Wait ~ What?

 What did I agree to???

Pictured is my bicycle. It is a mountain/trails/road/gravel/ bicycle. It isn't meant for leaps and jumps, but more suited for decent terrain.

I have to push it up our driveway to get to the ridgetop so I can ride it. I haven't used it too much in the last two years as my hiking and bike riding buddy has bowed out of going to KVR with me.

During my long hike last Sunday I got a message from a cousin of mine and his wife. "Would I be interested in bicycling with them?" Sure! They were coming to my area and wanted to go biking.

The Reserve was out for them as E-bikes are not allowed unless you get a permit. Some say that isn't fair because bikes are bikes and people who can't ride the hills should be able to with E-bikes. 

Since 1997 the Reserve has not allowed anything motorized on the land. This dates back to 1995 when the land was under the Army Core of Engineers and there was no regulation. Lots of people came in with souped up, jacked up 4X4 trucks and blazed trails and tore up land. They used winches and chain saws without regard to the land and really caused quite the stir.

The Army Core of Engineers kicked everyone of the public land and closed it for a year. Then they only allowed equine and foot traffic back. 

The damages were pretty significant. Rich and I joined a club of equine riders that met each weekend to haul in straw and seed by equine. We tied rakes and shovels to our mules and went places to repair the damages and to reseed the lands. We worked on trails with sand bags to prevent erosion and rerouted washouts. Everything we did was by foot and by equine.

After all that work, the land became the Reserve and they cut out many of those repaired trails.

Anyway, that is the history of the why no motorized vehicles are allowed on the Reserve without a permit.

My cousin suggested the Sparta-Elroy-Wilton bike trail. It was an old railroad bed that years ago was transformed into a bicycle trail.

Saturday I'll meet them at the campground they are staying in and we'll saddle up and go riding together. My cousin and his wife have E-bikes.

My verdict on E-bikes is still out. But I see the reasoning for them. Older people can get out to do more trails with them. If you are not a hard core biker, you can enjoy more outside activities!
Tourism and money. 

More people can enjoy riding. It is pretty simple.

If I had one? I might be able to actually ride UP my driveway. I'm still on the fence, though. I like my bicycle and I too like the more moderate trails.

My cousin's wife texted me that we'd be riding about 30 miles and she'd pack lunch for us and my cousin would make us a fish dinner.

Gulp. 

Well I guess this will be a test of leg strength. After all. I hiked 9 miles last week. Why not try 30 by bicycle this week?

[thank you to my neighbors who will pick up my slack and keep an eye on my hubby!]

Away away...

Google Maps and directions said that it would take two hours and thirty minutes to Eau Claire.

It felt strange to set out on an adventure to a place I'd never been and to meet a person who I didn't really know. Well, she is married to one of my cousins so we just call each other cousin.
It started in the fall when I received a package from Jeanette with a letter.

An unexepected surprise...

I called Jeanette and we talked for quite a while on the phone. We decided to meet up after the holidays and get together. Both of us are CareGivers and we thought it would be fun to schedule a break. 

Well suffice to say that Winter became a daunting barrier for any get together. But finally our planned weekend worked out and we were able to meet up.

Eau Claire is a stunning Wisconsin city with beautiful parks and trails everywhere. On one side of the river the buildings rose glistening and stunning. On the other side of the river we walked along small Victorian homes with no road in front of them to block the river's view. College kids were everywhere on skateboards, bicycles, and foot. We watched one young man with ear buds on dance as he walked. While we were on the bridge above the river a woman dressed in a business suit and walking shoes glided past us and met up with a man sitting on a bench. We watched a young lady try to execute a couple of fancy jumps with roller skates ... and fail. 

Wow. I'm getting ahead of myself. Our first day was spent exploring Eau Claire. We got lost but my Garmin saved the day. We spent some time walking through a mall and window shopping. We talked.
And we talked.
and..
we
talked.
So much time had passed in our lives that we had years and years to catch up on. A history of our own lives, that of our children, our grand children...our family members...well that list seemed endless. We ended up being quite surprised that suddenly it was 1am.

We decided to go to sleep and begin our day with a good breakfast across the street and a hike in Carson Park. 

So when we found Carson Park we decided to just take off and start walking. We talked about the how we ended up here. We talked about my parents and my father. I am so surprised at how all of my cousins I've spoken to have such wonderfully fond memories of my father. They loved Tom, he was such a kind man and so interesting.
Of course that subject came up as I pulled my camera out of my backpack and took some snaps of our walk.

 Below~ Paul Bunyan Logging Camp Museum

Thank goodness for Smart Phones. Neither one of us were familiar with good places to eat or places to walk.  We looked these items up on our phones and then followed Miss Garmin to the locations.

I got to speak to Jeanette's husband and was so surprised to hear that David had the same Midwestern twang I'd admired when he was a teen...and that belly laugh from deep down under was the same.

We checked out of the motel and headed to the restaurant across the street. We talked more over breakfast and eventually we both decided that we'd both have to go back to our homes.

However we made tentative plans for another visit in July. We are going to try and do an informal get together of the cousins. 

It seems we did well with our planning for our initial meet up. Winter storm warnings have been issued all across the state. We are both safely home and back to our CareGiving duties.

I'm watching the snow cover the green grass as I finish up typing this....

Visiting Memory Lane

You see, I haven't changed much. I'm pretty sure that my country summers influenced my entire life.

I became one of those people who preferred the outdoors and animals to anything city related.

I can't even recall where my father took this shot. I was 4 years old and someone in our family must have gotten some ducks or geese.

I discovered farm animals.

