Halloween Event at High Cliff State Park in Wisconsin

Wow, we sure got busy this week and I never got around to writing about our Halloween Walk at High Cliff State Park.  We were the camp hosts all week long, and got our site decorated after Wednesday's storm blew through.  We didn't bother putting anything up on the campsite before that, because it would have blown away into the next county.

Steve hauled out all of our totes of decorations from the garage, and set them out for me to start the Halloween Decor efforts.  All of the campsites are reserved 11 months in advance at midnight, with everyone clamoring to get a site.  There are 112 campsites and 8 large group sites that can hold larger numbers of people (I think it's 20 per site now?)   This is a BIG event and people come from all over to walk through the campgrounds and collect treats from the campers.  (I had 1,600 pieces of candy on hand and my nephew contributed more so we started with about 2,000 pieces)  We expect between 4.000 and 5,000 people to attend!

Here is our camphost site, all spiffied up. 

 We added lights and pumpkins and 

silly things, trying to not get too scary for the little ones. 

Less than 40 sites have electricity at High Cliff, but this is the one time of the year that generators are allowed in the non-electric sites too.  So those people could fill up with lights and fun inflatables too.  Believe me, many people did a LOT more to their sites than we did... they put up huge displays with fun electronics, lights, and soundtracks....  even spooky haunted trails leading through their site to get to the candy bowl etc.

  I think our scariest guy is our gargoyle,

and he is kinda cute too. 

This sign was a little icky, 

but the little ones can't read anyhow.  LOL 

Our motorhome even got into the act! 

Frankenstein and Dracula hung out in the front windshield 

with some eerie white LED lights for illumination.

I am glad our camphost site is large and welcoming.

We were having family join us for the celebrations of birthdays as well.

(we later covered the cord with a heavy rubber mat) 

Our kids, Dan and wife Heather, with grandkids Mason and Allegra got to the park on Friday afternoon to spend the weekend as well.  They decorated up their campsite in front of their camping trailer to join in the fun.  We are so glad all of our kids are following in our camping footsteps and show their kids the fun they had when they were younger and went camping with us. 

Our friend Vicky came out to join us, with her shelties Stuart and Tara.  We took the dogs for a walk around the park before the festivities really got underway. That way we could see things and be able to be back at our own campsite when the throngs of people started coming through.  Of course, some of the grandkids had to join us on our doggie walk as well. 

While we were walking, 

the four older grankids decided to serenade (and practice) 

singing Happy Birthday to the littest cousin, Claire. 

Soon the rest of our families came to the campsite, to join in our special gathering. See, it's little Claire's second birthday, and we also celebrate my birthday too (which is ON Halloween!)  It's a fun family time to get together for the big walk at High Cliff and get all of the October Birthdays done too.   Grandmuddah and Granddaughter got piled up with gifts to open..... 

 Then everyone sang to little Claire the Happy Birthday song again...

She seemed to be more interested in the cookie! 

Our daughter Erin arranged to have these special gourmet cookies made for us,

instead of cakes...  it is a great way to serve up a group, and each one is a work of art! 

Mine were all sewing and yarn related....

and Claire's were all about puppies, her favorite animal at the age of 2.

After all of the presents were opened, little Claire and Whitney set about to explore the toys that Claire got for her birthday.  I love this pic of them both being busy busy busy with the Fisher Price Farm that we got for Claire.

Then it was time to change into costumes for the trick or treating walk.  What fun!!!  Little Whitney was an adorable unicorn, and Chelsea was a ghoul with lit up eyes (with a little battery pack)... creepy!

Clayton was some kind of super Ninja guy

and little Claire was Scrappy Doo

Allegra was a unicorn with all over jammies to keep warm

and silly Mason was a Floppy Flamingo! 

Our daughter Erin and husband Waylen love to get dressed up

and take part in the fun.  

They are Velma and Scooby Doo

(danged dog) 

The Choate Family 

I cooked up a crock pot of my calico beans, and Steve grilled up a bunch of brats and hot dogs for the kids.  We fed everyone lunch to get something in their stomachs before all of that candy and beverages for the adults.  Later I had a big crock pot of chili waiting for them after getting treats... and my friend Vicky brought along some of her great rice krispie bars to munch on. 

