True Adventure: Camping Up North!

Palm Tree Fan sent me some more photos she took, and one of them is from Up North, where my friends and I love to go camping, so that was all the excuse I needed to blog about it! Up at the top of our state is a park on the edge of a Great Lake, with lots of great trails for hiking and biking, canoes to rent, and fish boils to attend! If you have never been to a fish boil, it is kind of like dinner theater, except that when the entertainment is done you eat it. The fish is boiled in a huge cauldron with potatoes and onions, and they stoke the fire until it is raging around the edge of the cauldron, and then suddenly the water boils over and rushes down the side like a volcano erupting. And the end product is DELICIOUS! But watch out for bones.

We have seen many wonderful things at this park, like a mama grebe swimming on the lake with five little babies on her back, and coralroots, which are tiny translucent white plants with red stripes like candy canes, and all sorts of lighthouses. Once T, Anna Banana II, and I canoed out to a little crescent-shaped island, and I hiked all around the perimeter. At another park even further up the peninsula, we saw blue crawfish! Another time we climbed up a tower called Eagle Tower, and just as we got to the top, a bald eagle flew right overhead. Even rainy evenings are fun Up North, because there are all sorts of artsy little shops and cafes to duck into until the storm passes.

Once we stayed at a park further down the penisula, and there were quite a few of us, including both B-Boys, Florita and several of her nieces, Anna Banana II, Richard Bonomo, T, and of course me. We stayed in the "rowdy section," where you can make noise until midnight, and we had built a campfire and were singing songs as I played the mandolin. To our surprise, the ranger came over and told us with some embarrassment that the family at the next campsite had complained about our noise level. He agreed that they should have stayed in the "family section" if they wanted early bedtimes, but we did tone it down... a little. (Things are never very toned down when Florita is around!) The next morning we all got up and went to Mass with the little round priest who comes every year from New England to spend his summers Up North.

Anyhow, here is a picture that Palm Tree Fan took Up North, of a place called Cave Point:


And here is another picture Palm Tree Fan took in a town about an hour west of our city. Coworkers tell me this town is full of old buildings and is a really fun place to go shopping. They say it is very cute, and its claim to fame is Cornish Fest. This photo certainly looks like a Thomas Kincaide painting come to life!



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