After leaving Minnesota the third weekend in August, we got to meet one of Dad's childhood friends at his cabin, in the woods of northern Wisconsin. We enjoyed seeing their design and all the hard work that went into building their lovely home. They had two huge dogs that were kind and cuddly.
In Ashland, WI, we ate our breakfast at a picnic table with our view of Lake Superior. The treats came from Ashland Bakery and Black Cat Coffee House, which had beautiful local artwork. After our breakfast, we took a nice bike ride along Lake Superior. This was KC's first trail ride that he biked all on his own, after learning how to bike with two wheels in Grand Marais. We stopped at an artesian water well and played in the sand, before biking back to our bus.
Our next stop was a beautiful Harvest Host farm near Wausau. Once we were settled in, we were able to watch Trigger's training session in the round pen. Afterwards, the kids gave the three horses some treats and watched Trigger enjoy his hose bath (and big drink) to cool off. The horses seemed to like us after the treats, because they were very interested in what we were doing. We had a lovely sunset dinner, with Bella and Gus providing occasional shade. The kids spent a lot of time petting the friendly cat and we all took a walk around the pastures. The couple that owned the farm had rescued all of their horses, along with two donkeys who were very afraid of strangers. There was also unique, old schoolhouse building on their farm that had lots of antiques and some local artist pieces for sale.
We moved our bus to the campsite at Big Eau Pleine Park. We had a few days to unpack, relax and get settled in. The kids enjoyed making sand castles at the beach and playing at the large playground. We all enjoyed walking on the trails and seeing the pretty sunsets.
The kids helped unpack our camping gear from the Yakima and refill it with our travel bags. Then we took off for the short drive down to Sauk Prairie to spend a long weekend with Oma and Papa, and we arrived in time for supper. The next day our cousins came over to swim with us at our hotel.
For our cousin's birthday we were able to join their family in Madison to watch an Ultimate Frisbee Tournament game. Even though this was our first tournament and we were learning the rules, we still enjoyed watching and cheering on the teams. During breaks in the game, they would throw out souvenir frisbees and we were lucky to catch two of them.
We were able to take an exclusive tour of the John Joseph Coffee roastery in Sauk Prairie. We saw all the giant bags the beans originally came in, and we saw the coffee roaster in action! We visited our Great Grandma, and showed her lots of photos from our trip. She had many fun memories of her travels back in the day. Afterwards, we met up with our grandparents again and went on a fun bike ride on their trail.
After staying in Sauk for a while, we headed back to our bus the State Park. We drank some root beer floats made with the maple root beer that had we purchased from our Antique Horse Farm near Wausau. We were able to enjoy some more beautiful sunsets and the kids went on more park excursions during the days. A few times they even packed a picnic and took the walkie-talkies.
After almost two weeks in Wisconsin, and getting to spend some time with family, we headed to Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Keep an eye out for our next blog post to see
what happens next!
Written by B.O.B.; Edited by Mom; Fun Fact by Pickles
*Blog posts are not reflective of our current location,
they have been written and posted with a delay.*
Fun Fact
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The first kindergarten in the United States was opened in Watertown, Wisconsin in 1858. The class only had 5 kids, the teacher's daughter and her daughter's four cousins.
Did the horses try to eat any of your food off the picnic table? Aunt Alice