Our nephew Matt and wife Amanda also joined in

as well as daughter Heather and soninlaw Jesse.  

The youngens did a few jello pudding shots

but Grandfaddah and Grandmuddah were hosts on duty, 

so we didn't imbibe. 

The people started coming down the roads of the campground.  The rangers block off the roads to all automobile traffic, so it's safe and fun.  Soon the crowds increase to a solid flow of people past our campsites.  We tried to remind the kids to only take ONE piece of candy, so there is enough for all.  A few would come through again and again, especially when I refilled with the chocolate bars!

This creepy leprechaun comes year after year. I have no idea what he looks like behind the mask.  Amanda was looking for him and finally found him. He was up on the roof of a camper, squealing and dancing in elfish delight!  I am sure he imbibed in a few beverages as well. 

Soninlaw Waylen brought a smoke machine.  It's harmless smoke made from glycerine and water. The kids had fun playing with it, and by using a remote control it would smoke out into the road when groups came by the campsite.   Grandnephew Lil Matt took care of the candy bucket and the smoke machine as the people came by our site.

The main event was from 4 pm to 8 pm. 

We doled out the candy, and by 8 pm this is ALL we had left! 

Actually a little less than that, I took the pic about quarter to 8.

Our kids who weren't camping, that had just come for the day, had now left 

and headed home with sleepy grandkids full of candy! 

Things calmed down nicely in the campground --- by 11 pm all was pretty quiet.  Being camphosts means we can be called upon to help out or call the rangers or wardens to handle conflicts.  Our only problem was someone dropped a brandy bottle in the men's shower about 10 pm and it shattered into a zillion pieces.  It skittered across under the dividers into all three shower stalls. Steve and I cleaned it up, carefully wiping down every inch of floor to be sure we got any shards, and then rinsing the floors thoroughly to rinse down any tiny pieces. We would hate to have someone step in there to take a shower and cut their feet! 

ON EDIT...  THE COUNT AT THE GATE FOR THE PARK WAS OVER 5,000 PEOPLE ON SATURDAY!  SOME MAY HAVE BEEN THERE TO WALK THE TRAILS OR ENJOY THE PICNIC GROUNDS, BUT MOST WERE FOR THE HALLOWEEN EVENT AT THE CAMPGROUNDS!) 

  

Grandson Mason fell asleep in our camper, so we let him spend the night.  In the morning he helped me create our "Breakfast Bake" casserole.  It's becoming a family tradition and a good way to feed a group of people at the same time with eggs, ham, bread and cheese all rolled into one. 

 (NOTE... I OMIT THE MILK... IT BAKES BETTER) 

also we used ham instead of bacon or sausage.

Now it was time to tear down all of the decorations.  It was due to rain in the afternoon, and also the Packer Game was going to be on tv at noon.  Mason helped Grandpa tear it all down and load it up into the totes.  Another Halloween Event at High Cliff is in the books!

Although we could remain as camphosts for the rest of the month, there is another couple who usually host for a month that missed out in the rotation this summer because they went to Alaska.  So they were more than happy to come and take our place for the rest of the month.  With our brake problem on the motorhome, Steve wanted to get it home in our yard and go over every inch of the system and then test it out. Kinda hard to do that while camphosting and being set up on the site for 30 days.  So they were eager to get moved over and set up on our campsite before noon rolled around as well. 

 I headed on home driving the Tracker about 11 am

while Steve did the Dump Station Conga Line

on a Sunday morning:

As for the brakes, Steve said they were kinda sorta working on the way home, but the front brakes were smoking by the time Steve pulled into the yard~!! Dang they locked up and we hope he didn't warp the rotors or fry the calipers.  Also the pac brake (exhaust or "jake brake" as some call it) was not operating properly either!  Steve ordered some more parts that will be in later this week.  We postponed or possibly cancelled our upcoming trip to Tennessee and Florida.   We are bummed, but we have to have the motorhome working and fully reliable before heading out that far.

Sooooo we are home.  

