Photos from Our Castle Rock Adventures

Here are some photos from our weekend camping adventures. First are a couple of shots of Castle Rock Lake.

This is St. Patrick's in Mauston, where we went to Mass on Saturday evening.

And this looks like a Belleek plate of St. Patrick's.

Here are a couple photos of the little wooden boat on the beach we went to.

And here is the sunset as seen from Shipwreck Bay.

This cute little church was called St. Theresa's of the Lake, but we didn't go to Mass there because it was at 7:30 am. We just showed up afterwards and talked someone into letting us in.

These are the cool rock formations at Castle Mound State Natural Area.

On the path we saw this young buck, and he didn't seem very scared of us. Eventually he went back into the woods. We also saw a doe out of the window of the restaurant at Voyageurs, but I didn't take a picture of her.

This demented little toy was abandoned on the beach at Mill Bluff State Park - only it wasn't, because eventually a kid came and collected it. It was probably the same kid who told Travalon he was too big for his raft and then demanded to use it himself. Being a lot nicer than I am, Travalon let him. I would have been all, "Get your own raft, kid!"

This is the observation area at Wildcat Mountain State Park.

And this is one of the ice caves at the same park.

Finally, here is a video of our campfire with turquoise flames.

Famous Hat

Camping at Castle Rock Lake

I hope my readers enjoyed the long weekend. Travalon and I started it off quietly, having fish on the patio at Mariner’s. Saturday we drove to Castle Rock County Park and set up our tent, then we went to Mass at St. Patrick’s in Mauston, the church I used to always see from the interstate. These days the lovely gold accents are a dark reddish-brown, but it is still a beautiful church. After Mass we went to a place near the campground called Portofino’s, but it had an incredibly loud cover band playing. We did take a walk to a nearby beach with a little wooden boat for kids to play on and a lovely view of an island. There was a tiki bar, but it was shut. We then went to a place called Shipwreck Bay for dinner; the restaurant was inside and had a great view of the lake, but if you wanted to sit outside, you would have had to endure an even louder cover band. I think I got some eardrum damage just from walking past them! When we returned to our campsite, we tried to start a fire but had no success. Everyone around us had a roaring fire, so we felt like total losers. Fortunately the Chicagoans at the next campsite included one outdoorsy type who could start a fire like a pro, and she gave us some pointers. There were supposed to be northern lights, so after our fire died down we walked down to the beach and looked toward the north. We saw some shimmering above us, but was it just clouds or the actual aurora borealis? By then it was nearly midnight, so we were too tired to stick around and figure it out.

Sunday morning we had breakfast at the Buckhorn Café on the outskirts of Buckhorn State Park, then we drove up to Black River Falls and stopped at the colorful café we had gone to the year before for some good coffee. We hiked at Castle Mound State Natural Area, and as always, I charged confidently up the rocks but then was a quivering mass of terror trying to get back down, so some people coming up offered me a walking stick. Surprisingly, that did help my fear a lot, just having a third point of support. Travalon went all the way up the observation tower, which I never could have gotten back down from. They would have had to send a helicopter or something. After that we cooled off in Wazee Lake, floating on our inflatable rafts out to a little island we had seen there last year, when we visited on a day too cool for swimming. We walked on the island and waded around it, then we drove to Mill Bluff State Park and Travalon floated on the pond, but he said it was very cold. I was too lazy to change back into my swimsuit and just watched him floating and a train speeding by on the other side of Highway 12. When we got back to Castle Rock Lake, Travalon floated on that too. By then it was kind of late, so instead of going all the way to the other side of the lake to a supper club, we just went to a pizza place down the road. In Mauston we had picked up stuff to make s’mores and stuff to make the fire colorful, so after we successfully started a fire following the Chicagoan’s instructions, we made s’mores and THEN (very important!) threw the color packets into the fire so that it had turquoise flames. Travalon made a really good video of it, but my phone didn’t show the contrast between the orange and the turquoise flames – it just made the whole fire look kind of whitish. As we enjoyed the colorful fire, we smoked the cigar we had brought back from Cuba, and it was wonderful.

