Oh yeah, vacation...

'Twas so long ago now, but here are some photos from our kayaking adventure on Lake Superior.
 Checking out some caves along the shore of Madeline Island.

Floating snack!Do your best sand person imitation!

As you can see, it was absolutely beautiful albeit a bit windy out on the open water.  Lake Superior is so crystal clear, and the caves and rocks along the shore are beautiful!  Our rental guy, "Kayak Ed," was just a classic island dweller: he prominently displayed a newspaper clipping from the '60s heralding his Civil Rights protest arrests, and time was really quite malleable to him.  I'd be perfectly happy winding up like him, though, in my later days.

Vacation Campsites

Because Blogger only lets me upload five pics an entry, I'll highlight the vacation in pieces:

Campsite #1 - Moose Lake, WI: Mosquitoes, loons, undrinkable water, 14 miles of gravel, gigantic thunderstorm. A nice spot by the lake, but the swimming beach was covered with goose poop...we probably won't stay at this one again!

Campsite #2 - Big Bay State Park, Madeline Island, WI: More mosquitoes, lovely walk-in site, AMAZING beaches on Lake Superior, company in the form of deer (see pic #2) and A BEAR!!! Fortunately, drinkable water, and plumbing in the bathrooms which the kids really appreciated. They tired of pit toilets on this trip.

Campsite #3 - Fenske Lake, near Ely, MN: A beautiful swimming beach, clean water, fewer mosquitoes, a fox, awesome hikes close by, plus Ely about 13 miles away which has a wolf center, a bear center, frozen custard, and the delicious Chocolate Moose.

Moose Lake was one we hadn't located or researched ahead of time. We just drove up there and picked a Chequamegon National Forest campground off the map. We aimed for a not-quite-as-remote campground first which apparently doesn't exist anymore (time to update our Wisconsin Atlas??!). I guess it shows you should do your homework!! If you camp there, bring some drinking water! It seemed like a popular spot for fishermen...less so for families.

Overall the vacation was awesome! I'll post a few more highlight pictures. I fully recommend a visit to Madeline Island, camping or not. And northern Minnesota...I'm in love! I guess the biggest drawback on this trip was M3's insistence on washing her hands constantly (she has grown into a bit of a germophobe), and both kids' hatred of pit toilets. I fully understand being afraid of them as a kid. They are unsettling even as an adult, despite the fact that the Fenske Lake ones were some of the cleanest we've been in. Fortunately, the kids don't mind pooping in the forest!! HA!! (Don't worry, I buried it.)

Europa....

Well, ya'll, it was fun. Food was eaten (fish & chips, Indian, Ethiopian, crepes, pastries; in the UK, much beer and coffee; in France, much wine and coffee); a large portion of London and Paris were covered by foot, bus, and train; sights were well seen. Really, there are too many details for a blog posting. Some highlights:

St. James Park in London. I caught the changing of the guard at Buckingham by chance. (The Eye in the background...)

Guarding the Queen's jewels at the Tower of London. M4 had made us a most awesome going-away card with drawings of various landmarks. I tried to snap a photo with his drawing when I could.

Tower Bridge, of course.

No caption necessary. This is really something everyone should see in person in their lifetime. Not to mention the Notre Dame cathedral. I could have taken pictures there all day! The gargoyles!! One and a half days was not enough in Paris, but thanks to our fabulous hosts, David and Astrid, we saw a whole heckuva lot!!

The first day in London, Mark had gotten me a surprise: an Italian cooking course at La Cucina Caldesi!! It was such a fantastic time...everyone else was from the UK, so I got to meet some great people instead of otherwise wandering around solo. Our instructors, Stefano Borella and Katie Caldesi were relaxed, fun, and of course, informative! We ate and drank all day long (favorite pasttime); I got to hear Italian (next on the language list?); I was sufficiently inspired to come home and make homemade ravioli tout de suite (with a little help from M4)!

Other highlights:

• champagne tea at the Wolseley
  
• the Tate Modern
  
• Borough Market
• National Portrait Gallery
• the C2
• La Grande Epicerie
  
• the Marais

I also have to shout out to maybe the best coffee I've ever had: Monmouth Coffee Co. Yes, it was even better than what I had in France. Sacrilege!!! I have many more pictures...if you want to see them, let me know, and I'll send you the Shutterfly link. Mon dieu, it was a great vacation! I can't wait to take the kids sometime...

Off to Europe!

Looking forward to our European vacation in two days! Well, vacation for me; not so much for Mark, who will be working part of the time.

