the scenery was easy...we didn't have to fight for a picture, and we rarely crossed paths with other people on the road. When we did, they were locals and usually raised their hand to wave.  Some day, when we achieve our dream of having a homestead, we would like to make it in the northwoods (WI or MI).  The Keweenaw Peninsula was surely a fit for our goals. To the right are some pictures from our travels of the Lake Superior area.  Our trip was the perfect scenery of snow, trees, water, and peace.  -L

Our Vacation Photos

Since we have so many vacation photos,  I figured I'd post them online so all can see.  Please visit our Minnesota Photo site for the opportunity to see most of the photos we took.   minnesotareitz.shutterfly.com  Enjoy!  Here are a few of my favorites as teasers! 

Day Eight - Goodbye Minnesota, Hello Wisconsin!

On Saturday, we packed up on were on the road by 9am.  We were sad to be leaving our vacation, but we had a great time!  The place we stayed was a fine retreat while we weren't on the road.  The 8 state parks we visited were great!  Here is the list in order of visit.

1. Crow Wing State Park
2. Itasca State Park
3. Lake Bemidji State Park
4. Mille Lacs Kathio State Park
5. Carlos Lake State Park
6. Glacial Lakes State Park
7. Charles Lindberg State Park
8. Buffalo River State Park

We are pretty sure we visited more State Parks in Minnesota than what we've visited in Wisconsin!  We feel one of our plans will be to get a Yearly Permit for WI State Parks in 2009 and start going to those.  I can't say enough about how much I learned visiting the Minnesota state parks as well are how enjoyable it was to be outside, getting exercise, and being able to do so with our dogs.

One of the things we enjoyed most about our vacation is that the places we visited felt like there were reserved just for us!  We rarely saw other people in the parks, and all other places were not crowded.  We visited many nice antique shops and 2 used book stores.  We also got a sense of local personality and flair at local restaurants (non-chain).  Since over the past 3 married years, and year prior to being married we've done some good regional traveling (and Honduras for honeymoon) we plan to get a wall map of the U.S. so we can start pinning where we have been.  Each trip we take we bank more great memories and learn more about how we like to travel and what we like to do.  We are blessed to have each other, our dogs, a reliable car that gets us around, and the financial ability to do our traveling (although we are frugal about it!).  I'm already thinking about where we could go next!

Day Seven - Minnesota Trip

Friday was the final day of our trip where we are actually vacationing, rather than traveling home.   It's also Tim's Birthday!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY TIM! We hit our last State Park (#8) on our way to our final destination - Fargo, ND!  The State Park we visited was Buffalo River State Park.  We really enjoyed this park, it ranked at the top of both Tim and my favorite's list.  This is the first park where there was no lake, just river.  We did a mile walk or so with the dogs on an interpretive trail, learning about the geography of the river.  The other unique feature about this park is the prairie, which we didn't really see too much of in past parks.  It was interesting driving out toward Fargo because we watched the land flatten out right before us!  We spent an hour or more at the park and then hit the road again to North Dakota.  

I have never been this far west by car before, so it was cool to be able to travel to both Minnesota and North Dakota during our trip.  We crossed the Red River of the North into Fargo and drove out to West Fargo (yes, Fargo is actually big enough to have a WEST Fargo!).  Here we went to Bonanzaville!  I guess this whole time I misunderstood what a Bonanza was.  I thought it had something to do with the Wild wild west, but a bonanza is actually a farm that is over 3,000 acres.  We toured a museum where we learned about the history of the bonanzas in Cass County, North Dakota and then toured many of the preserved buildings from that time.  We were the only ones there, so it was pretty cool to have the entire place to ourselves!  We learned a lot about how the railroad was an important part of farming back then.  We also found out that Fargo, ND is named after the Fargo of Wells & Fargo.  The history was remarkable.  I love imagining how life would have been back then.  What a different time from now for folks of all walks of life!  It was interesting to learn some of how women kept the home back then.  We spent several hours at Bonanzaville and were really hungry afterwards so we drove into Fargo headed toward our next destination when we stumbled across a restaurant called Space Aliens, Bar and Grill.  Fargo is indeed a strange place now that I've seen this.  We decided to eat there.  It was like a TGIFriday's with a space theme.  Food was great too!  We left with our bellies full to the Fargo Walk of Fame.  Can you imagine on even exists?  Well, it does, it's on display at the visitors center.  Musicians like Metallica to celebrities like Dr. Ruth have their signatures on the Fargo Walk of Fame.  It's probably as close as we'll get to seeing the Hollywood one, so I  was satisfied :)  

