Back in the USA

It’s been a while since my last post and I have had people wondering what I’ve been up to. Well here’s a quick summary of what I’ve been doing, on Friday, September 9, I finished up my campground host position at Great River Bluffs State Park. It was a great five weeks and I left with a hugs and handshakes with my new friends I met at the park. They’ve invited me back next year but I’ve got other plans for next summer more on that to come. On Saturday I dropped Maxine off at my brother-in-law’s house (Larry and Jan’s, Sonia’s brother and his wife) where she spend the next three weeks her feelings were a little hurt, I think. From there (on Sunday the 11^th) I moved my rig and car to my sister’s house near Milwaukee where I will be leaving it for a three weeks. Because on September 13 me and my sister Bonnie flew to Great Britain for 2 ½ weeks. We spent our time there exploring London and all it has to offer and spent 10 days with a group in the Highlands of Scotland. I will be putting out several posts with lots of pictures of the great things we saw and encountered.

After a great couple of weeks’ vacation in Great Britain, and after a few delays we got home late on Saturday, October 1. It’s fun to go on vacation but it sure is great to get back home to my own bed. On Sunday, October second I had to drive the 4 ½ hours each way to Marshfield Wisconsin to pick up Maxine, I sure did miss her. She was sure happy to see me and has been glued to my side ever since, it’s nice to be missed. Thanks again Jan for taking care of her I know what was a lot of extra work. And then on Monday, October 3 I headed to my new Camp host spot at Blue Mountain State Park here in Wisconsin. Here’s a couple photos of my new home for the next month.

Blue Mound State Park is the only State Park in Wisconsin with the swimming pool, it’s open from Memorial Day to Labor Day and draws a lot of people from the surrounding area. The park has 78 family campsites with about one third of them having electricity, there are also a dozen hike and bike to campsites just off the (Military Ridge State Bike Trail). It is the highest spot in Southwest Wisconsin with great views out over the surrounding landscape. Here are a couple photos from the two lookout towers in the park. They’re a little hazy but you can see some of the fall colors that are just starting, I will have to get some more pictures on a clear day.

The town of Blue Mound

Also during my last week at Great River Bluffs State Park, my sister Bonnie came up to do some planning for our vacation. While she was there we went on a riverboat cruise on the La Crosse Queen paddleboat. It is a modern-day tour boat but does actually operate by use of the old type paddlewheels.

It was a sunny and windy somewhat cool day on Sunday, September 4 (the Sunday of Labor Day weekend). We start out at La Crosse Harbor which is on the Mississippi River in a beautiful Riverside Park. Here are some photos from the boat of the beautiful city park.There was a new bride getting photos taken with her with bridesmaids, as you can see from the grasses in the pot it was quite breezy.There’s a couple real nice sculptures in the Park there’s this great Eagle made of brass, stainless steel and iron.There’s a large concrete statue of Hiawatha the Indian chief.You can find this guy on roadside America.

As we headed upriver to the closest lock and dam where we were able to see a couple Eagles in the trees along the shore.When we got up to lock there was a barge waiting to go through, which can be time-consuming if they have to take the barge apart in sections the fitted through the locks, so we didn’t go through the locks ourselves it could’ve been a two hour wait.Here’s what the dams look like stretched across the river.There were several pelicans swimming near the dam.And then they took off into flight, such majestic birds.On our way back we passed Pettibone Beach, where there were a few brave souls out enjoying the sun for one last time this season. Pettibone Park is a La Crosse city park on an island in the river between the two main channels with a nice beach, marina and great picnic spots.As you can tell it’s been a crazy busy month for me with my responsibilities as Camp Host planning and then doing my world wind trip to Great Britain. This week I’ve been settling into my new responsibilities here at Blue Mound Park and catching up on my rest a little. I did have quite a bit of company that came this past weekend. One of my other sister Jean and her husband Tom came to stay at the park for a few days and also my oldest daughter Crystal came on Friday for the day. It was sure nice seeing them all because it’s been April since the last time I saw them.

Here’s one last photo this is all my new friends that I got to meet over in Scotland there was 12 of us plus our guide Jamie we all got to know each other well and had a great time. All but two of the people are from Wisconsin (Greg and Claire are from the DC area) and I’m sure I will be meeting up with many of them in the future. From left to right in the photo Amy (who put the trip together), John with his wife Lorrie, myself and my sister Bonnie, Carol, Claire and Greg, Jenny (the youngest one in the bunch but probably the best behaved), Mary Kay, Kathy and our Scottish guide Jamie with his signature purple hat and kilts.Well that is a quick catch-up for now, I will have to work on posting photos of some of the great things we saw on our trip. There were so many places we saw and things we did, that it will take me a few postings to get the info out there. That’s it for now safe travels to everyone. Rick

 

 

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