Year: 2020

Tomahawk Lake

We stayed at a swank “cabin”, compliments of old friends of Bill and Jan. A gorgeous home on a beautiful lake in Oneida County.

Biking, boating, swimming, pickleball, fine dining, with Bill and Jan S. Not necessarily in that order.

Outstanding fall color, decent weather, suitable for a couple of great country bike rides on low traffic roads.

The most unusual feature was a 99% full sized pickleball court, painted on the driveway.  Court areas outside the lines were unusual, colorful, and at times in short supply.  A hinder of “garage door” was invoked on multiple occasions.

Photos and videos can be seen below.  Links should bring you to a “lightbox” view of all the photos in a gallery. Clicking on any thumbnail gets you a larger single view.  You can then arrow left and right, or use the on-screen arrows to go left and right.

Hit <esc> to go back to the lightbox view at any time.  Close the tab when you’re done viewing, and you’re back to this page.

Photos here.

Pickleball instructional videos (3) follow.                                                                           – Lead Bloviator, lead videographer, head pro, key grip, and personal assistant to Eileen – Tim                                                                                                             – Assistant pro, able ball feeder, and personal assistant to Jan – Bill                    – Jan – Student #1                                                                                                                         – Eileen – Student #2

Videos here.

Point Beach camping, following by Michigan

Point Beach State Campground, Walls, Goodes, Howards, with guest appearance by Madeline.  Nice area, we’d go back there again.  Got there in sunny conditions, but that didn’t last. Hiked the first day, clouds set in.  Rain in the forecast.  Goodes put out a feed for the crew 1st night.

Made it thru the 1st night with no rain.  Squeezed in a bike ride into Two Rivers the next morning.  Then the rain hit.  It rained for the next 30 hours, easily.  2nd night Walls put on a feed under the group shelter, which was nearby.  We took the solo stove down there, a few lights. Windy, cold, Bruno Mars on the sound system.

3rd night, cold, windy, rain. Howards were on deck for dinner, we all folded and ate inside their fortunately large camper.

Goodes departed for Michigan after that, the others went to Potawatomi State Park, where I gather it rained more on them.

Petoskey State park first. One good weather day, biking, beaching. After than, cold and rainy.  We hit town, got lucky at the food truck court with associated bar, watched the US Open Women’s final on the big screen, drank beer.

Sleeping Bear, DH Day rustic campground next.  No shower house here!  Pit toilets, showering in the camper. Weather improved. Saffels are practically living there, we hooked up with them.  They leave their camper there, go back and forth to their house.  Got a few rides in on the Heritage trail.  Got one pickleball game in at the courts in Arbor Glen.  Moved the last night to extend our stay.

Drove home thru Chicago since we were running out of time.

Photos and videos can be seen here.  Link should bring you to a “lightbox” view of all the photos in a gallery. Clicking on any thumbnail gets you a larger single view.  You can then arrow left and right, or use the on-screen arrows to go left and right.

Hit <esc> to go back to the lightbox view at any time.  Close the tab when you’re done viewing, and you’re back to this page.

 

Brunet Island / Wissota State Parks

Mid September. Three nights at Brunet State Park, accompanied by Bill and Jan S. Nice campground on an island outside of Cornell, WI, a very small town (altho it has a good grocery store.)  There were two separate camp loops, electric, and non-electric.  We found ourselves in the non-electric loop, which actually had better sites.  Electric site very open, everyone packed in together.

Kayaked around the island. Biked the Old Abe trail, which starts there and heads south into Chippewa Falls.  Nice trail, paved.

We pedaled into Chippewa fall and kicked around town one day.  Another day, we drove to Eau Claire and rode starting at Phoenix Park, right downtown, rode the Chippewa River Trail out for about 10 miles before turning around. Pavement was great in town, but at the city limits in became very rough.

Photos and videos can be seen below.  Links should bring you to a “lightbox” view of all the photos in a gallery. Clicking on any thumbnail gets you a larger single view.  You can then arrow left and right, or use the on-screen arrows to go left and right.

Hit <esc> to go back to the lightbox view at any time.  Close the tab when you’re done viewing, and you’re back to this page.

Photos here.