We left to take the dogs down to the city park by the Red River of the North.  We haven't figured out why yet, but the river was severely flooded.  It didn't look like the surrounding neighborhoods were affected, but at least half the park was underwater.  We walked the dogs around for a while and looked at the flooded area.  Since it was a long day and we had about a 2 hour trip back we went on our way.  We left going through Moorhead, MN which is just across the river from Fargo.  That night we had dinner at the rental and watched one of my favorite movies that I haven't seen in a long time - What's Eating Gilbert Grape?  It was a great trip, ending all too soon!  

Day Six – Minnesota Trip

Our vacation is coming to an end too soon.  I am surely not ready to leave in 2 days.  Today was another fun day!  We visited three more state parks in the area.  First we headed to Carlos Lake State Park.  The fall colors are disappearing now, but the park was still beautiful.  We are feeling all the additional exercise we’ve had in the past days in our legs now.  When we were walking, I just didn’t feel as “robust” about it.  Since we’ve had more exercise than usual over the past 4-5 days, it doesn’t surprise me that we are feeling this way! 

After Carlos Lake State Park we went into Alexandria, MN.  We went through the downtown area which seems to be thriving.  We got lunch and then had enough time to check out a used book store (which of course we found 3 books!) and also stopped at a large antique store.  We left and went on our way to Glacial Lakes Park.  Along the way we noticed an extreme change in geography.  We went from flat roads, lined with hardwoods and pines and sandy soil to rolling hills, black top soil, and more farm field than trees.  We learned at Glacial Lakes State Park that we were in an area that was created by glaciers that came down out of the north a hundreds of thousands of years ago.  I learned the difference between a kettle and a kame and how they were created.   Although the lesson was interesting, this park was just okay.  We left, got ice cream cones from Dairy Queen (circa 1956) in Starbuck, MN and headed to our third stop, Charles Lindberg State Park.

 Along the way we went through Sauk Centre, MN where we saw a clock shop.  As many know, we have a cuckoo clock and Tim has found himself interested in cuckoo’s since we bought that one (on our 1 year anniversary oddly) so we quick stopped  at this clock shop.  Upon entering we found the clockmaker/repairman and a room full of clocks, clock parts, tools, etc.  We talked to the clock man for some time and found out that some of the clocks he handcarved, one was selling for $10,000! (It was about the size of a grandfather clock.) He took us into another room with many more clocks…it was his living room, the shop was part of his house.  It was interesting to talk to him, however we didn’t buy.  We went on our way to Lindberg State Park where we hiked some more and saw Lindberg’s home.  We were pretty tired, so we came back to the rental had dinner and are watching “The Office.”  Tomorrow will be the final adventures of our trip – we are going out to Fargo! 

Day Five – Minnesota Trip

Today, October 15^th is our 3 year Wedding Anniversary!  We started the day at The Shanty, which is a coffee shop in Pillager about 10 minutes down the road.  Since we were supposed to but don’t have access to the internet at our rental, we thought we should probably get over to the coffee house for free Wi-Fi to check e-mail.  We got breakfast there and sat on the comfy couches and got caught up on e-mail and posted some Day 1 – 3 on this blog.  Afterwards, we drove out to Mille Lacs Kathio State Park where we walked through areas where archeologists have recovered Indian villages and homesteads from the 1800’s.  We also saw the Rum River. 

The morning was cold and overcast so we were moving quickly on our walk to stay warm.  We headed out to Crosby, where much antique shopping was to be had.  I think on two blocks there were about 6 antique shops.  We were in 4, since the other two were open.  Although we didn’t find anything to buy, as always the antiquing was interesting!  By then we had worked up a heck of an appetite, so we headed back toward the rental and ate at Poncho and Lefty’s, a tex-mex, Mexican style restaurant.  The food was very good.  We took a moment to go to Crow Wing State Park down the road since we already had our $5 day pass and then went back to the rental.  We fed the dogs and went for a walk down the dead-end road our rental is on.  Since we’ve been doing so much activity outside, we came back to relax.  We watched the final presidential debate and will be in bed soon.  The dogs are completely sacked out.  Maybe, just maybe they will sleep in tomorrow. On Day 5 we plan to go to 2 or 3 more State Parks.  I’m pumped! 

