Going Down The Road With The Leu's

A few days ago, we bundled up LeuC and said goodbye to our lovely campsite at the Glen Hills County Park. We only had to drive west less than an hour before arriving at the Willow River State Park, near Hudson, WI. We will be staying here for 10 days. Actually, LeuC will be staying here for 10 days while Mary Margaret and I will be flying back to Ann Arbor, Michigan for a long weekend to take in a football game at our alma mater.

Willow River State Park is a lovely state park with three camping areas well separated from each other. There is one, campground 100 and where we are located, that is for large RV units, such as ours. Another area, campground 200 allows smaller RVs or tents but offers no electricity, while the third campground area, campground 300, is nestled deeps in the woods along Willow River. This area is for tents and smaller trailer campers, also without electricity.

Our site is surrounded with staghorn sumac bushes, all laden with their unique dark maroon colored berries. I remember being a kid and eating the dark, furry berries that dominate the sumac bushes in the late summer and early fall. Their taste is a tangy, lemony favor, which you can make a delicious tea from. Mary Margaret had never tasted this berry before so I suggested she do so now and she loved it.

The sumac bushes and a few young trees give our site lots of privacy and without the overhang of tall tree branches, our satellite dish has full view to the sky so we can get the various satellite TV channels that we have become used to. Having the ability of watching TV is still a novelty for us. Before, when we lived on our sailboat for 10 years, we had no TV onboard and really did not miss it. The sailing adventure, including visiting foreign lands and remote islands, was just so exciting that we did not miss watching TV. Now, as we traveling around the country, we are transiting to the concept of living back on the land which, quite frankly, is not nearly as exciting as sailing around the world. Thus, TV is once again creeping back into our lives, offering instantious entertainment, with a click of a button.

Regarding entertainment, yesterday, while it was pouring rain, we drove a few miles west and crossed the state line, entering St. Paul, Minnesota. We went to a movie theater and enjoyed watching Oceans 8. It was a fun movie to see and the theater only charged $2 since it was “$2 Tuesday”. Whoo Hoo!

We ended the day having dinner where “butter hamburgers” and fried Wisconsin Cheese Curds” were served. Both were delicious. The soft buttery accent made the hamburgers uniquely delicious as were the fried cheese curds. They reminded me of fried mozzarella, which I love.

Today, as the skies slowly stopped raining and cleared, we spent the day watching the series “Victoria” until dinner time rolled around. We were especially anxious for dinner to arrive as we had reserved a table for three at the Pier 500 restaurant in Hudson. Our guest was Steve, my cousin on my mother’s side of our family. I could not remember the last time we had met but during dinner, concluded it was way back around 1967 when my family stopped and spent a few days at his house. His mother was my mom’s youngest sister: my Aunt Corinne whose nickname was Corky. At that time, I was 12 and Steve was only 2 years old. While Steve and I have had a history of communicating over the years via email and Facebook, this was actually the first time we have met since becoming adults.

Mary Margaret, Steve and I had a wonderful time, sharing drinks and dinner (which he surprised us and kindly paid for!), talking about our lives, relatives and family histories. There is so much we individually know but also do not know. Thus, we were able to fill in some of those gaps of knowledge. It was wonderful. Steve is such a kind, friendly and wonderful person. He has grown up becoming such a nice person and it was such a pleasure to get to know him better. With luck, we will have him over to LeuC next week, after return from Ann Arbor and before we continue down the road, making our way toward the Pacific Northwest.

We arrived here at Glens Hills Country Park a few days ago.  This campground is located only about 25 miles east of St. Paul, Minnesota, but still in rural western Wisconsin.

It is a lovely little park, nestled amongst tall oak trees with lots of acorns.  One of the things we learned while here is that acorns, when they start falling in the late summer, make a really loud noise as they crash down onto of our RV.  Every now and again we are jolted by a loud “bang!” as another acorn falls on our roof.  I would hate to be hit on the top of my head by one of these acorns.  It would really hurt…  I will need to climb up on the roof before we go and sweep them off because it would be disastrous if one of them would fly off our roof and smack someone’s windshield as we drive down the road.