More on that in tomorrow's blog! 

Fixed Brake Line - Family Fish - Big Storm Coming!

As soon as the auto parts store opened up this morning, Steveio was there at the door, ready to get the proper brake line fitting for motorhome. He also grabbed 3 quarts of synthetic Dot 3 brake fluid with a high boiling point as well.  He is not sure how much fluid leaked out, so he is best to be prepared with enough plus some for bleeding the brakes afterwards.

Before I could start on my second cup of coffee, he had put on his overalls and crawled back underneath the motorhome. I only had to hand him a few things because he already knew what he was doing with his various flaring tools, tube cutters, and wrenches.

Here is a section of the rusted out brake line that he removed, as well as now putting a new fitting on the end of it.

What a grubby looking thing, eh? That's what a combination of age (22 year old motorhome) and Wisconsin Winter Roads With Salt do to the undersides of our vehicles.  Remember, just a few weeks ago we also replaced the rusted out muffler.

Once he was assured that all of the brake lines were good, he took out his air pressure brake bleeding tool. He got that a number of years back from Harbor Freight.  Here is a link:

Pneumatic Brake Fluid Bleeder with Auto-Refill Kit

It has proved invaluable for drawing through the new brake fluid through the long runs of brake lines on a motorhome.  It operates with the air compressor and pulls the new fluid through the lines while sucking out the old stuff into the white chamber.

Steve keeps his air compressor in the motorhome. It is able to handle all of his air tools and stows compactly away in a basement storage compartment until we need it.  I bought it for him years ago for Christmas and it's just the right size. He has a different one now in the garage, so this one can stay in the motorhome all of the time.

He fills the main reservoir of the brake system up to the top with the new fluid. Then he uses this device on each of the bleeders at each wheel. It draws through the new fluid and at the same time removes the old fluid. Of course, in this case we don't have any old fluid because it all leaked out!!

By using this bleeding tool, it also suctions out all of the air in the lines so we never have a bubble. That can be dangerous. He used up one full quart and 3/4 of another bottle of fluid to adequately purge the system of air and make sure each of the brakes has fluid right up to the bleeder.

He had it all done before I could snap a pic underneath.
This is all I got.

Once he was done with that, he went inside and started up the motorhome. He pumped the brakes a few times to feel the pedal return to its normal position. Of course, since we are set up for a week on the campsite, we won't be taking it out for a test drive until we are ready to leave.

But he is confident that we are now "Good To Go"!

~~~~~~~~~~

I spent the rest of the morning working on a project myself. It's a "Repurpose Recycle Reuse" project!  And it has to do with fish???

If you've read my blog during the last few weeks you know that we built a bunch of cute shutters to dress up the exterior of our home. The motif we chose matches the fretwork cutout design of the lattice below our front porch.

The shutters sure came out cute 

and we are happy we did that....

Okayyyyyy 

now you may be asking yourself, 

what do shutters have to do with fish? 

Or recycling for that matter?

How could you toss these into a scrap pile? Steve was even going to toss them in our backyard campfire. No way. I could see a fun game coming out of these.

Well, just look at those cutouts. Tell me what you see? I saw it. I had an idea. I asked Steve to cut each of the pieces in half, at the center most point.

I tossed them in my handy-dandy weeding bucket from my brother-in-law Pete. I'm done weeding my garden, so right now this bucket can be for the fishing game, okay Pete?

I brought along my electric pad sander, my glue gun and a pack of magnets. Oh boy, when I get creative there's no stopping me.

I sat outside of the motorhome and sanded off all of the rough edges around each fish. There weren't any other campers nearby us, so I wasn't bothering anybody.  Steve said he thought I looked so cute and snapped this pic of me. Awwwwwww

I sanded down each fish and got myself covered in sawdust at the same time. What fun!  I love fun projects and using power tools.  The smell of fresh cut wood reminds me of the fun time we had building our log house together after we first got married.  Ahhh memories.  Anyhow, back to the fish---   I was having fun and not making too much of a mess.

My next step was to grab my wide permanent markers. I wrote each family member's name on a fish. I also included all of their dogs and cats as well.  I added all of the kids, grandkids, great grandparents and the nephew, wife and two cousins who are also coming on Saturday to the park.   I had to make a list to not forget anyone.

Using my hot glue gun, I attached strong magnets to the mouth of each fish. Whatever did we do before the age of glue guns?  I am using the new Gorilla Glue sticks, that really seem to hold better than the older style sticks.  I glued the magnets at bit of an angle to fit the drilled out hole of the shape.  (Steve had to drill pilot holes on each end of the pattern to get the jig saw blade started to make the cutout).

I have a long bamboo fishing pole I found in our garage attic from the previous sellers.  Steve will cut it in half for me tomorrow and sand the edges. I am adding strong cords and two round magnets to the ends of the cords. That way the kids can "fish" by hooking onto the magnets, either from the bucket or from behind a curtain or a panel so they can catch random fish and be surprised by who they catch! 

I started lining them up to cool off the glue 

while the dogs watched me work.

Lining them up was fun,

and I started sorting them out and 

grouping them by family.

This was fun! 

After each one cooled, I lined them all up on the picnic table.  There are 33 in all completed, and I have more unpainted ones to add to the group later.  I might add my own siblings and their grandkids too. 

I can just see our grandkids 

making up games 

and rules for the games, 

and learning to identify family members, 

reading the names, 

teaching the younger kids, 

and 

catching various fish 

from a hidden space behind a blanket 

or out of the bucket? 

We will call it:

"FAMILY FISH"

