The Apostle Islands

I tried to deny the fact that summer is winding down, but the open windows and lower A/C bill is the direct in your face indication that its happening whether I want it to or not. My blog has been dead for a while for two reasons.....

1. During the month of August I was finally able to enjoy some summerdom and quite busy.

2. I had this greatly ambtitious plan of getting all my ducks in a row before I went back to blogging. Of course, as everyone knows, those ducks are NEVER in a row and if they happen, by chance, to almost appear as they might be in a row.... it is about .001 seconds before that beautiful moment is over.

There are so many things I want to share, but I am going to go back to one of the highlights of my summer..... Greg and I took a quick 4day trip up to the Apostle islands before he headed off to Brunswick Georgia for a 6 month training program to be a special agent.

The Apostle Islands are a group of islands on the northernmost tip of the state about 6 hours north of Milwaukee, a fairytail land where A&W's don't accept credit cards and American Express and Discover Card are completely unheardof. That last one traumatized me... I've been walking around Milwaukee asking if people accept Discover card for the past month now.
The highlight of the Apostle Islands for us was the kayaking, which I now have completely and thoroughly out of my system for at least a good year. We kayaked under arches and through sea caves and one night we kayaked out to an island where we camped. It was a great and adventureous feeling knowing that we were 'stranded' on an island and our only way back to civilization was by boat.... Although I still can't figure out how bears got onto the island, all I know is I heard them in the night and saw thier pooh in the morning. I would like to imagine thier ancestors canoing across Lake Superior. hehe

The camping was top-notch! Over 180 degree views of water and stars. I fell asleep to the sound of water most nights and one evening, after watching the sunset we even got to sit on the rocks and watch a lightening storm far off in the distance; It was warm and dry by us, but across the water was a beautiful, natural fire work show.One day we took the ferry to one of the larger islands, Madeline Island. There we met up with Greg's sister Michelle and a group of her friends. We hung out on the island for a bit and went to a very memorable bar, one that had an alien on top and well, to be honest i am not quite sure it can even fully be considered a bar.....It was a structure that I think at one point burnt down, and it was covered in a tarp along with art and of course those hippie type sayings were painted everywhere... the sign on the bathroom door truthfully read "no shirt no shoes no problem" and in the background some young lady was strumming on her guitar while singing janis joplin and alanis morissette. A must see.The first night we woke up to find evidence that a little critter had been searching around the car. Trivial, but it made me smile. I suppose it was a racoon....