Because this is Labor Day weekend, the park is full with families from the surrounding countryside and there are a lot of kids enjoying their camping experience.  It brings back such fond memories of camping with our kids when they were so young, and also of camping with my parents and siblings when I was a little tyke.  Such good times.

The park has an added benefit to it as there is a lovely 9-hole golf course located near the park’s entrance.  This allowed me to continue my never-ending search to rediscover my game yesterday.  I played two rounds of 9 holes to get 18 holes of golf in.  With a cart, it was only $37.

The course was exceptionally well maintained and a gem to play.  It was very well laid out and would be a challenge to most golfers.  The pictures I took while playing gives you an idea of how lovely the course is.

My driver continued to behave itself, as did my 3-wood.  I had a number of nice, long drives from the tee and long second shots using the 3-wood.  However, my irons are still an embarrassment as I continue to struggle with shots using these clubs.  I shot a 97, not much to brag about but that is where my game is at.  Despite the high score and the frustration caused by my irons, I really enjoyed this little course.

Tomorrow we have a very short trip to our next campground.  Willow River State Park is just this side of the Minnesota border, before you cross the St. Croix River and enter Minnesota.   We will be spending a bit of time there since we will be getting together with my cousin Steve, who I have not seen in decades.  While we do stay in touch through emails and being friends on Facebook, I am not exactly sure when the last time we actually got together.  I do remember staying at his house as a child of 10 or so.  My family was taking one of our many summer vacation trips to the Pacific Northwest and stopped for a few days to visit.  Steve’s mom, my Aunt Corky, was my mom’s youngest sister.  My Uncle Leroy was an opera singer for the Minneapolis Opera.  While my Aunt Corky died over 20 years ago, Uncle Leroy is still alive and is now living in Albuquerque, NM.  During his career, he cut a number of albums and created quite a reputation as an opera singer.

I have my fingers crossed that Steve’s little sister, my cousin Kelly, will also be able to join us for dinner. However, since this will be during the work week and with two youngsters returning to school, this many not be possible.

We will also be parking LeuC at this state park over this coming weekend.  At that time, Mary Margaret and I will be flying back to Ann Arbor to take in a Michigan football game.  The last time we took in a game together was way back in the late 90’s when we visited Heather at the Big U.  It was great fun sharing a game with her!

Today the skies were blue and the sun was shining brightly.  After such heavy rains and flooding, having a day of beauty was so nice.  It is the second straight day without rain and the ground around our campsite had dried out well.  It motivated us to get out and go hiking in the rural woods of Wisconsin.

We were excited to explore the ancient sea stacks that loom high and dominate the landscape around us.  They are the remnants of ancient Lake Wisconsin, a large glacial lake that covered this area during the last glacial age about 12,000 years ago.  The lake lasted a few thousand years until an ice plug broke in the Wisconsin Dells area, to the east of us, draining the lake in days as the water gushed out, carving the remarkable geography that makes the Wisconsin Dells so unique.

The ancient lake, when drained, left a series of sea stacks along its margins.  The sea stacks were formed as the wind and waves eroded the layers of limestone and sandstone forming haystack shaped columns that remain today.

The first sea stack explored was Mill Bluff.  Our park is named after this sea stack and wraps around it.  A short trail leads to 233 rock steps that climb to the top of the bluff.  The steps were built back in the 1930s as a make-work project during the Great Depression.

The last time I climbed such steep steps was three years ago when we had sailed from South Africa and landed in Jamestown, St. Helena: a small, lonely island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.  The little town was situated in a deep river valley which continues on into the ocean.  A fort stood on top of the bluffs overlooking both the ocean and the town, protecting it from attacks from the sea.  A steep staircase of 700 steps ran from the town up to the fort.  In 2015, when we were there, I made the steep climb, taking 40 minutes to do so.  As I approached the top, I was so light headed and muscled fatigued that I could only go 10 steps a time between short rests.  It was brutal but I was proud that I made it.

Today’s climb up the Mill Bluff steps reminded me of Jamestown even though there were only 233 steps.  However, when I reached the top of Mill Bluff, I was every bit as fatigued and light headed as I was in Jamestown.  I made it without any rest stops but every 68 years of my life was showing.

The climb was rewarded with amazing views of the countryside and the other ancient sea stacks nearby.  The photos below show you what I saw.