At the moment, I am feeling slightly spacey and frantic regarding exactly what I need to do to prepare. (Perhaps made that way by teaching my 9th class of the week tonight due to Jenny being away. She reciprocates for me next week...thank you so much, Jenny!!) Pack, for one thing. Clean the house, so my mom is not horrified. Uh....what else? Maybe nothing, really. It's London and Paris, not the outback. And we'll be staying with friends.

Why I am writing this? To make a list maybe?! To let you know why I won't be writing anything here for a while? To express my sudden realization that we'll be leaving the kids behind, leaving me both sad and thrilled? To also express my deepest fear of something happening as we travel? (I can go to worst case scenario so easily.)

OK, deep breath. Au revoir! I'll report in a couple weeks!

Northern CA

I realized I never finished my California series! We had such a very, very good time visiting our old friends and drinking in the beauty of Northern California. As luck would have it, all our friends live in amazing spots, and I begin to understand how someone would brave the ridiculous cost of living to make their home amidst all that natural beauty. And did I mention how much I miss our friends? Of course, it gives us the opportunity to visit these amazing places, but it means we are too far away from each other. Drat. This applies to East Coast friends, too. :-)

Not far from Scott and Charis's at Muir Beach overlook...spectacular!! We hung out at the beach, and we all had a blast playing in the sand and climbing rocks. Scott and I went photo crazy, I think...I have the most pics from there.

With Scott and Charis and the kids (who all got along famously) in front of their favorite breakfast place in Fairfax. Scott and Charis live tucked away in a hill. We went to the top and had views for miles!
At the Gravenstein Apple Fair in Sebastopol with Tina and Adam's oldest. Tina and Adam live on a lovely little farm with chickens and gardens...including grapes, which is only fitting since they are in Sonoma County, I think!

At Steve and Lucy's, the twins and M and M put on a whole play in very short order, called "How to be a Nerd." This was the bow. Steve and Lucy live on top of a hill with spectacular views. They have put in a tremendous amount of work to make their house beautiful! And they have a pool! The kids were in heaven. By the way, Steve and Lucy look exactly the same...not fair!

One thing that was so lovely to me on this portion of our trip was how well all the kids got along. At home where the kids have lived their whole lives, they have certain established dynamics with their friends. On vacation, there is none of that. There are no preconceived notions...they all just had a fantastic time with each other. We all need to be free of our usual roles once in a while, no?

More CA

If you are ever in the LA area, you must...you MUST...visit the Getty Museum!! I think it could be one of my favorite places, and I've barely been inside a gallery! I've mostly been outside...but look at the outside: on a hill, Pacific Ocean to the west, LA spread out below you, amazing gardens and landscaping, amazing architecture. You only pay to park, then you take a cute little tram up the hill and voila! My only regret is that we had very limited time there. We shall return.

CA part 2

DISNEYLAND!!! OK, I was the one who lobbied most for Disneyland, because I love amusement parks and Disney is supposed to be the Holy Grail, right? Well, it's not exactly the Holy Grail, but it was very fun despite being hella crowded. The weird thing is that it's quite quaint. There are attractions that I'm sure have been there since the place opened in 1955! The Enchanted Tiki Room for example. And "It's A Small World?" That is seriously 1955...although they may have gotten rid of some of their more offensive ethnic stereotypes. But you can look up as you're floating through and see the warehouse-y ceiling, which is just kinda weird for a park that charges you an arm and a leg to get in. But it definitely feels like the same warehouse Mr. Disney himself approved when he first opened the joint.

Who would have thought I would find Disneyland sweet (in the old-fashioned-Pollyanna-sweet kinda sense, not in the "suh-weet!" sense)? And it doesn't really have that many "big" rides. I should probably write about the "big" ride experience later as I don't have time now. As well as how impressed I was with the way they run things there.

Apparently, though, I was having too much fun to take pictures, because I didn't get many:

The cool riverboat, which we HAD to make Noelle ride. Cuz she loves riverboats a real lot.
On Pirates of the Caribbean, which was probably one of my favorites.
Impressionistic shot on the Monorail. M4 looks slightly crazed.

CA part I

We had such a fabulous time in Cali! In a few parts, I'll post the highlights:

Highlight #1: seeing cousin V, Uncle Nick, and Aunt Lauren of course!
#2: We met up with Mark's cousin and his family at Paradise Cove beach in Malibu. The water was FUH-REEZING!!! The kids played until they turned blue and shook uncontrollably. I preferred my cold temperatures for the beer I was drinking.
#3: Seaweed!
#4: La Brea Tar Pits, where we found a Grinnell eagle (who knew?! um, not me) in the Page Museum.
Poor mammoth. It was supposed to be the mom, of course. How very Disney.

