If any one was ever wondering what the camping was like in Milwaukee, well here are some answers. Unless you go four or five hours north or south of Milwaukee, you will only get really manicured State Parks, with lots of mosquitos and ants and people who like to still your camping chairs. Oh, and the lakes are not the best for swimming in. Don;t get me wrong, it is a beautiful green place to live, but I prefer the dry air and majestic mountains of Utah. Then again I haven't gone far enough north yet here in Wisconsin to truly make a comparison. It may have just been the location we chose, but let me show you a few pictures so you understand where I am coming from.
When we first arrived we saw this little guy crossing the road. We didn't want him getting smashed.
So Cody chased him and picked him up.
Examined him.
And posed for the catch.
Before we found our lovely spot, we were told to go out and claim a camping spot. So we drove around the entire campground and decided on one. Back in Utah, we would place a chair or cooler or something out on our spot to claim it, so no one else would take it while you were paying. We set my moms camp chair out and went and paid and came back. It was only 10 minutes later and her chair was gone. We asked everyone and even got the ranger involved. No one could help us. So she lost her nice chair. That's when we realized we weren't in Utah anymore. And that was only the beginning.
It looks like I am just standing there watching Cody work, well, that's because I was. I helped with the other stuff. I got water from the fountain. Which by the way turned orange in our containers. A lot of iron is what Cody said the problem was. I would be fine...and I was thirsty, so I drank a LOT!
Don't be deceived by the lush green behind them, it was only about 7 feet until you were on someone else's gravel camping spot. The whole park was like this. Nice, but no mountains. Oh and you don't want to explore in the trees or bushes because it was infested with tics.
The beginning of our 2 mile journey around the lake. It was completely flat, no hills at all, and you couldn't veer off the path even if you wanted to. And if you did go off the path there was a very high chance of getting tic's. At least that's what we were told. Really humid by the lake as well. Extra mosquitos to deal with.
Somewhat of a cooler part of the trail. Instead of just swampland, we had some nice, tall, shady trees. This lasted for maybe 10 minutes. You can see the difference on Cody's face. He was smiling during this picture.
Going over a bridge, yes it looks like I have a mohawk. My hair had to be on top of my head or I would've died of heat stroke.
We also saw some wildlife in the lake when crossing the bridge. Like this big old turtle with moss growing on his back. I would compare his size to a laptop computer. Pretty big turtle for a two mile lake.
He stayed under water forever and then finally...turtle head!!!
Our attempts to get the mosquitos away. You had to wack and walk at the same time.
Let's just say the mosquitos got worse, so this is Cody swatting at them the entire time as he walked. It was kind of funny, I almost peed me pants laughing.
After the hike we were all sweaty and hot and considered getting in the water. We all only brought one pair of clothes and no suits. We looked at the water and then after my mom put her foot in....
When she came up with this I decided not to get in after all.
We didn't let that stop our fun though. We got back to camp and started dinner.
Ate some yummy hotdogs. Watched the sun go down.
Laughed a lot at our experience so far, and played games.
After all of the laughter and fun we finally got in the tent and went to sleep. Well Cody on my right and my mom on my left. they both slept great!!! I was awake the entire night listening to animals a couple feet away from our tent make noises all night. At one point I sat up and peeked out the tent, there was a big racoon on our picnic table, sniffing at our stuff. I was a little scared. I also had to go the bathroom I don't know how many times throughout the entire night. I went alone. The next morning, before it got hot, we ate some dutch oven food and then packed up and left. It wasn't until later that night in the comfort of our home I started itching mosquito bites that were all over my feet. I probably had 100 or more bites in between my toes and on my ankles and all over my feet. It almost looked like an army of ants had gone to war with my foot. But we decided they were mosquitos because they itched. I was miserable for the next 4 days, easily!
Needless to say, I can look back on the experience and say, that I had fun. Good memories!