After lunch, Mary Margaret and I took another hike, this time taking a trail that wound through the woods around the base of four other sea stacks as shown in the photos above.  The trail took us through a former cranberry bog that has since turned into a beautiful meadow.  As we walked behind the sea stacks, on the lower elevations, we ran into standing water; the remnant of the recent storms that buffeted this area.

Squishing our way through the water and mud, we continued on and eventually returned to the start of the loop trail.  It was a great hike and we were so happy that we took it.

Tomorrow, we continue our trek to the Pacific Northwest and drive to our next campground, called Glen Hills County Park, about 60 miles east of Minneapolis, Minnesota.

We really like our little state park near Camp Douglas in west central Wisconsin.  There is enough space between each site so you don’t feel intruded upon by your neighbors, there are plenty of trees and bushes to let you know you are in the center of a lush, green forest, the ground is hard yet porous so there is no standing water and LeuC’s big, heavy tires do not sink in or tear up the grass, and there is some very interesting geology to explore with trails that will take you to each of the sea stacks that so dominant the area we are in.

We are anxious to go hiking to get “up close and personal” with the sea stacks but we are going to wait a day before we do so.  Our hope is the ground along the trails will be drier tomorrow, allowing us to hike without having to dance around any standing water or slip on wet leaves that line the trails.  We believe that by delaying a day will also allow the wet underbrush to dry out a bit so when we push through the underbrush, we will not end up getting drenched.  After so many days of heavy rain, we have our fingers crossed that waiting a day will be enough.  We are here only a few days and on Friday will continue making our way to the Pacific Northwest.

While traipsing down wet trails was not an option today, I was not prevented from hopping into our cute little Fiat and scouting out the area and taking some photos to share.  Thus, today’s blog is more of a pictorial blog as the photos will do the talking.

Views of Our Campsite Here At Mill Bluff State Park

The Land Is Dominated By Limestone and Sand, Remnants Of An Ancient Giant Lake With Sea Stacks Dotting The Countryside

The Swimming Pond At Our Park Has A Natural Sandy Bottom and Beach

For the last few days we have been getting flood warning notices for parts of Wisconsin. That state was in the path of a major front slowly moving across the US. Normally, it would not make much of an impact with us, since the worst of the flooding was to the north of us. Our hope was that the front would move on and be to the east of us today because our next destination would be Mill Creek State Park, located in the west-central part of Wisconsin.

When we finally hit the road late this morning, the skies were mixed with mostly overcast hanging over us but patches of sun were breaking through on occasion. Our 3-hour drive today was going to be easy peasy being mostly along the I-39 and I-90 freeways. Our destination was Mill Bluffs State Park, a small park that sits in the middle of ancient sea stacks formed during the last ice age along the shoreline of a huge glacial lake that lasted for thousands of years. Sea stacks are columns of rocks that form due to wind and wave erosion along shorelines. Here is a photo of sea stacks that I took back in 2015 when we were traveling down the Oregon coast.

Below is a photo of the sea stacks at Mill Bluffs State Park that I took from the Internet. The similarities between the two photos is obvious. I am hoping that while we are here, I will be able to take photos of these features to share with you.

Even though our drive started out well, it ended up quite differently. As we were approaching Mill Bluffs State Park, the skies opened up and a massive downpour occurred as we drove into an area of very dark skies. Soon thereafter, the traffic on the freeway grounded to a halt and a backup for miles resulted.

It took us about 40 minutes to clear the traffic jam and along the way we noticed that the lanes of the freeway going the other way were empty. We also noticed that a river we drove over was almost up to the roadway with only 2 or so feet of clearance under it. Shortly thereafter, we reached a freeway interchange and discovered that the police were directing the traffic heading in the opposite direction off the freeway. The only explanation we could come up with was that the bridge for those freeway lanes, which was immediately upstream of the bridge we went over, must have been weakened by the torrential water gushing under it. We discovered that our side of the freeway was backed up because vehicles exiting at the interchange were backed up because of the mess the police were causing by directing the east bound traffic off of the freeway.

