Sat, 6/26/10

Wagon Trail Resort, Ellison Bay, WI: Mostly cloudy today and it’s not supposed to get out of the 60s. We returned the Sopranos 2nd season to the library and headed up to Ellison Bay to check out Ellison Bay Days which is in full swing this weekend. They had a great band performing in the gazebo called The Copper Box. Drums, base, and the two main band members (a male and a female) played at least three instruments each. And they did all the singing. They were playing a Zydeco number when we got there. Very entertaining. There was also a woman there with her pet camel and llama. They bought Harley the camel when he was just a couple of months old. He’s now four and is a big pet. He has toys he plays with and rolls over to get his belly rubbed. He loves animal crackers and would do just about anything to get some. The llamas, she says, are like cats. They’re very aloof and basically don’t want to be bothered. They hum a lot—the llamas, I mean. There was lots of food there. I had a fresh whitefish sandwich and an ear of corn. Mike had a brat and two ears of corn. The corn is great. They roast them in the husk on the grill and insert a skewer in one end. When you buy them they pull off the husks and dip them in a big crock pot of melted butter. You hold them by the skewer and eat them.

Harley the Camel playing with one of his toys...

Fri, 6/25/10

Wagon Trail Resort, Ellison Bay, WI: A nice day today. We drove over to Newport State Park—actually it’s a wilderness area—and hiked one of the trails there. We hiked along this rugged bluff for a while. Most of the trail was along the lake shore. Very pretty. We checked out two backpacking sites along this trail. When we backpacked there seven years ago we had a site way down the other end of the park on pretty Europe Lake. Saw the Northern Lights for the first time. Back home, stopping on the way to pick up some more strawberries. Washed and cut those up and then freshened up a little. Headed to Fish Creek for dinner at Summertime Restaurant and then on to the Peninsula Players production of Heroes. This was a really funny play about three WWI vets in a veterans’ home in France who plan to run away. The theater itself is in a beautiful garden in a grove of cedars right on the lake shore. At intermission they build this huge bonfire. They just redid the theater four years ago. They’re celebrating their 75th year and are America’s oldest resident summer theater. A very impressive venue.

View of the lake from the theater grounds

Thu, 6/24/10

Wagon Trail Resort, Ellison Bay, WI: A mixed bag weather-wise this morning. The sun would be out for a while and then the clouds would roll in. That scenario was repeated most of the day. Didn’t really matter though because we were headed to the Strawberry Festival in Sister Bay. It was put on by one of the churches in Sister Bay. Besides strawberry shortcake, there were baked goods and a mini flea market. We each enjoyed a huge strawberry shortcake with biscuits, ice cream, strawberries, and whipped cream. A huge portion. We got talking to a guy at our table who shares a cottage south of Sister Bay with the rest of his sisters and brothers that was passed down through the years. Think he said it’s a log building that dates back to the 1880s. After our shortcake we browsed the baked goods table. I got some home made ginger snaps and Mike got a mini loaf of cranberry/orange bread. Just what we need. Stopped at the Sister Bay library before heading home and spent a couple of hours in there on the computer. Watched the last of season 2 of The Sopranos. Season 3 will be coming via Netflix.