Aug 14th: Naked in Nature!

So a lot of awesome things happened today, most specifically the fact that my beautiful niece Isla got to go on her first ever Brule River canoe ride.  She made it just past the next lodge and then the discomfort of sitting in her brand new life jacket started to get the better of her.  She was actually pretty good about it considering how uncomfortable I remember those things being as a child (let alone at 16 months). So I completely understand her desire to get out of the boat and be back at the lodge where life jackets were not required.

Once we got her out of the boat she still wanted to play with the water a bit.  We would throw pine cones into the river and waved good-bye to them as the current took them away.  Then we got into splashing the water by the dock - which lead to her getting back into her life jacket so that she could splash in the water with her parents.  She had a blast - probably because there was splashing involved and shed didn't have to sit down in it.

And of course after seeing her in the water, I felt the need for a swim in the river too.  I didn't stay in very long (especially after I saw a few leeches float by me where it was deep enough for me to swim).  But I did fully immerse myself which meant that I needed to take a quick shower afterwards!

And now we get into today's awesomism: Being naked in nature!  I'm not talking about skinny dipping or just taking your clothes and running around naked in the forest (though I'm sure that would be fun too).  I'm talking about having a good reason to be naked while still enjoying the sunshine, the breeze, and the fresh pine-filled air.  How do you do that?  With an outdoor shower!

If you have never used an outdoor shower before then you are missing out.  Almost every summer - whether we were here at Wisconsin at the Muskikiwiininni Lodge, or at the Whirlwind house in Cape Cod - we had the privilege of using an outdoor shower.  And it didn't matter which location we were in, the experience was never short of being awesome.  The smell of the river and the pine trees (or the smell of the ocean air with sensation of sand stuck between your toes) makes it an incomparable experience.  In fact, if I ever have my own house on the west coast - I will likely put it in a request to build an outdoor shower for it.  If for no other reason than to give guests the opportunity to experience how amazing it can be.

Thank you nature, for making my normal cleansing routine that much more amazing!

 

Aug 13th: An Up-River Nature Tour!

I don't think I have sufficiently expressed just how awesome it is to be out here on the Brule River. So, let me make up for it by sharing the up-river canoe trip my parents and I went on this morning.  Paddles were in the water by about 8:30am.  We figured that was the best time to head out to see a good amount of animal life before all of the down-river traffic started up and scared everything away.  And were we ever right!

The first sighting took place within the first 10 minutes of the trip when we found a river otter swimming past us.  I've seen otters in the river before, but not for several years, so this was a definite treat.

Not long after, we rounded another bend and found a doe and fawn feeding.  The fawn seemed very nervous by the fact that we were there and kept looking at us to make sure we weren't a threat.  Not willing to find out if we were, the fawn left the premises fairly quickly.  The doe, however, was completely unphased.  She was fully aware of us being there, but felt confident enough that we were not there to attack her or the fawn, so she just kept on feeding.  We stayed to watch them for a VERY long time (the longest deer sighting that any of us had ever experience on the river) and then eventually decided to leave her alone and went along our way.

Then we made our way to Lucius Lake where we were hoping to see an eagle, and we were not disappointed.  Fortunately my Mom has no problem seeing things at a distance and managed to find the eagle in a manner of seconds.  It took me a little while longer, but I found it eventually and got my photo op.

Then we made our way under Castles Bridge ...

Under "the grotto" ...

To find our second eagle sighting.  The eagle is the black blob in the dead tree.  We got much closer but I thought that having the one eagle close up was sufficient.

We then continued into Big Lake and found the two eagle nests which we estimated were each a solid 6 feet tall.  

Then after seeing some Merganser and Wood Ducks, as well as some Kingfishers hovering in the air (looking like they were treading water without the water) then dive-bombing into the river to get their food, we decided to head back.  

On the trip back we were finally able to capture a picture of the one thing we all wanted to see - the eagle soaring!  I think my Mom ended up getting the better photo, but I still got the job done.

It turns out that there was another eagle that was also soaring high above the trees at the far end of Lucius Lake that this one went to join.  I guess hunting is easier when there are two of you.  Then as we got much closer to the cabin, we found another two eagles soaring VERY high above us.  We figured that these other two had to be the down river eagles (as we knew the next closest nest was down river of our cabin) because there was no way that they were the same eagles that we just saw.

So to sum up, this morning's up-river trip included:

1 river otter

1 doe

1 fawn

2 perched eagles

2 eagle nests

4 soaring eagles (2 of which were previously perched)

A number of hovering hungry Kingfishers

And a bunch of ducks!

All in all it was one of the most successful up-river trips I have ever been on!  What a way to start the day!

Aug. 12th: Pasties in my mouth!

I love pasties!  So does everyone in and around the Upper Peninsula.  They are an ongoing tradition going back generations with several businesses in the area dedicated to the making and selling of pasties.  And everyone here at the lodge just can't get enough of them.  And tonight we had our first pasty feast of the trip, and were they ever good!

Pasties are, of course, the huge dumplings filled with beef, potatoes, and onions.  They became a staple food of the U.P. because the miners could take them for lunches and heat them on the hot mining equipment and eat them with one hand.  Pretty convenient little packets of awesome is what they are.  And so they have become a staple meal of Wisconsin vacations.  In fact they might be one of the reasons I keep coming back here.  I guess the family, the years of history, the seclusion, and the general relaxation is pretty good too - but I can't ingest those.

