NGLVC: That’s a Wrap!

For many years when we lived in our house, I was an avid scrapbooker, with a whole room dedicated and designed for my crafting. I subscribed to all the scrapbook magazines, entered the contests, occasionally did some paid work, had my creations published a few times, and, as I have since I was a child, simply adored working with snips and bits. A trend that you could often see in the magazines from the “scrapbook celebrities” was the making of pages on which the photos were taken in order to create a scrapbook page instead of recording what happened organically. Some people would even take pictures of their bee-stung or knee-scraped children before tending to them in order to make a boo-boo page using those “cute little bandage stickers I found!” I understand we all pose for pictures, take the occasional selfie, edit some photos a little, etc., and I really have no problem with that. Each creator has license. For me and this blog and life, though, I strive to take very few staged photos. We record what we actually do and don’t do things just to manufacture blog fodder. All of that is to explain the lengthy gap in my posting, suffering a lack of many original activities to record in our final weeks here.

Having said all that, let’s start with a staged picture of pie, which I did not make for the blog, but rather to snarf.

This is a no-bake Paleo Banana Cream Pie, the only change I made to the recipe is that I used walnuts instead of almonds in the crust. It did not set up as firmly as it was supposed to, but it stayed on the crust and it was, according to TBG, refreshing! An easy, healthy pie for people like me with a defective oven.

An activity we’d been keeping in our back pockets but which we postponed the first time due to smoky air quality was rescheduled and enjoyed a few weeks ago. A ferry ride to Madeline Island! When I’d mentioned earlier this season to my sweet, super-knowledgeable NGLVC co-worker, Rose, that we were eventually planning this excursion, she promptly got on the phone and arranged VIP passes for us.

Madeline is one of the 22 Apostle Islands, but it is not part of the National Lakeshore because it was permanently inhabited when the park was established. The ferries travel several times a day between Bayfield on the mainland to La Pointe on Madeline from spring break-up until winter freeze-up, at which point people walk, ice-sail, or drive across on the frozen lake. During the thaw, you can walk, bike, or drive onto the ferry. For our adventure, we parked the car in Bayfield (plenty of free parking) and wheeled our bikes down to the ferry dock.

Madeline offers visitors everything from luxury accommodations to rustic camping, bicycle/scooter rentals, water adventures and rentals, etc. all located in La Pointe. The bulk of the island is rural homesteads and parks. Our goal was to bike the six miles of dedicated bike lane to Big Bay State Park where entrance is free on a bicycle. There is a 17-mile bike loop around the island, but according to those who had gone before us, once you leave the pavement for the gravel back half of the loop, there are no real worthy views. Bicycles are only allowed on the paved roads in the state park, so we came prepared to rack them in order to walk some of the trails. Shortly after boarding the ferry, TBG realized we’d forgotten the bike locks, and there was some kerfuffling over what would happen when we got to the park. What happened was I put my bike in the rack and took my chances, while TBG rode a little ways down the road from the parking lot and stashed his in the woods when no one was looking. I’m happy to report both were right where we’d left them when we returned from longer hiking than we’d anticipated, much of it on a fabulous boardwalk.

Here’s what I can say about Madeline: It is beautiful. If we were only going to be in this area for a few days, we would seriously consider ferrying the RV over and staying in the state park’s lovely campground. Everything the area has to offer is accessible from the island or on the island itself.

When we arrived back in La Pointe, we headed to Grampa Tony’s for some well-earned treats. I parked TBG under a tree with the bikes and waited in a long line of masked and sweaty people to get us an order of fries and a couple cups of delicious Wisconsin ice cream.

We had a happy, peaceful time, one of our favorite experiences of the summer.

Although the VC remained mostly closed, the center was still able to hold its annual Who Goes Bump in the Night? boardwalk hike and presentation on a full-moon evening. TBG and I walked over and attended as visitors.

My favorite was the bat station, mostly because it featured a real big brown bat named Echo! Our coworkers did a really nice job, making it a fun, interesting evening.

Speaking of full moons, TBG went over to the tower to capture the latest one. He also got a shot of the Chequamegon Bay Lighthouse as it signaled across the bay.

Our air quality continued to be pretty dismal many days, and when there wasn’t smoke (which was almost never in the past month,) the pollen counts went back up. Neither of us is allergic that we’re aware of, but when counts are high, everyone gets a little sneezy and itchy.

On a day that looked nice but smelled heavily of smoke, we decided it would be a good one to re-visit Copper Falls S.P. not only to pick up some of the hiking we didn’t do the first time, but also in hopes that being further south would make it less smoky. Happily it was, and as we headed across the parking lot, TBG recognized a couple we’d oriented with, one a seasonal NPS ranger, the other an NPS volunteer, who are spending their summer out on Stockton Island, and who area apparently having a much different summer than we are! Their remoteness in terms of supplies, electricity, connectivity, etc. would not have appealed to us for three+ months, but the more active, outdoor lifestyle sure would have. Anyhow, it was nice to see them and catch up, after which we set off for our hike.

There was a lot of green!

There were a lot of stairs!

There was solitude when we intersected with the North Country Scenic Trail and some potentially tick-infested overgrown sections, where we did not, fortunately, pick up any hitchhikers.

There were three falls to see, Copper, Brownstone, and Red Granite, the last we saw the first time, the first two we saw both times. See?

It wasn’t a long hike (the data above is missing some mileage) but it helped to displace our doldrums a bit to get back out onto some actual trails.

I continued with my birding, going out at least once a week to specifically look for my feathered friends, but also spending time most mornings and many evenings watching at my feeders, our VC trails, and around the farmstead. The southern migration has begun for many species, their activity ramping up then dropping dramatically in a short time span. I logged 60+ species over the summer, some new to me, some old favorites, all delighting me and sustaining my critter-loving soul.

As I write, we still have one week remaining in our time here. The calendar for the upcoming week is marked with two more meet-ups with friends, a birthday, and various tasks that need to be completed before we pull up stakes. All of that may or may not show up in a subsequent blog post, so this will be my last formal post about our time here.

I don’t want to end with a laundry list of what we liked and didn’t like about our summer — I think it’s been obvious over the course of my posts, and if not, you got some re-readin’ to do. What I would like to end with is a shout-out to the people we worked directly with at the NGLVC. They were welcoming, kind, helpful, and generous. As our time wound down, they each expressed to us how sad they were that it was almost time for us to leave, wanting us to stay longer, both surprising and touching us.

Thank you, each and every one of you, from the bottoms of our hearts.

The End.