CAMPING - High Cliff State Park, Wisconsin

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO OUR OLDEST DAUGHTER, ERIN!!!   

This is her first year of being 29.  It's up to her how many more 29's she will have.   

We took Erin and Mark and the grandkids out for dinner last night, and had a very nice time.  It was so good to see the well-behaved grandkids in a sit-down restaurant with proper manners and good behavior to enjoy a meal out.  I am so appreciative of  the good parenting skills that all of our kids have with the grandkids! Even baby Clayton flirted with the waitress and made gentle cooing sounds while we ate.  And Chelsea gobbled up as many sauteed shrimp as she could muster.  We topped off the evening with a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday and a delicious decorated cake, complete with candles.  Ahhhhh


Also we celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary on Thursday.   Yes, fifteen years of being married to my best friend, and looking forward to many, many more!

After a very busy week... we loaded up the motorhome and headed out for 6 days of relaxing "Working Vacation".  Yes, some of us have to work, so I am going to be adding to my sock inventory, and maybe even spin up a few skeins of yarn if I feel like it.  I am wayyy down on sock inventory and need to get at least 100 more pairs in my online store.  I have a number of packages to mail on Monday from sales of my items in my Etsy store.  This is how I can work and travel at the same time!  My items are featured on line, and once they sell, I just pop them into packages and ship them out at the next nearest post office.    Steve is also going to be doing a little "work project" next Tuesday, but I can't say any more on that subject yet.  So this is a "Working Vacation"~

About 10 am we headed 60 miles south of our house down to High Cliff State Park, just east of Appleton, WI on the NE corner of the large Lake Winnebago.  This lake encompasses a large portion of the eastern side of Wisconsin between Milwaukee and Green Bay.

http://dnr.wi.gov/topic/parks/name/highcliff/

History

Wisconsin bought the land for High Cliff State Park in 1956 and opened the park in 1957. Even before High Cliff became a state park, the land had a rich natural and cultural history.

Earliest times

The Niagara Escarpment, often called "the ledge," was formed by the settling and hardening of limy ooze at the bottom of the Silurian Sea, which covered much of Wisconsin nearly 400 million years ago. Later, the flat-lying dolomite was tilted downward to the southeast by earth forces, leaving its higher western edge exposed at the earth's surface.

Between 1,000 and 1,500 years ago, nomadic Siouan Indians built effigy mounds in what is now the park. There are four panther-shaped mounds, two buffalo-shaped mounds, conical mounds and a linear mound.

As long ago as the 1880s, this area was noted for its breathtaking views of Lake Winnebago.

Quarry years

From 1895 to 1956, a limestone quarry and kilns to extract the lime from the stone were operated here. Workers drilled holes in the stone and used dynamite to blast it loose. The lime extracted in the kilns was sent throughout the Midwest for use in plaster and cement and to apply to soil to reduce acidity. Other limestone from the quarry was used for brick mortar and crushed into gravel. Horses pulled dump wagons of limestone to an area above the kiln until 1946, when they were replaced by a dump truck.

As many as 40 people worked at the operation, including drillers, a blasting specialist, stone crushers, teamsters, barrel makers, laborers and a blacksmith. Many were recent immigrants from Hungary. In its heyday, the lime industry supported a small "company town" consisting of 16 houses for workers, a store (including a post office, telegraph office and company office) and a tavern, all owned by the Western Lime and Cement Company. All that remains today are the store and ruins of the kiln.

(that was copied from the website)



It was a pleasant drive down from Oconto, even through the crazy construction of Hwy 41 around Green Bay.  I am glad to announce our tire pressure monitor system kept us safe the whole way (read 2 blogs back about our flat tire on our Tracker... the puncture is now since repaired under the road hazard warranty)

We pulled into the park about 11 am, but our reservation didn't start until 3pm.  The ranger at the gate said he didn't know if our site was vacated yet or not, but we could roll through the campground to see.  Nope, the folks were still on the site, but said they would be out about 1-2pm. That was fine, we drove over to a nice big parking area by one of the hiking trails and hung out for the morning, making up a late breakfast.  We had the generator running with both rooftop AC units keeping us cool.  We even took a little nap!

Later we unhooked the toad and I drove back up into the campground to see if our site was ready.  Yep!   I called on my cell back to Steve on his cell, who was waiting with the motorhome.  Ain't technology great?

We are now comfortably ensconced on site 107 for the next six days.  The campground is nicely wooded and shaded, with a lot of shrubbery and trees between each campsite.  There are 30amp electric hookups, which is appreciated on days like today where temps were reaching in the 90's again.  We cooked up burgers on the grill, cracked open a bottle of wine, and relaxed in our lawn chairs.  We took a quick stroll around 2 loops of the campgrounds, and we are back to the site for the rest of the evening.   I am a bit worried about Duchess, she stumbled a few times as if she was dizzy and wandering along.  She is drinking water fine, and ate well, and did her "duty" okay.  We didn't overwork her, and usually it's Duke who tuckers out first.  I know she is getting along in years, she turned exactly 12 years old on our anniversary.  I am not ready to lose her yet------

All set up and comfy cozy on our site.  I will add more pics later.  

For now, this is all you need to get the idea???

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