South Kettle Moraine Camping

This was our BIG GROUP camping trip of the year. Tony and Susie gave us a ride up in their big red truck, and Jamie (Jason's coworker) and Joel and Cara (Kelly's sister) and Evan met us up there.

Susie and Tony had visited South Kettle Moraine before, so they knew exactly which site was the coolest one. If you want to know which number it was so you can reserve it too, too bad! We are keeping the secret. It was in a campground loop that was super quiet because campers were not allowed, and it was also a walk-in site. The con -- dragging all of our car camping equipment up a hill. The pro -- total privacy. The awesomeness of the site alone was worth the whole trip.

Hiking options were only so-so, but we did hike the Scuppernong Trail and a nice part of the Ice Age Trail. Most of the trails were for die-hard mountain bikers, and not wanting bike tire marks on our foreheads, we avoided those.

We saw some neat birds, the most vocal was definitely the Oven Bird. They were singing their little hearts out ... "Teacher Teacher Teacher Teacher!" until I wondered if my sister was going to go crazy. Jason and I hunted one down so that I could see it, since it was much easier to hear them than to find them. We also chased a really big bird through the trees in the campground. We think it may have been an eagle. But we never got to see more than it's shadow navigating the treetops as it flew out of sight.

We had a great campfire on Saturday night with the whole gang. Jason showed how manly men make fire with flint. And we ate like kings -- giant cheeseball, cheese fondue, cheese curds (do you sense a Wisconsin theme?) and brats. We had so much food that we took half of it home. Evan pulled out his pipe and looked seriously Sherlock.

Also a big hit -- the hammock. There was someone snoozing in it practically at all times.

And, Jason made a lovely funeral pyre for the goldfish bag, may it rest in peace.

Hoodoo you Love?

We are back from our Southwest adventure and we had a great time! Jason saw the Grand Canyon for the first time, and I saw it for the first time with snow ... yes ... it snowed our last night at the South Rim, and we woke up to big wet globs of snow falling off the pines onto our tent. Luckily that was the day we were leaving for sunnier territory.

But while we were at the GC, we hiked along the rim trail and saw a great sunset. Yes, the Grand Canyon is overcrowded, but if you want a little peace just walk 1/2 a mile from any major overlook and the canyon only belongs to you. We also walked down the Bright Angel trail 1 1/2 miles. This is a trail that is shared between hikers and mules, so it's a bit stinky. But the views definitely make up for it, and it's neat to hike down through several layers in geologic time (we got all the way to the RED layer. aka Navajo sandstone.) This hike should only take 2-3 hours, but it took us more like 5 because it was warbler mania. I think Jason has officially addicted me to bird watching. I only pointed out a robin once (they are actually much less common out there, believe it our not). Thanks to our handy dandy guidebook, we also got to see Sinagua pictographs on the canyon walls that we figure that the National Park Service doesn't point out to people since jerks like to add their own graffitti to those things. They blend in a bit so you have to know where to look, but when you do they pop out. On the trail, Jason got to live his childhood dream, which was to see a California Condor, North America's largest bird (9 foot wingspan, and has been extremely endagered). Actually we probably saw more around 9-10 circling, and we got to watch them come in to roost at night.

Then we went to Bryce, where neither of us have ever been before, and fell in love with the "hoodoos", the weird red pillars that fill up the canyon and for which Bryce is known. We hiked along the rim there, which was sort of a dizzying experience. You're awfully close to the cliff edge, and every time you look over to check out the spectacular view, your brain does a cartwheel from adjusting to the perspective.

We also hiked down into the canyon to the Queen's Garden. It's a short hike but steep and with some harrowing parts where there's cliffs on either side, but no problemo! Check out the people in the photo of the hoodoos from the trail to get an idea of perspective. There were crazy people climbing on some of these things for photos. Rock slides still happen in this canyon, people!

Other highlights: we saw the rings of Saturn through a telescope at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, checked out the world's best preserved meteor impact crater, and walked to the base of a giant cinder cone volcano at Sunset Crater Nat'l Monument. And we saw cliff dwellings at Walnut Canyon Nat'l Monument.

And last of all, we hit Zion and took some great hikes among the sandstone cliffs and saw tons of beautiful birds including the nectarine-colored Western Tanager and the Lazuli Bunting. I also really liked the Audubon's Yellow-rumped Warbler. Jason also has a picture of a Broad-Tailed Humingbird with a California Condor soaring behind it. It's probably hard to see either of them, but we will always remember the moment we got to see the largest bird at the same time as the smallest.

We camped in every park, only wimped out and got a hotel once (it was pretty cold in Bryce, which is at a high elevation), and had very good luck getting nice campsites.

Our favorite campsite was at Zion. First of all, it was warmest there, being at a lower elevation, so we slept a bit better. Also we were in a cottonwood grove, which the birds loved. We arrived around 11 AM and spent an our just sitting at our picnic table as new birds paraded themselves around for us. We had a little moat around us, too, which the humingbirds liked to drink from, and a yellow-bellied marmot worked on building a nest not ten feet from our tent. We even got to see a lady humingbird building a nest using cottonwood fluff! And it top it off, we were in the shadow of the red cliffs, one in particular we named the "Big Red Tooth" (I think when Jason suggested we name it he had something more romantic in mind like Love Mountain, but the name I came up with stuck a little better ;) )

We saw a lot of wildflowers. Especially at Zion. The reddish pink globe mallow, shooting stars, yellow prince's plume, white Datura, and yellow columbine, to name a few. Some cacti were blooming, too. And we saw lizards galore, mule deer, wild turkeys, elk (at Grand Canyon) and antelope (at Bryce). And scary squirrels with really big teeth that liked to attack you for peanuts. We have a video of one (below).

We flew into and out of Vegas. When we arrived we got out of there as fast as we could, but returning, we had a few hours to kill, so we walked around the strip a bit. It was quite the contrast to our peaceful nature vacation. The animated fountain in front of the Bellagio hotel was really cool, though. Some of the water must have rocketed up at least 70 feet in the air. Also we walked through the Mirage hotel, which has a Beatles theme at the moment because they are hosting a Cirque de Soleil show all with Beatles Music.

And on the way back, we missed our flight by one minute! It was a comedy of errors that included the fatal mistake of going to competely the wrong terminal at the airport.