CAMPING - Part 3 - Old Veterans Campground - Peshtigo State Forest

(this post made by a solar powered laptop) 

Good morning from the woods .....

We are still at Old Veterans campground in the northwoods of Wisconsin... check my blog post from two days ago for maps and website about this place.

Picking up where I left off on Saturday's blog:

After our cinnamon rolls and coffee, I popped in a pan of brownies too on Saturday.  Frosted them later after they cooled.  Just love that little Easy Bake Oven!  (Coleman Instastart propane oven)

After a cereal breakfast we decided to hop on the scooter to head out over to my dad's place on Crooked Lake.   Here is our Honda Helix that we put on a rack behind the motorhome.  It rides us both up comfortably and goes 70mph.  It is a nice alternative to having to tow a car.  Our Saturn is towable, and we have the tow bar setup, but we choose to just bring the scooter.  It's much easier and more fun!!!

It was about 18 miles one way, and let me tell you, even on tiny backroads and a country trunk road, the traffic was horrible!   A lot of holiday people out and about.  We drove past Twin Bridge campground where we first thought we might like to camp and it was jammed up so tight.  I don't think there was a square yard of open space on the beach as we drove past, it was wall to wall people, both in and out of the water.   Going past the boat landing, the entire parking lot was filled solid up and trucks/trailers lined the road up and down both sides for near a mile!

We pulled up in front of my dad's place, and he was not in the garage as usual, so I called him on my cell phone, he answered his phone from inside of the house. I asked him "Where in the H*LL are ya????"  (just like he hollars to me on the phone each time he calls me) .... LOL   and told him we were out in the driveway!

Here is his little log cabin we helped him build in 1984.  It started as a weekend cottage, but now it is his permanent home.   We got him a new metal roof now, so he doesn't have to get up there to shovel off the snow and ice each winter.  A couple years ago, Erin and I restained it for him, and it's looking like it could use another coat again.

When anyone goes to my dad's house to visit, you don't sit in the house... oh no!   You all sit in the garage!

He has patio furniture set up in the open garage door.  You sit there, grab a cold one from the fridge he has in the garage, and watch cars and people drive by on the loop through the woods around his house. It's like being in a small tavern.  He has beer signs up all over.   I noticed he had last years father's days cards still stuck up on the wall too.  LOL  He has fans blowing to keep the garage cool, and folks stop by to visit as they drive around the lake and see him sitting out there.    Everyone there knows him as *Yooper*   because he was born and raised in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan... U.P.er... Yooper.... you get it?  They even made up a job for him, and a name.  He is the Mayor of Yooperville,  I kid you not!

While we were there visiting, four guys stopped by all at different times... first was Paul (in the pic on the left)  he stopped to bring back some parts he borrowed and dropped off some other parts that he thought dad could use on a project.   Then the other neighbor from across the way, came over asking for advice on how to repair his screen door.   Then 2 guys stopped in a pickup truck with a broken lawnmower in back, asking my dad to fix for them.   This was all in one hour's time!   

He sure is busy busy busy and it keeps him outta trouble... well, kinda sorta!     Dad is always fixing things and not charging enough $$$ to even make a profit, because he usually fills the oil and gas on each machine he fixes!   Sometimes he finds junked mowers or weedeaters or chainsaws at the dump, takes em home, fixes em up and gets em running.... and lines them up in a row along the side of the road to sell them to the other cottage folks who drive by!   

One time I was talking in my blog about ice fishing and how popular a sport that is in the north.... Here is a shot of my dad's ice shanty!   It has windows, curtains, a wood stove, hooks for lanterns, 12 volt lights and tv on shelf, two flip down bunks and trap doors built right into the floor....  you just drag it down to the lake onto the ice and place it over your drilled holes in the ice.   Sitting inside, nice and warm, and fishing in comfort on sub zero days!  Sometimes the fish bite better at night, so you can even sleep inside when you get tired, or too drunk to go home.....

We decided to get on back to our campground, so left him with more guys all yapping in the garage.   Heading back I snapped a few shots while on the back of the scooter. Pretty good, eh?

(that round dome on the bottom on the photo is Steve's helmet!) 

Here is one I took by holding the camera ahead of me, and trying to get the motorcycle with side car that was travelling behind us.  Although in Wisconsin you don't need a helmet to ride motorcycles, we do.

I snapped a shot of the tiny general store we stopped at on Friday.   How cute is this?  You can not imagine how much stuff is crammed inside, plus propane filling out back and the single little gas pump in the front.

