Day Lake Camping Trip
Sunday the kids and I returned from another camping trip. We stayed 3 nights at the Day Lake campground in the Chequamegon National Forest in northern Wisconsin. The initial weather reports were looking pretty bad, but things worked out OK.
We arrived about 3pm Thursday, set-up camp at site 18, had some dinner and checked-out the campground a bit. Unfortunately, the new air pump I bought for the trip blew-out the fuses in the van, so I was stuck with no way to inflate the kids' mattresses. I also realized that I'd forgotten to pack shirts and underwear for Zach- very stupid. I definitely need to pay closer attention to my checklist next time. I then discovered that the batteries in my weather radio were dead. Not a great start to the trip, but things got better.
The kids were fascinated with the well pump in the campground. I tried to explain that the water was coming up from far underground, and that it wasn't "dirty". Once they understood that, they really enjoyed drinking the water right out of the well fountain. On our way back we saw a couple of fisherman who told us that a 300lb bear had been spotted that morning down at the campground fishing pier. That freaked Gina out a little bit, and she was worried about bears the rest of the day.
It stormed for a few hours starting around 4:00am, but cleared-up by daybreak, and Friday was beautiful. In the morning we drove into Hayward to pick-up some supplies (that I'd forgotten) at Wal-Mart. We then spent the whole afternoon at the campground swimming beach. We had the whole place to ourselves for a while, then a couple of other families came by with two girls that were Gina's age. Needless to say, they all had a blast together. Gina especially liked one of the girls named Audrey. At one point we saw a bald eagle swooping over the lake- very cool.
Gina was really freaked-out by bugs on the trip. It peaked on Friday when she'd scream bloody murder anytime anything buzzed around her or went near her food. There were a few mosquitoes and flies, but it was nothing a little repellent couldn't handle. Hopefully she'll grow out of her fear so it won't be an issue in the future.
Friday night around 9:30 my weather radio started beeping, alerting us to a Severe Thunderstorm Warning, with large hail and winds up to 70 MPH. Good thing I'd bought new batteries that morning. We had about a 40 minute notice, and we'd already had our s'mores, so we battened down the hatches. We turned-in about an hour earlier than usual, and prepared for the worst. Although there was a lot of thunder, lightning and rain, thankfully the strong winds and hail never materialized. It probably didn't hurt that we were well sheltered by all the tall trees in the campground. The worst of it passed after about an hour, and again it had all moved-on by morning to make for another great day Saturday.
Saturday morning we drove into Clam Lake, the town about half a mile down the road. By "town", I mean about 6 buildings. We stopped at the bar/bait shop and got a small container of worms. Back at the campground we tried our luck fishing off the pier. The kids caught a few babies, and Gina was especially excited when she caught a Perch about 4 inches long. She said that was the favorite part of her trip.
After lunch I gave the kids a choice of what do do that afternoon. We could drive up to Copper Falls State Park, or spend the day at the beach again. They selected the state park, so we drove up there to check it out. When we stopped at the park station, the ranger there gave Gina a pamphlet on the different fish species in Wisconsin. She was fascinated with it, especially when she was able to identify the Perch she caught that morning. Copper Falls was a neat old park, and I do mean old. You really got the feeling that this place hadn't changed much since the 1930's, and I mean that in a good way. Back on the trail to the falls there was a covered wood bench that has been around forever. It was full of carved names and dates. I could see some of them were over 50 years old. Along the trail, the Bad River ran down inside a deep gorge. There were a couple of waterfalls along the way, the most impressive of which was Brownstone Falls. They don't let you get very close, however, since the gorge is so steep. After our trail hike, we spent about an hour snacking and playing in the beautiful picnic area there. It was nice and shady, and they had some swings, slides and monkey bars for the kids.
After we returned to the campground we headed to the beach again, but it had gotten so windy that we only spent about half an hour there before heading back to our site. We spent the rest of the day hanging out by the campsite, riding bikes (our whole loop was paved) and playing games. We had a light shower pass through for about 30 minutes around 8:30 that interrupted our campfire, but it passed quickly and Gina and I reemerged to hang out by the fire for a while before we turned-in for the night.
Sunday morning was cool and cloudy. Gina got to meet and talk to the park ranger while on one of her bike rides. She told her all about the fun stuff she did and saw on our trip, and then came back to our site to tell me all about it. We packed-up after breakfast and headed for home. We stopped in Hayward for pizza and at the DQ in Island City on the way home.
It was another great trip, although the kids were having more issues getting along on this one. I've got to try to find some way to help them get along better on the next one, if that's even possible. I have one more trip scheduled this summer to the North Shore of Lake Superior, so now I'm already looking forward to that one.
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