Miss Lily and The Purse.

While Lily was here for her short visit, we were busy as all get out. We tried cramming a full weeks worth of activities plus school shopping in just a few days.

Lily wanted to visit the second hand stores in our local town of Viroqua. Last year we both got lucky with some really nice finds.

When we got into the store Lily moved down to the childrens section and started to browse. 

I stopped at the adult section that had some interesting looking pants and found some nice shorts from Patagonia and North Face. They were super soft and pre-worn.

Lily came back with a handful of clothing. She hadn't found anything in her size that she liked, but had found some very nice outfits for Elena and Sterling. What a good older sister she is. Plus she knows clothes.

She held up my items of interest and looked at them. She shook her head at one pair of pants I had and stuck them back in the rack. "Not for you, Grandma," she said.  She grabbed another pair and held them up, nodding. "More like it!"
She handed them to me and told me to go try them on.

Oh yeah. Lily will be 12 years old late December.

We put the purchases in the back of the Subaru and walked to the next store. Immediately Lily walked over to where they had purses on racks.

"You need a purse Grandma," she stated, her eyes on the items. She fingered one or two purses and looked inside of them.
I wrinkled my nose.

"I haven't had a purse since..." I shrugged. I couldn't remember the last time I'd used a purse. 

"Well you need to get organized," said Lily. "You have a smart phone that needs to be carried in a purse, you have keys and you are always forgetting which pocket you put them in." 
Lily wrinkled her nose.

"And that wallet. Ewww." She shook her head.
"I'll think about it." I replied.

We shopped and browsed, Lily found a few shirts and suggested a pink shirt for me. I liked its weight and softness so I took it.

We ended back at the purse rack. Lily handed me a purse. It was pretty but...
I shrugged and sort of acted interested.
Then after a few false starts, Lily handed me a red canvas purse. She adjusted the strap and hung it on my shoulder, then proceeded to hang it crosswise like she'd seen me wear my sling camera bag.

"This is it, Grandma. This is your purse. See? Not complicated at all. Not large and it looks enough like a camera bag to suit you." She nodded in satisfaction.
I stood mute with a red purse slung over my shoulder.

Then she turned and started to dig through the ladies wallets. 
"You have to get rid of that thing you have now. It is so ..., " Lily shuddered and made a face.

We settled on a lady's wallet and went to the cashier to check out.

I'd just bought a purse and a lady bug wallet. I wasn't exactly sure how that all just happened.

When we got home, we showed Grandpa Rich the purchases. His eyebrows rose when he saw the purse.

Lily cleaned off the table and asked for my ugly old wallet, cell phone, and keys. She motioned me to go tend to the sweet corn while she put things together.

I was cooling the sweet corn when she walked up holding my old tattered wallet. She was holding it as if it were a dead mouse.
She motioned for me to open the cabinet door under the sink.

With huge fanfare, she dumped the wallet in the trash.
She then presented me with the new purse and showed me how she organized everything.

I now have a nice red purse that is well organized.
I have no idea how I got along all these years without it.

To There and Back

Since Lily was here and the good neighbors thought that it would be fun to hike and have a picnic yesterday, we thought we'd go to Wyalusing State Park and have some fun.

I've read nothing but rave reviews about the park and what nice trails they had. This was especially true because our neighbors have three children. Ages 7, 5, and not quite 3 years old.

We packed a lunch and headed to the park.
When we got out of the van we were inundated with mosquitoes.

I got out the natural 'skeeter' bug juice and liberally applied it to everyone. We then started off along the Bluff trail to look at the incredible scenic outlooks.

Lily took some of the best shots hands down. I lent her my FinePixFujiFilm camera and she worked wonders with it.
This is a zoom of the train crossing the confluence of the Wisconsin River and the Mississippi River.

The scenery was incredible. We went to another outlook and of course took more photos.

We explored the Treasure Cave and survived the incredibly steep stairs and decided to continue to explore.

We ended up taking what we thought would be a trail that circled back and did a nice little loop.

Being an adventurous bunch, we went on despite the annoying mosquitoes.

As we went down off from the bluffs we crossed back and forth over wash outs from the heavy rains that this area about 60 miles south of our homes. We'd had perhaps an inch and a half.
I think I recall this area getting about 4 inches.