This guy has a sign out front saying he is an "Antique Dealer"    .. you betcha! 

As we pulled into the campground again, I snapped two more pics, one is the Wood Shed... it's an honor system of buying firewood from what is stacked inside.  There is a *rack* that you load up your wood into, put your five bucks into an envelope and stick it into the box.   Done.

Speaking of on your honor, most the parks we frequent are self pay posts and on your honor.  Sometimes rangers come through and double check, sometimes they don't.   We ALWAYS pay, though we do see some folks that sneak in and sneak out the next morning and never put anything in the post or hang a tag.

There is ONE time that our guys all went the day before with the camper trailers and fourwheeler ATV's to a place way up in the U.P. of Michigan, and we woman came the next day.  Of course we thought the guys had paid, but they were so excited to get out on the ATVs and start mud running, they didn't!    By the time we women got there the next day, it was the furthest thing from their minds to pay.   Well, we got back from a long ATV ride, and there were two rangers setting in our little group of trailers.  OOPS!   They were very nice, but said they had to give us all fines as they had to call in our license plate numbers per policy.   Actually it was a park in Michigan and they said they had the authority to impound any out of state vehicles if  they wished!!! We were the only out of staters in our group!! ACK!    But we chatted nicely with them, explained how stupid our men were, and invited them to sit down and eat supper with us.  LOL   They still had to write the tickets, but we realized they were only doing their jobs.  It cost us $212 for a fine.  And we are sure to never ever ever do that again!


After we got back to our site, let the doggers out.

Oh side note here--- we kept them inside with a 12 volt fan blowing on them, and our battery operated MP3 player with speakers playing loud enough inside to drown out any outside noises that might make them bark.  Although we are many many sites away from any other campers, we just don't ever want them to bark and be annoying whether we are here or gone.   They are good campground doggers, and we have set up the video camera from time to time to film them for 2 hours and see just what they do when are gone.   Nothing.  They sleep, get a drink from their dish, and sleep again.

I took out the sock machine for some cranking, got two more orders to work on, plus I sold a handwoven rug on my etsy site last night.  I will ship it out on Tuesday when the post office opens.  In case you don't know, I am a weaver  and knitter and sell my wares on this site:

http://kareninthewoods.etsy.com/

Just a shameless plug in case you would like to help support my RVing addiction?

Steveio decided it was time to cook supper, so he did boneless skinless chicken breasts on the grill, and I whipped up the noodles and green beans.  Ahhhh another feast fit for a king!

Gosh we sure eat good when we are out camping! 

Now-- question here: 

Why is it the guys say *They Cooked*???

When all they did was flip the meat over on the grill a few times and season it a bit?   While we women:

plan the menu

shop for the food

pack the food 

defrost the right foods on the right days

hand them the raw meat and grilling tools

make up all the extras like the noodles and beans

(timing them right to go along with the grilling times so all is done together)

taking out the utensils, plates, glasses, wine etc. 

but the guys say *They Cooked*  

????????

We took the path around the lake (see yesterdays blog post for a map with the blue path)   It was so nice and cooling down fro the high of 91 today.  We slathered on some tick spray and took the doggers along.  This path is nicely mowed and doubles as snowmobile trail in the winter months.  

Along our path we saw another box turtle laying eggs, just like the one at home.  Plus we saw a trail of ants by the thousands, actually making a path like a rut through the ground back and forth to the lake from their huge sandpile.   You can almost see it in this pic on the right:

We wandered back into the campground just about sunset...

Steveio made a nice campfire in the brand new fire ring in our site.  I brought out the computer for a while and chatted with the RVDreamers in the chat room while sitting at our own campfire. That was kinda interesting! 

 http://www.rv-dreams.com/chatroom.html  

We sat out till we could not keep the eyelids open anymore....  time to crawl into the shower and go to bed.  Steveio had sprayed both dogs good for any stray ticks that might be falling off after our walk, and we didn't have any crawling around in the motorhome either.  Thank goodness. 

Sunday morning dawned bright and sunny (again)  but the weatherman is promising high temps, humidity, and rain storms tonight.  Steveio cooked us a nice breakfast of this sliced american fried potatoes, slab of fried ham, and a few scrambled eggs which he hasn't had but once or twice a month now.  We ate them so fast, didn't have time for a photo.  

Wonder if the kids are gonna come up or not?  If too hot, it is not a lot of fun for babies....   and we would have to fire up the generator to turn on AC for them.

  We will see what today will bring!

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