Excursion to the Almost Island

 

Today I slept in quite late, then Travalon and I went to Dixie's Coffee for our bougie North Woods coffee fix. We took a walk on the Heart of Vilas County Bike Trail, but on the bridge that crosses Manitowish River, a whole bunch of bikers stopped so it was kind of crazy and we turned around. I saw a fuzzy yellow caterpillar (probably an American Dagger Moth) that I guarded while it crossed the path, and one of the puzzled bikers who passed by us was wearing a Madison Forward FC jersey.

Our next stop was the Trout Lake Nature Trail, which we had done last year too. There are lots of cute mushrooms along the trail and gorgeous views of Trout Lake from the top of the bluff. We stopped at the Win-Man Trails, thinking some were hiking trails, but even the ones marked that way had people mountain biking on them. We just split a kiddie quesadilla for a small, late lunch and headed to Presque Isle, which was about a quarter of an hour further north up the road. We were curious, because the name is French for "Almost Island," so we wondered if it was on an island, but it didn't really seem to be. We stopped at a couple of parks there and saw a pair of swans - photos soon. There wasn't much else there.

When we came back, we wanted to use one of the watercraft at our resort, so we took out the peddle boat that was tied to the dock. This was a challenge from start to finish because it was hard to get it untied, and then we had a lot of trouble steering it and mostly went in circles. We finally kind of had it figured out but were tired out by fighting with it, so we took it back to the dock... and then we couldn't figure out how to tie it back up again, so we pulled it out onto the shore. 

After that we went to the supper club we went to last year and sat at a table in the bar, where a guy was singing and playing the guitar. Greg the Polish Bartender was there just like last year. I had the walleye and gave half to Travalon, and he had the steak and gave some of it to me, and then we had the Black Squirrel ice cream drinks, which are like Pink Squirrels but made with Chambord so they taste like raspberry and chocolate. So good! We wanted to go down to the beach to look at the stars again, but there was a group there who had started a bonfire and were listening to music, so we went to the other side - no chaise lounges, but the stars were even brighter. Eventually we went back in and started filling out the "Adventure Journal" we got at Rib Mountain of all the state parks in Wisconsin. That brought back a lot of fun memories. We have been to a lot of them, so we didn't finish tonight. This is a long-term project.

Famous Hat