Yesterday we got coffee in Mauston, then we had lunch at a Chinese restaurant in New Lisbon before embarking on a real adventure. I had told Travalon tales of canoeing on the Kickapoo River years ago, and he wanted to try it, but things are different now. I’m not in my twenties, and the river flooded last year and is wilder now. In fact, it used to always be packed with people, but yesterday we saw hardly anyone else on it. We both fell out of the canoe at various points, and we kept getting stuck in shallow water. I have a bruise on my hand and a huge bruise on my calf, I wrenched my back when my paddle got stuck in some tree roots, and (Travalon said this is so funny I should blog about it, but it’s disgusting) when I started the canoe trip, I was wearing a female hygiene pad, but by the time I changed out of my wet clothes at Wildcat Mountain State Park, it had vanished. I feel very bad about that, thinking of someone finding it in the river, but that gives you an idea of how much I got tossed around! I could barely make the short walk to the Wildcat Mountain observation area, or the short hike to the ice caves. We drove on beautiful Highway 33 by all sorts of rock formations to Reedsburg, hoping to have a wonderful cream ale at the Corner Pub, but it was closed. We did have a delicious dinner of Rtiz-encrusted walleye at Marty’s Steakhouse at the Voyageur hotel/convention center. At first we were the only ones in the restaurant, and the creepiness factor was enhanced by five different clocks suddenly ringing in the hour in different ways, but soon more people arrived. After that we just went home, and I iced my bruised calf and tried to stretch out my back.

Today besides the usual back-to-work blahs, I was in rough shape this morning. My back hurt so badly that I could barely get out of bed, my leg hurt so badly that I could barely walk, and weirdly my fingers were so swollen on my right hand that I couldn’t wear any rings. (My left hand, which is not bruised, did not have that problem, so I could wear my wedding band and engagement ring.) But as the day has gone on, I have been able to pop my back several times so it feels a lot better, and the bruise on my leg is getting better too. Still, I don’t remember ever feeling like this after a canoe trip back in the day!

Famous Hat

Photos of a Famous Hat Summer

It has been awhile since I posted any photos, so here is a view of my summer so far. First are a couple of shots of plants I got at the Ladies' Night, two air plants and the succulent garden in a wine bottle.

Here is a shot of the Steely Dan concert we went to:

These are some funny mushrooms I found while on my lunchtime walk at my previous job:

Behold my new Farmers' Market cactus that looks like a pickle!

Rich's rosebush bloomed in this lovely configuration:

Here is a shot of Travalon and me in the boat at our health club's picnic:

This is the unicorn bobblehead we got at the Mallards game. We traded the second one for the light-up unicorn horn - see below for a video of me wearing it!

I like the way the people at my new job think! Check out this poem on the break room fridge. I particularly like the new adverb "chocolately."

Following are some shots of the fireboat ride we took on Sturgeon Bay with Anna Banana II and Jilly Moose.

Here are some shots from Cave Point County Park:

The giant Lombardi Trophy at Lambeau Field!

Next are some shots from our Fourth of July camping trip. First, our tent at night:

This is the lovely beach at Castle Rock (Juneau) County Park:

And the other place we swam, Mill Bluff State Park:

I love the carillon on campus, and now I walk by it all the time:

Here is a shot Travalon's friend's wife took of the Capitol when we saw the 80's band on the roof of the Monona Terrace:

At Concert on the Square, I took this shot of the sunset making the Capitol all rosy:

Here are a couple of shots of us at Restaurant Week, when we heard Banana Wind at Mariner's and Bahama Bob at Captain Bill's:

I signed up for "New Employee Orientation" after only fourteen years on campus, mostly so I could get a campus tour on the trolleybus:

Here is a shot showing the beautiful springs feeding into Token Creek:

This is the view out of my office window!

Our department sometimes makes T-shirts. It took me five minutes of pondering the Cyrillic to figure out what this one said:

Did you figure it out? It's "Wisconsin"! This one of the Scandinavian vowels is also really cool, but the lines are not actually part of the shirt, and I had to laugh at my reflection in this picture:

Here Travalon and I are at the Flamingle Party. I will blog about that soon.

They finally installed the tile I had made for our anniversary on the Monona Terrace rooftop. Here you can see the view from our tile facing the Capitol and the lake:

Here are our clay cacti! First is a shot of them when we first made them, then after they had been fired once and we painted them, and then the finished pieces. To me, Travalon's looks like a Dr. Seuss cactus. His is far more imaginative than mine are.

Finally, a couple of videos: me wearing the light-up unicorn horn, and the white-faced gibbons singing at the zoo! When we sang back to them, they were really fascinated, but I didn't make a video of that.

Famous Hat