Lost in archives are photos of me and then years later, photos of my own children feeding calves at my Uncle Fred's dairy farm. 
Going to the dairy farm and staying with the 'girl' cousins was one adventure after another.

I thought they had it the coolest. They had no indoor plumbing. They had a real honest to goodness outhouse and other small outbuildings that were a delight to play in.

[My Outhouse]

What did I have? A small house with all the nice things like plumbing, running hot water,...and a tiny yard.

I envied them, they had woods to play in, a barn to play in.
I'm sure that I didn't know what life was really like on a small dairy farm, but I was to get an inkling of that much later in life when I actually worked for a while on one.

And...they had Santa Claus visit their house on Christmas Eve. [I didn't know at the time that Uncle Fred played Santa.] I mean, as a kid I was so envious of their life.

Of course I never had to use a chamber pot or use the outhouse in the dead of winter. I never had to help with chores in any real sense. My Aunt and Uncle would allow us to be in the barn and I recalled the wonderful smells of the silage and hay. The satisfied munching of the dairy cows and the milking machines.

I learned to use a milking machine much later in life, I helped on a dairy and would get the cows in, lock them in their stanchions and get everything ready for the morning milking. I learned to wash the bulk tank and other helpful chores.
Washing teats, dipping teats, scrapping the floor and liming the floor, cleaning the barn.... I think I enjoyed that because it reminded me of being in my cousin's dairy barn.

To me, my cousins had endless fields of corn to play in and an incredible pasture and woods. 

We girls would concoct an adventure for our summer days together. We'd play 'house' or go wandering the cow pasture. We built forts one time after a huge wind/rain storm. We had a downed tree that we decided was going to be our fort. I think we spent more time scrambling and climbing it that we did building anything.

There was a place where we would hunt rocks. And always, we'd talk and chatter. 
With a little bit of imagination we could be anyone and do anything. Our days were endless.
Well it seemed that way.

Last weekend I got to go back. We drove past my Uncle and Aunt's farm to get to my youngest cousin's Sugar Bush and see her and her husband's set up.
I wanted to pull in to their driveway and walk around seeking more fond memories and see what had changed.

Instead I got a tour of the Sugar Bush.

This was another new experience for me. My country families made maple syrup and have I think for three generations. 

At the end of summer I'd go back to the city. I'd marvel at the fact that we had hot water and flush toilets. And then I'd settle in for the school year and await June.

That is when I could go back to where I was sure I belonged.
I never could convince my mom to give me to one of my Aunts.

Now that I've been back for a short weekend, I yearn to return and visit again.

When I turned the Subaru towards home I promised myself that I would return.
After all, the 4 quarts of Maple Syrup I'd purchased would be long gone before summer was over.

And I wasn't going to let years and years pass before we all saw each other again.

Once upon a Time

My trip "North" was all about going to a wedding for one of my cousin's sons. Well the second reason I was compelled to go was to meet up with my cousins that I had not seen in 42 years. That is right, 42 years we'd been apart.

It had been ages since I'd been back to this part of the country.  I'd made a quick trip in 2000 when my Grandmother had passed away.
Before that?

Well it gets complicated a bit and I am not going to go into all of that.

But the last time I'd set foot on the place photographed above was 1980.  I'd taken my first born son to see his great grandmother who was living with my Aunt.

This was my Aunt and Uncle's place. This was a gathering place for the cousins. We usually only saw my cousins in the summer and we had to go back to the Chicago suburbs for the school year.
To me leaving this area at the end of each summer always brought me heartache.

I would sit in the back seat as a child and think of all the reasons I should be allowed to just stay with all my cousins. I didn't like the 'city'. I always longed for the end of the school year and the long trip north each summer.

Sunday morning I left my cousin Sharon's place. We'd had such a great time visit.  The boys, Aaron and John had asked if I'd gone past their mom's place.  I hadn't and wasn't sure I would.
But just north of Luck, I turned down the road I thought I recognized.

I recognized the train bridge that we used to go under. As a kid I can recall my Grandfather sitting in the the front seat and hollering out "Duck!" as we passed underneath.
His ball cap would flip off and land in the back seat. He'd exclaim, "I didn't duck in time!"
It would never fail and we would always laugh.

When I got close to the Larson place. I slowed down. The roads were no longer gravel like they used to be. I pulled over and tried to peer up the driveway.
The large hill behind the house was now grown up in magnificent pine trees.

The urge to pull in and wander around was very strong. However I knew that the boys had a tenant and I couldn't see myself just pulling in on a Sunday morning and saying..."Hey I used to play here as a kid."

Memories however did flood over me in huge waves. It was like seeing a movie reel in my mind. Here is where I learned to shoot .BB guns, .22's, slingshots, we climbed trees, rode horses, fell off from the pony called Thunder, did garden work,...and spent countless hours doing kid stuff. I wanted to see if the 'Tarzan Rope' was still there.
In my mind I could hear the laughter and snippets of words just beyond my reach. I could hear our mothers calling to us. I could remember the guinea hens and the chickens, the swamp muck, frogs, snakes, and our hands getting sticky from climbing pine trees with sap.
There were nights were we would try and watch TV with our Uncle and we watched static.

As cousins we plotted out our lives and dreams.
And each summer I'd loath returning to the suburbs and school.

This was one of the places that shaped my love for the outdoors and adventure. My other Aunt and Uncle had a farm which played another part in my love of the outdoors.

But both my Uncle Lyle and now Aunt Myrtle were gone. But the memories of them and our childhood still lingered now even stronger than it had in a very long time.

I felt such strong raw emotion as I peered at the pond and the barn off in the distance.

I longed to relive just for a few moments those days long ago ... and Once Upon a Time.