We went on bravely.

Pretty soon it became evident that we had taken the low trail. The trail that ran along backwater and a fairly swampy area.
At this point we just quit taking photos. 

It became a matter of survival and not being consumed by 'skeeters' who attacked us in hordes.

Everyone was a trooper.
Lauren got ahead of us with the older crew and Justin and I walked with Logan. The plan was to keep everyone moving as fast as possible.
I must say that Logan was a real little hero. He trucked along at a pace I never thought a little one could go. When he started wearing out Dad picked him up and carried him.

We were on the Immigrant Trail which ran along a flooded area that was thick with backwater. Eventually we became separated as Lauren and the older kids walked faster.

The toughest part was the Old Wagon Trail. The trail had a steep incline to get back to the parking area.

But we made it. We all survived. When we got back together we immediately voted to get out of the park, come back after the first frost, or when it wasn't so wet, and enjoy some of the other trails.

We hiked approximately 5.2 miles.

Would we do it again? Oh yes!

We drove north past Prairie Du Chien and pulled off at a boat landing and stopped for a picnic.

NO Bugs!
And the river was beautiful as well as the clouds.

We stopped at Gordon's Bay Rd. across from Falling Rock Bar on Highway 35.

And then we had a wonderful picnic.

And all was good.

Lily rode Fred last night and after we get back from doing the Kickapoo today, we'll ride again.Lily

Rib Mountain State Park and some fun

One of my goals in going to Wausau, aside from visiting with the grand kids, was to explore Rib Mountain State Park.


I like hills, I like rocks.  I like geology.
Rib Mountain, formerly called Rib Hill, is a four mile-long ridge of ancient rock dating back about 1.7 billion years. It is among the oldest geological features on earth. It is composed of very hard metamorphic rock called quartzite.
As early as 1893, the mountain was used in the manufacture of sandpaper. The Wausau Sandpaper Company was incorporated in 1900 and built a factory. In 1902, Wausau Quartz Company crushed the quartzite for grinding and polishing purposes. The two companies merged in 1905 to form Wausau Abrasives, which was purchased by Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing in 1929.
From Rib Mountain History.

Friday it stopped raining and we decided to go.  Lily and I got dressed for the weather and got to Rib Mountain quite early.  We were the only vehicle at the very end of the parking areas.
One of the first things we did was to climb the 60 foot tower and take a look around us.

Lily took a shot with my FujiFilm camera and was able to see our motel. There is a pink circle around the Motel 8 sign.
The hotel was about 5 miles away, just so you can get a perspective on it.

The view was really quite neat even with the heavily overcast skies.

Parachute People flung off the tower at some point in time.

Lily's dad along with Elena and Sterling were to join us at the park.  Lily and I decided to go ahead and do a bit of exploring while we were waiting for them to come.

Lily got along just fine with my P&S FujiFilm camera.  We started along the Blue Trail which stayed close enough to the tower we climbed but not so far that we couldn't go back to the parking lot and meet up with her dad.

We swapped over to the Red Trail and circled back towards the Blue Trail.

What we had been looking for was the Grey trail which was my goal.  The grey trail would take us to the old quarry.  But we didn't find that trail until we were ready to leave.

We actually didn't hike very far, we found so many interesting things to look at like fungi, moss, rocks and of course acorns.

Taking a ten year old hiking is a much different experience than taking an older person.  It is more fun to see things through a young person's eyes.

When we got to a stone staircase we decided to try some fun photography.

First the stairway.

Lily wanted to see what it would look like in Infrared.  So I set it up.

Then I asked her to be in the shot and to stand absolutely still.  She wanted a spooky weird shot.

And there she was, a ghostly figure in a strange looking land.

We had so much fun with that, she wanted a IR photo of the two of us on a bench.

Our cam colors came out white and it was sort of spooky and creepy looking.

After exploring some mossy rocks and other things we headed back to the playground in hopes of meeting up with her dad.

We played on the Merry go Round and then I set up a camera on a tripod and had some more fun with 'trick' photography.

By 2:30 PM we decided to vacate the mountain and promised each other to come back and explore it again.

We went to her dad's place and visited.