We finally cleared the traffic jam and were happy to put the tied-up interchange behind us. We shortly got off the interstate as we exited for our state park. When we turned into the state park, rain was still pouring, which made visibility difficult. We saw a small sign directing us to a side road which we took. It was a narrow lane with a dark canopy of trees. We discovered it was not the road to the campground but, instead, was to where people could rent a covered picnic area as well as take trails to some of the sea stacks. We decided to pull over to the side of the lane and wait until the rain would lessen, restoring the visibility we needed to find the campground.

The rain finally did ease some and we pulled back onto the lane. We followed it to where it ended in a small, tight loop through a dense copse of trees that we barely squeezed through. Whew!

Using an electronic map of the park that I had downloaded previously, we found where the campground was located and as we approached, found a sign that confirmed the direction. The park office was closed so we continued on looking for our campsite. It was still raining so after donning our rain gear, we got out of LeuC to determine the best way to backup and snuggle into our site.

As we were getting ready to back in, with Mary Margaret standing in the rain to direct me in, the park ranger drove up. He was very nice but shared with us that he was leaving the park since no one beside ourselves were scheduled to arrive today. Given how wet and miserable it was, we could not blame him. Soon after he drove off, we were in our site, plugged in and drying our heads with towels.

The next couple of days should be dry so I am hopeful that we will be able to explore a bit before continuing our trip to the west coast.

Today is our 47th anniversary. On this day, way back in 1971, Mary Margaret and I shared our vows in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Each year since, Mary Margaret jokingly tells me that she will review the terms of our contract and let me know if it will be renewed. Well, at least I hope she is joking… Whether she is joking or not, we have been married for a very long time. I, jokingly, call her St. Mary Margaret because she has put up with me for so long.

We actually met 48 years ago today, we got engaged 47.5 years ago today and coincidently, we married 47 years ago today.

Yesterday, I had suggested that we go out to a nice Italian restaurant for dinner in celebration. However, this morning Mary Margaret suggested that we stay here in LeuC and she would whip up her delicious fettuccini alfredo. That was an idea that I could not refuse. Thus, instead of kicking up our heels and celebrating our special day in a fancy restaurant, we had a quiet day and wonderful dinner and a restful evening.

Each year our celebration has been so different. Some years have been in exotic places as we sailed around the world, other years have been shared with our kids as they grew up at home, and now, we share it in a little state park in northern Illinois. However, it really doesn’t matter where we are or how we celebrate it. What counts is that I and my lifemate are still together and enjoying our lives together.

 

It is a bit ironic that 50 years ago today, the very disruptive Democratic Convention took place.  It was a very dramatic period in the history of our country with massive protests and police brutality against the protesters taking place during the convention.  It was a time when the country was in an upheaval about the Vietnam War.  The protests and the establishment’s response to the protests as represented by Chicago’s Mayor Daily calling out the police and using heavy force against the protesters underscored the depth of the rifts that divided our country at that time.

What was ironic was that today, Mary Margaret and I drove over to Rockford to participate in a protest rally regarding the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh as Supreme Court Justice.  While neither of us participated in the protests during the 1968 Democratic Convention, we did become active in protesting some of the major social issues of our time.  Mary Margaret became active in supporting the Black Action Movement and the Women Rights Movement during her college years, while I participated in the anti-war March On Washington in 1969.

Today’s protest rally was significantly different than the rallies we participated in back in the late 1960’s.  First, today’s rally was not very well organized nor advertised.  We only learned about it on Friday via an email.  We never heard anything about it over the TV or radio.  It was supposed to be a national protest but one would never know that given the lack of information being broadcast about it.

Another difference was back in the late 1960’s the protesters were mainly young people of both sexes.  Of the 30 or so people who showed up today, almost most were old farts like ourselves.  I think the average age of those who showed up was well into their 60s.  Also, most of the people were women.  The 6 men there were outnumbered by the 24 women present.

A last difference was that the protests of the late 1960’s took place in central localities, where traffic and business activities would be disrupted, drawing lots of attention, especially from the press.  Today’s rally was located in front of the Federal Court House, which is on an out-of-the-way, lonely street, where few cars drove by.  It appeared to us that nobody, outside of those of us there, knew or would know about the protest.  It was so disappointing…

After about an hour of holding up signs and waving at the few cars that passed by, we received a couple of stirring speeches by a few of the fellow protesters and then disbanded.  Outside of ourselves, I don’t believe anyone else knew what had gone on.  Sigh.