Day Four - Minnesota Trip

On Day Four (postdated) we spent the most rewarding $5 ever, and we’re going to do it again!  A daily pass to the State Park system in MN is $5 and on Day 4 we went to two wonderful State Parks.  We left our rental around 8am and headed north to Itasca State Park.  Since State Parks allow dogs, they came with (in fact, they were with us the majority of the trip except yesterday). I had never heard of Itasca until I read about it in our travel book I am borrowing from the library.  Itasca State Park is home of the headwaters of the Mississippi River.  The park is a massive 32,690 acres (2^nd largest in MN).  We spent a while walking around and observing the humble beginnings of the Mississippi River.  There was a part that is about 8 feet across where you can walk down steps and walk right through the Mississippi River.  If it wasn’t so cold out, we would have done it, but we reached down and put our hands in the water and it was to cold to be walking through barefoot!  After leaving the headwaters, we took a 10-mile Wilderness drive. I’ve uploaded a video so you can take the drive with us.  It’s a minute of footage from the drive. (Find it below, turn volume down since the sound is WIND mostly.)  Along the way we stopped and took a one-mile walk out to a bay area of Lake Itasca.  The walk was serene and calming.  The leaves were bright to our eyes and crunching under our feet.  The air was cool and crisp.   After walking back and getting back in the car we finished the 10-mile Wilderness drive, stopping along the way to see the largest white pine in Minnesota. 

We spent a lot of time at Itasca State Park, so we had to get on our way to our next stop…Bemidji.  Now, the reason we ended up in Bemidji is because I wanted to go since I heard of it when we were in Red Wing a few months ago.  I thought Bemidji was a funny name and worth checking out J  We turned the GPS to “shortest distance” rather than “fastest route” and took a very scenic tour of the countryside on the way to Bemidji.  I think on day four we saw more bald eagles than ever before. We made our way into Bemidji, quick stopping for lunch, and then heading to Bemidji State Park.  Bemidji as a community didn’t seem very impressive; however we were just driving through.  We got to Bemidji State Park which lies on the north shore of Lake Bemidji.  We got a map of the park and the lady at the park office recommended that we take the “bog walk.”  I am so glad she did, it was a great hike.  We parked and headed out on what we thought was going to be hike one-mile each direction.  It seemed like we had been walking for sometime before reaching the bog, so we looked at the map again, realizing it was 2-miles in and 2-miles out.  The trail we were on was an interpretive trail, meaning that it was designed to be educational.  We learned about the history and geography of the area we were walking through.  Besides the scenery being magnificent, I believe the educational experience was even greater (at least for me).  We continued on our trip and reached the tamarack bog and finally Bog Lake.  The bog was wonderful and we saw many unique flora features, including the carnivorous Pitcher Plant (picture on right).  By the end of Day 4 I felt so impressed by the State Parks in Minnesota I wanted to see more.  I can’t believe that it was only $5 to help support this magnificent park system where we got fresh air, exercise, and a learning experience - all this and we got to have our dogs with us!  By Day 4 we’ve seen 3 Minnesota State Parks.  What a great day it was!  Upon getting home we were tired and so were the dogs.  The moment I hit the pillow and shut my eyes, I was out.

Also on Tuesday, my bestfriend Jen and her husband Don welcomed their baby daughter into the world!  I totally had a sneaking suspicion that she would have the baby while we are gone, and sure enough, that’s how it happened.  Congrats to Jen and Don!  We can’t wait to see them and baby when we get home!

Day Three - Minnesota Trip

Day 3 (post dated) - Monday we went to Little Falls, MN. It was about 30 minute drive South of where we are staying. Little Falls is the home of Charles Lindberg. We didn’t explore much about that; we were busier doing other things. First we say an outdoor mural painted on the side of an old building. Then we headed to a local antique shop. We found a couple of cool things there and everything over $10 was 20% off. After the antique shop we went to Maple Grove Park. It is a park next to the falls, which is actually an operating dam. Since I was expecting natural falls, it was a bit  disappointing, but beautiful fall foliage nonetheless. We then traveled just south of Little Falls to an area off the beaten path. The place was called Blanchard Dam. Supposedly you can find incredible rare and expensive rocks there so we went looking. We didn’t find any of the rare rocks, but it was beautiful! Both damns are on the Mississippi river. We have encountered the Mississippi river many times along the trip. It is quite winding up here in North central Minnesota. After this we grabbed a bit to eat at a place called Royal diner (wouldn’t recommend it) and then headed over to the Pine Grove Zoo. By now the weather had improved a bit. It was raining all morning and now the rain had stopped and the sun was coming out. At the zoo, we were the only people there! It was great! All the animals were active and we got to see some animals in action or up close more than most zoos. Although the zoo was small, I think it was one of the best times I’ve had at a zoo. We spent a good amount of time by two bears that were playing and very photogenic! 