FYI - we generally eat Joe's Pasties (a little shop in Ironwood) while we are vacationing here.  Up until today those were the only pasties I ever had, but today we went with a shop that is a little more local and owned by a guy name Randall.  Once I had tasted one without carrots and rutabaga, it was pretty good. Some might argue even better than Joe's.  But because I'm a sentimentalist I think I'll always be convinced that Joe's are better.  So I feel a little dirty posting a picture of a Randall pasty instead of the one I know and love.  Fortunately my Dad had his pasty-eating shirt on so you can see what a Joe pasty would look like.

Aug 11th: Munchkin!

One of the best things about being in the middle of nowhere is that we dedicate a lot of our time to playing games, or doing puzzles.  Usually every year there is a new game that I get to learn and this year it was Munchkin. I'm not going to go into the details of how to play the game because it's pretty complicated, but it's pretty awesome and VERY nerdy - which is probably why I love it so much.  It's a card game with it's own deck and is somewhere between Magic and Killer Bunnies.  I haven't ever played Magic before (so my apologies if I'm making a very poor reference here) but I've seen it been played and as far as I can tell Munchkin has a similar format: you have your character, race, and class, and you want to level up by combatting monsters, and selling items.  But it has the cuteness, ease of play, and game-changing cards like Killer Bunnies, which means that I love it.

Okay - so I think I've sufficiently made it clear just how nerdy I am.  Yes - I am a board and card gamer.  Bring on any new games that I haven't played that are cute, fun, and/or remotely strategic and I'll probably love them too.  For now I'll just keep trying to master Munchkin!

Aug 10th: Mormons, Malls, and Muskikiwiininni

I woke up this morning to the most amazing sight.  Curiousity got the better of me, so I looked in my bedside table drawer.  Sure enough I ended up with a huge smile on my face when I found - not the Gideon bible that I was expecting - but THE BOOK OF MORMON.  Of course the song "I Believe" started running in my head.  What a way to start the day!

Then we went to the Mall of America - which was actually a lot smaller remember.  Probably because the last time I was in the mall I was a child and physically much smaller ... but still.

The theme park Snoopy Land was replaced with Nickelodeon Universe and at the end of it was the lego store with a huge display on top of it complete with a huge lego statue of a transformer.  We only managed to do a full walk around of the first floor hitting only a few stores, and never made it to the other three floors.  As far as I could tell - the West Edmonton Mall is still the biggest mall in North America, but the Mall of America is a little more upscale and once the expansion is completed it will be number 1. But I'm happy for Canada to hold on to that title for as long as possible.

And of course, after the mall we made our way to Wisconsin and the Muskikiwiininni Lodge.  And I can't express enough just how good it is to be back here with the family.  This place is just filled with memories and I can't wait to make some more.  These next 10 days of living in a lodge down by the river are going to be awesome!

Aug 9th: Chisholm Travelling with Al!

Today was a full day of travelling to Wisconsin.  I'm not quite there yet (just taking a little stop over in Minneapolis for a day trip to the Mall of America first) but I find it quite fitting that it will take two days to get there, as that was the standard trip length when we made the trip as a family when we were younger.  Sure, I was travelling on my own this time around, but that doesn't mean that I can't abide by some of the usual family travelling traditions.

When we were kids, our family would annually go on one of three family road trips: either to Cape Cod, Wisconsin, or Florida.  From Ancaster these trips took anywhere from 10 to 20 some odd hours depending on where we were going and the number of pit stops we needed to make.  That's a lot of time for my parents to spend with four obnoxious (albeit hilarious) young kids in the back seats, all within 6 years of each other, and all very loud.  To help make these trips tolerable they realized there was a way to cut back on the obnoxiousness by at least consolidating the noise into one sound.  The solution: WEIRD AL!  I'm sure we were just as loud, if not louder, but at least we were singing the same thing, and that same thing happened to be enjoyed by the whole family.  

While I wasn't able to abide by all of the family travelling traditions (another of my favourites being "Chisholms trade chairs when they travel on trips") I'm so glad that I had an iPod filled with Weird Al music, including his most recent album, ALPOCALYPSE!  A polkified Lady Gaga can make any day of travelling infinitely better.  So today's awesomism goes to Weird Al! As my father likes to say (quoting an episode of The Simpsons) "Once you've grown tired of Al, you've grown tired of life!"

      

Aug 8th: Clothing Swaps and Shoe Fetishes!

I love new clothes.  I also love giving back to the community.  And I really love hanging out with my friends.  If only I could have all at once.  Enter clothing swaps!

For those who have never had a clothing swap before, let me explain.  You know when it comes to that time of year where you go through your closet and pick out everything you don't wear anymore?  Well - you do that and even include purses, shoes, belts, jewellery - and get a bunch of your girlfriends to do the same.  Then before taking everything to charity, you throw yourselves a big party and get first pickings at all of the free clothes.  If you're modest (which we rarely are) then you can sport some leggings and a cami to speed up the process of putting on and taking off the many items you'll be trying out.  Oh - and if more than one lady wants to take home the same item of clothing, then it's time for a FASH OFF!  Each lady gets their chance to show the group why they deserve the item more - generally including a little strut, maybe a fun story, and often a booty shake - then the group decides who was more convincing.

Last night we had one of our biannual clothing swaps and I scored HUGE.  It's really awesome when a good friend has the same size feet as yours, a shoe fetish, and a closet not quite big enough to accommodate all of them.  I went home with 4 new pairs of heels and they are all ah-maz-ing.  Unfortunately since I'll be spending the next few weeks in the woods I won't be wearing them for a while. But I cannot wait for them to grace my feet.  As I was silly and hesitated to take a picture before leaving for vacation, people will just have to wait to see these awesome shoes when I decide to break them in.  But trust me - you will not be disappointed!  Thanks Natalie!