 

 

Yesterday, we bundled up LeuC and headed out, going down the road once more. This time we are making our way back to the West Coast. Specifically, our goal is Blaine, Washington, nestled up against the Canadian border and the Puget Sound. My brother Don, and his wife, Debbie, have just moved there and we wish to visit them in their new house. We hope to arrive there in mid-October.

Our first stop along our route to Blaine, was Michigan City, Indiana. We stopped and parked LeuC in a huge, back parking lot of the Blue Chip Casino.

Most casinos welcome RVers with the expectation that they will either gamble or dine in the casino. We actually did both. Mary Margaret loves to play the slots and more often than not, she walks away with some the casino’s money jingling in her pocket. Yesterday was no exception, as after a few hours of playing, she won about $20. Whoo Hoo!

We also enjoyed the wonderful buffet that the casino offered. Actually, the buffet was one of the better buffets we have seen. There were all kinds of fare to sample from large steamed shrimp, to grilled fish to big, thick, smoked kielbasa, a huge slab of roast beef which was sitting next to a large golden-brown turkey with all of the trimmings. There were just too many mains and sides to mention. Then, of course, a dessert area with pies, cakes, cookies, brownies and…wait for it… hand dipped ice cream! Ooooh, so good! After sampling this smorgasbord of yummies, we waddled back to LeuC, fat, dumb and happy.

This morning, we arose early as we were facing a drive around Chicago. We had been warned that the drive through Chicago was awful due to lots of highway construction and God-awful traffic. Even though it was Saturday, we chose to go around Chicago and to leave at 7 AM. Such a strategy would add about 50 extra miles to our route but it worked out well as we also avoided the heavy tolls that one pays to cross through the city.

We faced little traffic as we traveled down the I-80 interstate highway and then up the I-39 interstate to Rockford, Illinois. Here, we left the freeways and arrived at Rock Cut State Park around 11 AM. Alas, our camping site was still occupied since campers do not have to vacate their respective sites until 3PM. In our case, the occupants did not leave until about 5 PM, ignoring the rules as they were away from their site, visiting friends in a different part of the park. Grrrr.

At 3 PM, I returned to the park office and asked if we could move from our reserved site to another one that had been properly vacated on time. This was done and now we sit in a nice little site, plugged in with the A/C running on a hot and humid day.

Today, Mary Margaret and I drove into downtown Lansing to visit the farmers market.  Our good friend, Steve, had sent us a text message informing us that today the farmers market was in town.  Each Thursday it sets up a myriad of canopies on the front lawn of the State Capital and tons of people from all around come to shop for farm fresh produce and other goodies that are sold.

Mary Margaret has a weakness for farmers markets as she feels obligated to single handedly thank the farmers for what they do and reward them by buying as much fresh produce as LeuC can store.  I am only mildly making a joke here as she is very thankful for the remarkable efforts and, many times, the tough struggles that small family-owned farmers face in today’s market environment.

As we returned to LeuC, I just had to drive by my old house in East Lansing.  It is still there and while painted a different color, seeing it again brought back so many wonderful memories.  The neighborhood, or at least the houses where childhood friends used to live, were all there.  However, the trees have matured significantly over 50 years and the once sunny and bright streets were now crowded with limbs and leaves shading everything in.

Armed with all kind of goodies from the farmers market and with childhood memories, we returned to LeuC, where Mary Margaret then rolled up her sleeves and cooked up a storm.  We had invited our dear friends, Steve and Linda, to come over for a farewell dinner tonight.  We will be leaving the Lansing area tomorrow morning as we start our return journey to the Pacific Coast.  Our destination will be Blaine, Washington.  It is located on the Puget Sound, and literally abuts next to the Canadian border, residing just south of Vancouver.

When Steve and Linda arrived, they were armed with Blue Bunny vanilla ice cream and a cherry-berry pie, bought from a fantastic bakery in Dexter, called Sweetie-licious… and it was!  It paired well with the appetizers and dinner that Mary Margaret had whipped up.