After the zoo we went back home, picked up the dogs, and went to our first State Park on the tour. Crow Wing State Park. We went back to an area where they had a historical trail. It was a learning experience I didn’t expect. Where we were standing was once an Indian village and then became a major hub in historic Minnesota. The town was called Crow Wing.  The place we were was where the Crow Wing River met up with the Mississippi River. There was a combination of Pine forest, hardwood forest and prairie in this small area. We walked around for a while and then checked out different areas of the park including the Chippewa lookout. Wow! We are definitely here during the right time of the year. The views are spectacular!

Day Two - Minnesota Trip

Day Two (postdated) - The morning started out early with the dogs waking up. Of course, once they were up, I couldn’t fall back asleep! I feel that this is a sign of age…I don’t have the sleeping habits nearly like I used too. Seems like I’m more of an early riser now. I stayed up and put together breakfast. At the rental, we are supposed to have Wi-Fi, but no network is being found on the computer. The recipe for the breakfast casserole is on the internet, so without access I was doing it on a whim. I thought it turned out tasty, but I must have had the cook temperature not quite right because it took forever! We called the owner (who happens to live across the street) and she came down, but the Wi-Fi situation hasn’t been fixed yet. (I’ve post dated this blog.) Monday she’ll be calling the provider to see what can be done.

In the meantime we drove into Baxter and found a Starbucks where it said they had Wi-Fi. After ordering a drink we found out that we actually had to buy a gift card for a minimum of $5, register it with Starbucks, register it with AT&T and then we get 2hours of Wi-Fi at Starbucks free each day. After this whole ordeal, we found out that Culvers offers Wi-Fi for free. Damn! But, the good news is that I managed to get online and copy/paste the recipes I had planned from the net to a word .doc. It has been raining on an off all day so we decided to stop at the Tourism Center and pickup some tourist stuff.

  Then we visited an antique shop in Pillager. We didn’t find anything of interest to buy, but we did get a good story about the store. The owner saw me taking a picture of the outside and asked why. “For our vacation album.” She explained to me that we were standing in the oldest building in Pillager, built in the early 1900’s. Some of the shelving in it was original. It was interesting to think of the history of the building, and that some of the “antiques” she was selling may have been sold in that same store as new items. Today we lay low as the Packer game was on and it’s raining quite heavy now. Seems that the rain will keep up through tomorrow and then let up. Sounds like I might have the opportunity to read more of my book! Time to make dinner. –L

Day One - Minnesota Trip

Day One (postdated) was a day of travels. We started out at 7:20 a.m. leaving home. About 3 hours later we arrived at Roxie and Doug’s. We were just there 2 weeks ago. It’s a little funny how patterns of seeing people tends to be either feast of famine. You know, how you don’t see someone for a year, and then the next month you see them repeatedly? Strange how that happens. We were just stopping there to drop off our mouse, Alice. Someone had to take care of her for the week and they didn’t mind. We stayed for about 1 hour to run the dogs around and also steal some yummies out of their garden! Carrots and an onion, and a large jar of freshly pressed apple cider. Delish!

We set off for the rest of our ride, about 4 hours or so to our final destination. Pillager, MN. Prior to this trip, we had never heard of it, but it seemed like a nice place to go so we booked a vacation rental for a week during our anniversary and Tim’s birthday. The drive seemed long…and a bit frustrating. The road we were on was a highway with stop lights. Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, but they’d get you going up to 60mph for about 3 miles and then there would be stoplights. Probably not very good for the gas mileage. We arrived finally to our home for the week, a small stucco home on 40 acres.