~~~~~~~~~

This afternoon we got warnings on our phone of bad weather coming across Wisconsin.  The radar didn't look too good.  Since we had a lot of rain the last two days, the ground at the park is totally saturated.  High winds combined with the shallow root systems in the park (due to being on the Niagara Escarpment of rock cliffs)  Trees are known to blow down easily, and we kinda sorta know what to expect. 

SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS WITH DAMAGING WINDS AND TORNADOES POSSIBLE DURING THE AFTERNOON AND EARLY EVENING... THE POTENTIAL EXISTS FOR SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS ACROSS THE AREA DURING THE AFTERNOON AND EARLY EVENING HOURS. THE STORMS ARE LIKELY TO PRODUCE DAMAGING WIND GUSTS. LARGE HAIL AND TORRENTIAL RAINFALL IS ALSO POSSIBLE. 

SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS POSSIBLE THROUGH THE EVENING... STRONG THUNDERSTORMS WITH HEAVY RAINFALL, GUSTY WINDS AND HAIL WILL CONTINUE ACROSS NORTHERN WISCONSIN THROUGH EARLY EVENING. THESE STORMS MAY BECOME SEVERE AS THEY MOVE RAPIDLY THROUGH CENTRAL AND EASTERN WISCONSIN BETWEEN 8 PM AND 11 PM. DAMAGING WINDS WILL BE THE PRIMARY THREAT, BUT ISOLATED TORNADOES AND LARGE HAIL WILL ALSO BE POSSIBLE. 


We made a wise decision to head into town to our house. It's only 15 miles away, so we figured we would hunker down at our house, and leave the motorhome at the park. We rolled up the awning and put away our lawn chairs.  There aren't too many people camping this week, so we are not really needed to be there. We notified the rangers and the park superintendent that we were leaving for the evening.  We popped the dogs in the Tracker and headed back to town.

Things are looking grim, and the winds are kicking up.  We went for a quick walk around the block with the dogs, and almost got blown away down the street.  A few sprinkles were starting as we made our way back to the house, safe and sound.

The rolling and boiling clouds 

look eerie against the night sky

and the church tower. 

Since most of our "cookable" food is out in the motorhome's refrigerator, we decided to order Chinese take-out here in Chilton. We don't often do that. Steve had Spicy Beef and I had Shrimp with vegetables.  The dogs got the fortune cookies!  

Tonight we will sit here and watch some movies, check the weather reports and be safe and sound in our house. I hope all of the storms blow over, and are not as ominous as some of the weather reporters are making it sound.  I just shudder to think of the blowing winds and toppling trees in the park. Our motorhome is insured, but our lives are not. Better to be safe than sorry!


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