Independence Day on Rib Mountain

 

Late this morning Travalon and I met Tiffy for an early lunch at the Venezuelan restaurant, where I got their coconut tilapia and the sugar cane juice that is fresh made there. She headed off to our old college friend's house, while Travalon and I drove up to Wausau. We took a vigorous hike on the top of Rib Mountain, where we saw this snake.

Here are some more photos from our hike.

After that we spent some time trying to figure out if we could watch the fireworks from up there. That is the reason we came here, and apparently it was a perfect view in the past, but a few years ago they started setting the fireworks off at the airport, and the trees block the view. We talked quite a bit to the ranger, who said she heard people could no longer see it except from the tower, and that would be crawling with teenagers. Another guy said he thought we should be able to see them from a certain spot on Rib Mountain, but he didn't know for sure. So we went to the boat launch the ranger had recommended and checked it out before having shrimp at Panda Express. I've never eaten there before - it's not bad. 

During dinner we discussed whether we should take a chance on Rib Mountain or go to the boat launch, which seemed like more of a sure thing, plus it had a real bathroom as opposed to pit toilets. We did go there, and Travalon got a chance to fish, but all he caught were weeds. People kept arriving, so we knew this park was definitely a good viewing spot. The fireworks started ten minutes later than scheduled, but they were great, especially a perfect red spiral. I was a little bummed that they ended with those extremely bright, extremely loud white ones that are my least favorite, but most of the rest of the grand finale was in fact grand. Here are some photos. There were lots of forget-me-nots at the river's edge.

This is me before it got dark.

The view to the north was gorgeous.

We saw a lot of herons fly by.

We saw an osprey sitting in a tree and flapping its wings.

The view to the north again.

There were lots of lit-up boats.

Here are some fireworks.

As soon as they were over, we noticed a group of kayakers that were all lit up, and one had long strands of lights dragging behind the kayak in the water. This photo kind of shows it. A boat photobombed it on the left. The kayak with the long strands is the one closest to the boat.

Then we came back and swam in the hotel pool. From 10-11 pm no children are allowed in the pool, so we figured that was the perfect time to go, and in fact nobody else was in it. We swam for a while and then went into the hot tub built into a fake grotto. This entire hotel has a North Woods theme to it, so the pool area looks like a lodge. We kind of feel like we're up north too, with the river and the woods. Sometime this summer we will have to truly get up North.

Famous Hat