During the ride up, the tree colors seemed to be transforming from greens to reds, oranges and yellows right before our eyes. It was very beautiful most of the time except where there where patches of conifers or what looked to be some sort of oak tree that was neither green nor leafless, but some mundane shade of tan/brown. Later in the day the rain came in. Since we were tired from traveling all day, we went to the grocery store to stock up (I pre-planned some meals) and just decided on a low effort meal for the evening. Pizza. When we arrived back we ate and got comfortable on the couch with a movie. Tim fell asleep around 8:30. I stayed up and watched the movie (“88 Minutes”, it was horrible). I was a bit restless so I stayed up and read for a while. My goal is to finish this book and start and possibly finish another by the end of our vacation. This book has about 300 more pages, so to start and finish another after this may be a bit lofty goal. We’ll see. By 11, the bed was too comfortable so off to sleep I went. –L

Red Wing Continued...

Our weekend in Red Wing was a short 2-nights, 3 days.    On day two we did some of the best vacation exploring that we could have done.  We also had more physical activity in 12 hours than cumulatively in the last 30 days!  The morning started out by going to a State Park just 1/2 mile down the road.  We checked in at the ranger office and then followed her suggestion to head up to the bluff were there was a beautiful overlook and some trails.  We spent some time at the overlook which was indeed beautiful and then took a brief walk on the bluff trail.  Since we were on the trail for some time and we were going down down down on steps, we decided it to be best to turn around and head back up before we went too far down.  After we reached the top we drove back down to an area not in the park, but just down the road.  It was called the boardwalk, you can see why in the picture.  It was so cool.  It was about a mile out to the cove it took us too and it was a pretty cool walk!  There were cool frogs, unknown wildflowers, and some beautiful, huge trees! When we got to the cove, it was a light colored sandy beach with a slight tide coming in.  There were several boats out on Lake Pepin, be we were the only ones on the beach.  It was fun!  We took the mile hike back and then headed into Red Wing.  

We were a bit disappointed by the shopping and dining choices in Red Wing.  The shops all had tourist prices on their product, and the dining areas were all kitschy overpriced cafe and coffee shops.  We decided to eat at a pub - hey, we are from Wisconsin!  The food was good and hit the spot after all our activity in the morning.  At the Staghead - I enjoyed an excellent burger topped with Gorgonzola cheese and with a tasty chipotle sauce on it.  Tim and his mom 

enjoy a local bottled beer with their meal.  After eating, we went to the old Pottery Place, where Red Wing Pottery was made.  It was renovated into guess what?  Shops.  Mostly antique shops, and a shoe store.  We found a fun retro cookie jar for $7 at the antique shop and then we moved on to the Red Wing pottery shop.  We watched while some of the potters made product to be sold in the store.  They had some very nice stuff! By the end of all this shopping we were ready to relax.  We went down by the waterfront where the historic train station was and many boats were going up and down the river.  We found a shady spot and relaxed.  Later that afternoon we enjoyed "Pork in the Park" by the church and then headed back to the rental house for more adventure.

After we relaxed for a short time, we went for yet another adventure on the bikes!  This time we went a different direction and ended up by a cemetery.  We spent a little time looking at some of the gravestones in the new part of the cemetery.  Then we decided to move.  Although we though the cemetery was small, we hadn't yet found out that it went back into a whole other stretch of cemetery, which was very historic.  We winded back to the oldest part which had a sectioned off area.  There was a historic plaque that described the people buried there as the settlers of Old Frontenac.  Many of the gravestones in the area had birthdates from the early 1800's.  It was so cool.  My imagination ran wild thinking about what the people were like, what kind of clothes they wore, what they did to survive.  

We left and headed back to the home.  That night we also encountered 3 deer that we watched for some time and also went on the swings by the nearby park.  It was a blast!  

On this vacation I learned how fun it can be to explore - off the beaten path!  More importantly, sometimes you can find the coolest things...if you are just willing to go on a whim.  I doubt I would have been able to find many of these experiences we h

ad by searching the internet, or looking at a library book.  It was a great vacation!  Thanks for reading what I have to share. -L

Red Wing, MN

Hello everyone!  I apologize for the delay between posts, I have missed posting greatly, but like it often can, life got in the way!  There just has been too much to do in early August and then last Friday - Sunday we were in Red Wing, Minnesota.  We went out there with Tim's Mom for the 150th Anniversary of the church/school she used to teach at.  My Mom, bless her heart, came to our home and watched our three dogs for the weekend.  