We first started out with home made guacamole and corn tortilla chips that were accompanied by a glass of Guinness Stout.  Then, as Mary Margaret set the dinner table and brought out various dishes she made for dinner, Steve and I went outside and fired up the BBQ.  When hot, we threw on the slabs of ribs that I had prepared by boiling in vinegar water.  We then slathered on the BBQ sauces, turning the slabs constantly.

When the ribs were brought in, they were served with Mary Margaret’s delicious potato salad, fresh corn on the cob and a cuke and tomato salad.  Just when we thought we would burst, we remembered the cherry-berry pie and ice cream.  With the help of some piping hot coffee, we somehow found room for generous slices of cherry-berry pie and two scoops of ice cream on the side.  OMG…died and gone to heaven!

By the time the meal was cleared away and after reminiscing about the recent 50^th reunion we just had, all of our eyes were beginning to droop, so hugs and kisses were in order. It was hard to say goodbye to such long and dear friends, especially since we are not sure when we will be heading back this way.  However, that is the special thing about lifetime friendships: it doesn’t matter how long it has been since you have last seen each other, the next time you do, the time just washes away and it seems just like yesterday.

In closing, my brother, Don, commented on yesterday’s blog about how I exaggerated about his natural golf abilities.  To demonstrate that I was not exaggerating and that he does possess some magical skills in this area, I researched the Lansing Journal.  I found an article which highlights his exploits on the golf course back in the summer of 1965.  Just click on the link, below to read the article.  Good times!

22 Jun 1965, Page 23 – Lansing State Journal at Newspapers.com

Leading up to my recent 50th high school reunion, snippets of old stories, long forgotten, would just burst from my memory. These were events that happened with old friends as I grew up in East Lansing, Michigan. During the reunion, I would see the person that a story was centered around and then go up to him or her and share that story. I was surprised to see that many of my stories were not remembered by the person that I shared it with. Go figure!

Today, I decided to play golf at the MSU golf course, called Forest Akers. As I was getting ready to leave LeuC to go play golf, another story from so long ago, came to mind. Back during my early high school days, my older brother, Don, played for the high school golf team. He was a very, very good golfer and in his senior year (he is three years older than I), he won the Michigan Jaycee Juniors Golf Championship. This was no small feat as this signified that he was one of the best high school golfers in the State of Michigan. He received a golf scholarship from MSU but decided to turn it down. He told our dad that he wanted to go to MSU to study, not play golf. At the time, I thought that it was foolish for him to do so but when I graduated from high school, I actually did the same thing. I had won the Mid-Michigan Journalism award for the best high school sports writer, which resulted in a journalism scholarship to MSU. However, I wanted to go to the University of Michigan to study Oceanography. Looking back on all of this, our parents must have been pulling out their hair about this since our two scholarships would have saved them tons of money. They never said a word of this to either of us, ever.

Anyway, Don went on and studied Russian and graduated in 4 years from MSU. During those 4 years, he never played golf. Once he graduated in 1969, I came down from Ann Arbor (I was a Sophomore at UM at the time), and challenged him to a round of golf. I was playing the game and was usually shooting in the low 80s. I felt I could easily beat him…for the first time in my life.

Don graciously accepted the challenge and with a couple of rented sets of clubs we both headed off to the Forest Akers golf course at MSU. To my dismay, he shot a 76, which was only 4 over par. Man-o-man, he was such a natural! I shot a very respectable 81 but lost the match by 5 strokes. It wasn’t even close.

With that story in mind, I played today for the first time in 49 years at Forest Akers. However, as I played each hole, I kept the above story in mind and wished that Don was out there with me, hitting those beautiful shots that he was famous for. I ended up shooting a 95 with a respectable round of 47 and 48. I say “respectable” because this was the first time I have played this course in so long, I am now 68 years old, and I am still trying to “rediscover” my game.

We will be starting our journey to the Pacific Northwest on Friday. We hope to arrive at Don and his wife’s house in Blaine, Washington by mid-October. At that time, Don and I are planning to play a round or two of golf on the beautiful golf course that they overlook. Don shared with me that he is dusting off his golf clubs and recently shot a 96. It sounds to me, that I will be in trouble when we play again…

Needless to say, I am so looking forward to seeing Don and Debbie again, even if I have to lose another couple of rounds of golf to do so.