I don't know why...

...I love this photo so much. I just do! M3, cousin V, and M4 in Cali.

Camping!

After we left Madtown and our friends, we made our way to one of our most favorite places to camp, Wyalusing State Park, where the Wisconsin river meets the Mississippi (official term: confluence). Since we are forgoing our usual big summer camping trip for California this summer (whee!!), we got in two quick nights during this Wisconsin visit. At Wyalusing, we lucked into a bluff campsite and got to watch fireworks go off in the distance on Saturday night.

Here are M and M at a scenic spot overlooking the rivers.

On the way to Treasure Cave.

There is a big storm just to the left of M4 in this pic. We left just in time and drove home through some torrential downpours.

A short trip, but sweet. Maybe we can get in some camping weekends this fall. We did discover that one of our air mattresses has a leak. Boo!! And also that one must have s'mores even if it takes two hours to get your wet firewood going!!

Chicago!

We had a great long weekend in Chicago! We visited the Bean (obviously a favorite...honestly, we could have taken pictures there all day...it just makes everyone happy! What an amazing piece of art!), Shedd Aquarium (where the kids were picked to pet a penguin), and the Field Museum. We had beautiful weather. We ate good food (although I won't wait in line for Eleven City Diner again...back to Dunkin Donuts next time! But Zapatista's...yum!). We got to stay at the Hilton Chicago (where Prez Obama spent election night and where there are two bathrooms in the rooms!). We only got to stay at the swanky Hilton because the official reason for the trip was Mark's Society for Neuroscience meeting. He did get to come to the aquarium and spend a reasonable amount of time with us, though.

As a bonus, we got to see Mark's college chum, Dave, and his awesome family twice; the kids and I spent a whole afternoon and evening with Steph from London; and the kids and I visited my great Aunt Doris on the way home. Even a short vacation is hard to come down from! Chicago rocks!

The Bean...where everyone is happy. I'm not even kidding!

Bean fun.
More Bean fun.
M and M silhouetted against part of the Crown Fountain.

Sue!! And M4's general feeling about the trip, I think.

12 years!

A few pics from our quick anniversary trip to Elkader, Iowa last weekend, which is reportedly the only city (um, town) named after a Muslim in the U.S. It is name after Abd el-Kader, a young Algerian hero who led his people in a resistance against French colonialism between 1830 and 1847. Go figure!! We ate Algerian food at Schera's, which has its own nice story.

The Motor Mill, which is in the process of being restored. The guy who ran the B&B we stayed at is very involved.

A friend we made at our lodgings.

Then bend in the Turkey River where the mill is located.

Lovely Northeast Iowa. The Mississippi is at the blue line on the horizon in this pic.

Shipwrecks!! Real live shipwrecks!

Another highlight of our trip was taking a Lake Superior shipwreck tour. I was afraid it was going to be a rip-off tourist kind of thing (the words "glass-bottomed boat" just scream tourist!! to me). It turned out to be SUPER COOL! Even though things-underwater-that-aren't-supposed-to-be-there creep me out.

M4 checking out the Bermuda, the first wreck we saw:

People scuba dive these wrecks, too. That wouldn't really be my thing, but you go, divers!!

I don't remember which wreck this anchor belonged to, but isn't it cool anyway? The captain took us to see the rock reef that sank a lot of these boats. It's pretty spooky to look down and see the bottom of the lake under you, then just watch it drop away to the depths. Gulp.

Nice hair in the wind shot:

The tour was close to Grand Island, the whole of which is a national recreation area. We saw this fella hanging in his aerie:

I'll even put in a plug for the shipwreck tour company, if you ever happen to find yourself in Munising, MI.

Beach tour

Did I mention that the beaches on our vacation were amazing? In order of our visits to them:

Petoskey State Park on Lake Michigan:
Still Petoskey...I love this pic of the water splashing up around M4:
An extra scenic view of the shore of Mackinac Island on Lake Huron. If you go, definitely rent bikes to get out of town...a trip around the island follows 8 miles of shoreline:
This beach was a 1.5 mile hike from our campground at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore on Lake Superior. It was called Twelve Mile Beach. Twelve miles and NO people!!
And finally, Chapel Beach (still Lake Superior) was the last beach we hiked to. This was three miles from the trail head. That meant three miles back, but it was worth it! The kids did great! A waterfall from Chapel Lake falls right onto the beach, making a little river that heads out to the big water:So maybe the Michigan Board of Tourism should hire me; clearly I was impressed!