Red Wing, MN is a historic town, best known for Red Wing Pottery and Red Wing shoes (that's a lot of things to be famous for this size of town!).  As we normally do, we found a vacation rental home.  We very much enjoy staying at vacation homes over hotels.  First, it's much easier to do with dogs (which we didn't bring this time) but also it tends to be more relaxing, homey, and sometimes more cost effective since you can buy grocery rather than eat out all the time like you might have to if you stay at a hotel.  There are countless benefits, but my favorite is being in a home rather than a large, noisy hotel.

The vacation home was in a historic village called Frontenac,  about 10 miles south of Red Wing.  Frontenac has all gravel roads,

 historic homes, and is on the high bluffs overlooking Lake Pepin (part of the Mississippi River).  Some of the homes closer to the bluff have been there since the 1800's.  One had an amazing old stone fence around the property.  On the first night we stayed home to have dinner.   We also discovered there were some bicycles in the small shed outside.  There were 2 adult bikes and 2 larger kid bikes.  Since we were 3 adults, we faced a bit of a

 predicament.  It didn't take long to determine that Tim's Mom would be on the kid bike!  Since this was a fairly odd site to see, I was laughing so hard!  After we all tested out our bikes, we it the road and found our way around a portion of the town.  Since you wouldn't drive through the town to get anywhere, there wasn't any traffic except for a golf cart.  We made our way to the bluff where we discovered a beautiful view.  We viewed Lake Pepin from the bluff, looking all the way across to the Wisconsin bluff across the way.  It was a beautiful sight.  It was the first of many beautiful sights we had that weekend.  On Saturday, we did the best exploring...the off-the-beaten-path type.  I'll share more about that next post. Above is a picture from the bluff.  Here is a photo of the living room of our vacation rental.  So comfy! Enjoy!  To be Continued. -L  

Staycation

Over the 4^th of July weekend, we were compelled to have a staycation. A staycation is when you enjoy the activities of a vacation, but stay home to do it. Since gas prices, dining, and lodging are increasing in price, the staycation has become more popular. For instance, you could stay in town, forget the household chores and spend the weekend staycationing by reading a book, golfing, visiting the local museum or zoo. Basically staying close to home rather than going to a destination to get this accomplished. Over the 4^th, we staycationed in our own backyard. We pitched the tent under the walnut tree, BBQ’ed our dinner, enjoyed reading by the bonfire and made s’mores…all before we called it a night and nestled down in the tent. Upon waking up in the morning, I meandered over to the fire pit, pulled up a chair, kicked back and did some more reading. It was incredibly relaxing! The nice thing about staycationing at home is that when we do want to leave, we can just leave the dogs in the house like we normally do.

Since it was a warm sunny morning, Tim and I decided to go kayaking. We got out on the river and it was calm, there was a soft breeze coming through. When we kayak, we typically start the direction that goes against the current (on the Fox that happens to be south). That way the trip back is never hard work because we have the current with us. Well, as we headed toward our kayaking destination we went against the current and suddenly the wind picked up. Then it really picked up! Before we knew it, we had our work cut out for us. It was the kind of wind that’s low bearing on the water and when the gust comes through it makes the water shiver on top. The trip was incredibly difficult. If I looked toward the shoreline I was barely moving forward. If I stopped paddling, the kayak would start moving backward! We were determined however to get to our destination which is down by a non-operating lock. The water there is calm and there tends to be more wildlife since boats don’t go down that way anymore (too shallow for most boats). Finally, we arrived - and with much reward. As we were headed out of the lock channel there was an eagle flying overhead. We went up by shore and hung onto some overhung branches to watch the eagle. Eventually we lost sight of the eagle. As we continued down the channel, we saw a large bird fly from one tree to the next. Sure enough, it was the eagle and it landed in another tree and perched right next to another eagle. It was beautiful. We just stayed there and watched them sit up in the tree and spy fish. Eventually one left and we decided to head home. We floated down the river in our kayaks, like it was a lazy river. It was so pleasant as the sun warmed us and calmed our sore muscles (or at least mine, can’t speak for Tim on that one). We spent the rest of the day chilling out. It was a relaxing, yet adventurous staycation, right in our own backyard!

Try it sometime, you might be surprised how relaxing a staycation can be…and how much money you’ll save! The picture is our tent pitched in the back year. -L