We left on a Thursday morning and arrived at Nordic Pines Campground around noon that day. It was a typical Wisconsin campground, complete with both cabins and tent sites. Greg had booked one of the cabins, knowing this would be much easier to contain our always-on-the-go 18 month old!
It had a bedroom with a bed and a couch for our sleeping, plus we brought a pack and play for Ely's bed. It also had a kitchen with a mid-size refrigerator, a tiny gas stove, sink, as well as a bathroom with a stand-up shower. This was NOT camping (which usually involves trapsing to a public shower house in squeaky, wet flip-flops, or not taking a shower at all), but we were all glad for a little bit of "luxury" on this trip! They even had a set of dishes and silverware, and a toaster and a coffeemaker in each room. Again, NOT camping! :) We spent the majority of the first day checking out the surrounding area. We went to Devil's Lake and spent more than an hour watching Ely throw rocks into the water and play on the playground in the state park.
We also ate lunch at a wonderful place called the Farm Kitchen, and enjoyed s'mores by the fire that night. The only "hitch" was that Ely did NOT like his bath in the tiny kitchen sink!
The next day, Friday, we went to visit the Aldo Leopold Foundation and Aldo Leopold's shack. For those of you who are not familiar, Leopold is considered the father of the conservation, rather than preservation, movement. He was a professor at the University of Madison in the 1930s and 1940s and wrote such works as A Sand County Almanac, Game Management, and his essays on "Land Ethic" and "Thinking Like a Mountain" have become the marching orders for conservationists of today.
Leopold's family "shack" - their weekend getaway where Leopold drew most of his inspiration and began his own ecological restoration project - is located just outside Baraboo on the Wisconsin River. It is a sacred place for people like us, especially Greg, who marked his third visit to the shack. It was profound to watch my husband, who has the same passion for his work as Leopold once did, stand in this place with his own son.
Unfortunately, the spirital moment was brought to a quick close, as we had to retreat to the car to escape the hordes of mosquitoes in the woods. It felt like a horror movie - running, screaming, smeared blood, and the deep breath of relief when you realize the killer can't get to you in the car!
We spent the rest of Friday afternoon at Devil's Lake again, soaking up the beautiful sun and watching Ely play in the water. He loved to go out deep in the water and have Daddy throw him up and catch him - he played until his lips were purple and then warmed himself by burying acorns in the sand! Our little squirrel!
We again made a fire after Ely went to bed that night and Greg and my mom learned about the delectable "Thanks S'More" - a s'more made with two Girl Scout "Thanks A-Lot" cookies (a shortbread cookie with chocolate coating).
We woke up early Saturday morning to enjoy a time-honored Brigham-Dobbs-now Keilback tradition - if you're part of anyone of those bloodlines, you can't be that close to Wisconsin Dells and not go Paul Bunyan's for breakfast! I remember as a little girl sitting at what appeared to be huge mess hall-type tables and getting endless bowls of eggs, sausage, and potatoes, and of course, heaping stacks of flapjacks. It has become commercialized over the years (as has everything north of Madison, it seems), but the food was still good, and the memories it stirred up for my mom and I, even better. We took a picture, but Ely was mad because we had to leave all the toys in the gift shop!
Later that day, we visited a small zoo that is operated by the Baraboo Park District. It only had 10 or so exhibits, but it had goats, and that was enough for Ely! (and me, quite frankly!). He was ecstatic and told everyone that walked through the front gates that there were GOATS! and that goats go BAAAA! He even did a little happy dance right in front of their fence that I tried to capture on video. I can't even explain how happy it makes me that he loves animals so much.
We went again that afternoon to Devil's Lake, only we went to the less-crowded South Shore this time. It was chillier that day, so we didn't get in the water as much, but Ely still enjoyed hours of playing in the water and the sand. We had to move to a new cabin that night since the cabin we had been in was booked up. The new cabin was actually bigger and had more of a separation between the rooms, so Greg, my mom, and I were able to stay up after Ely went to bed and didn't have to brave the mosquitoes by the fire outside. Greg read aloud from a collection of Aldo Leopold's essays, Round River, by the lamplight.
We awoke Sunday morning to a thunderstorm - not the scary kind - the kind that makes you want to lie in bed all day and listen to the rain. It was a beautiful way to end the vacation. We packed up and scampered down the grassy hill to our car to load everything in. On the way home we stopped at Rutabagas (a canoe store) in Madison for a little shopping, and then headed home. All in all, a wonderful, pretty relaxing trip!
1 comment:
It's a little creepy how similar our vacations were. We stayed in the same campground, visited the same attractions, ate at the same places, and were chased from the Shack by the same murderous mosquitoes. See you at Thanksgiving!
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