Monsters Are Eating My Brain

While we are not serious “backpack campers” or anything, we do enjoy a nice summer weekend at a State Park. This past weekend we teamed up with the Tancks and headed Southwest to Yellowstone Lake State Park. This is a beautiful lake and park just outside of Blanchardville Wisconsin (population 800-something). Their biggest claim to fame is their utter lack of mosquitoes. It was true, we met only a few mosquitoes while there and didn’t even wear bug spray! The reason for this lack of bugs is the fact that this lake is the home to roughly 4,000 brown bats during the summer. I didn’t see any bats personally, but they were sure doing a good job eating the mosquitoes!

We headed out on Friday night, and got off to a bit of a late start. After a very scenic and curvy drive (is this a road or a roller coaster?) we finally arrived in Blanchardville, where the instructions read to take a right on County Highway F. Well, we did this on the first F we saw and about 8 miles later (where the park *should* have been) we realized that something has gone wrong and back tracked back to Blanchardville. Apparently there are 2 F’s?? That’s not confusing at all, is it. Oh, it was the OTHER right turn on F. Yah. Anyhow, we finally made it there a little after 8 and began setting up camp. We had a great little site, but it was a little cramped with our large tents. We (The Bodettes) recently got a bigger tent, since ours needed replacing–and we opted for big since we are going to be using this tent for a long time and sleeping 5 in it! At any rate, you parked at the top of the hill, walked down a little path between some trees, and there was this beautiful little secluded campsite. It could have been just a little bigger, and it could have had some hammock trees. Other than that, it was great.

Finally camp was set up, the girls were all put into bed and Adam crashed. Meanwhile, the Tancks and I were starving, having not eaten since we thought we’d be to camp at a more decent time (apparently sleep won out over food for Adam). At 11pm Jason, our boyscout, was splitting wood so we could make a small fire and roast some Cheddarwurst. Mmmm.

While Jason is splitting wood, Jenny and I are standing, watching–holding lights and Cheddarwurst. Jenny was asking me if I wanted a bun–she would get another out for me if so. I declined, inwardly wondering where these “other” buns she was speaking of were, since I had not seen them. When we finally took the wood back to the fire, and the fire is starting, I was peering through the dark down to Jenny’s camp chair and noticed something interesting.

“Did you sit on your buns?”, I asked her. “What??”

At this point she picks up the poor little buns, which are now more like flat bread and we both start laughing hysterically. The best part is, she proceeds to peel them open and use them anyway. I nearly peed my pants. You really had to be there to appreciate it further, but at 12:30am or whatever time it was, this was quite hilarious.

Eventually, we settled down, the food warmed our tummies and around 1:30 or 2am we all retired to our tents to sleep for at least a few hours before the children woke up.

On Saturday, when we were finally all up and around (some families earlier than others), we whipped up a great breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon. By the time we washed dishes and had everything put away, the boys ran to town for some ice (it was pretty warm–the ice was not faring well) we packed up lunch, put on swimsuits and took the boat down to the lake.

Lidia is quite the boat girl now, she was so excited that we were going for a boat ride. When we turned on the radio, she couldn’t help but do a little booty shaking…

After traversing the lake for a while, we found a spot near a bluff to throw anchor, put up a little bit of shade and have lunch. It was a fabulous little picnic! The dragon and damsel flies were quite interested in us, too.

Once lunch settled, we put on our life jackets and jumped into the water. It was refreshing on a hot day in the sun. Lidia was a bit nervous, but refused to come out of the water until she was ready. We swam for a while, then it was off to camp for nap time! Lidia, Naomi and Rachel took a nap. I took a bit of a nap, too.

Once nap was over, (since they went down late, that wasn’t until around 5) we headed to the little beach so the girls could play in the water and use up a bit more energy. They had a blast, but a sprinkling of rain put an end to that party (along with the need to head back and start dinner) and it was back to camp again. Luckily, the rain passed and we were able to enjoy the rest of the evening by the fire.

At around 2am Sunday morning, it started raining. It was still sprinkling on and off in through the morning, so we ended up having to pack up a wet camp. We ended up just letting the tents down and throwing them in the back of the boat (instead of trying to pack them away wet. Everything needs a good drying out, but all in all it was a very fun camping trip and we really enjoyed ourselves. I will post a new album with pictures from the trip sometime this week.

Posted: Tuesday, June 20th, 2006 @ 11:46 am
Categories: Adventures, Incoherant Rambling.
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