On the Ropes (and the Dance Floor)

July 14, 2011

This morning we do the Adventure Ropes Course, our most exciting adventure of all this week.

 

We wear harnesses like the ones we wore rock climbing a few days ago.  Today, we attach two “pigtails” to the front of our harness.  We clip the carabiners on the ends of our pigtails to the two safety lines that run along the ropes course.  Each person high in the air has a family member ground crew following along below to cheer him or her on and provide encouragement when the walking gets tough. 

The course is laid out so that once you enter it, the only way to get off is to turn around and go back the way you came or to just keep going--no steps down from the platforms along the way.

We’ll take you on a tour:

A swinging suspension bridge leads up from the deck of the climbing building to the first tower.  It isn’t too scary, because you can hold onto cable “handrails” on both sides of it, and when you look down, you see wooden slats below your feet. (Note that Andrew finds it unnecessary to use the handrails.)

The rainbow bridge—one cable to walk and two to hold for balance.  This one really swings and wobbles when you walk on it because it is strung pretty loose.  The view of Lake Superior from the platform at the end is spectacular, although there is a lot of fog on the lake this morning.

The double logs—piece of cake.  Andrew does it without using his hands for balance.

The tightrope—just one wire to walk and no guide rails for your hands, we count on holding our pigtails at the end of outstretched arms to help us keep our balance.  Andrew finds the tightrope so easy that he decides to do tricks.  He falls off on purpose, just to see how it feels to dangle, then he pops right back up to stand on the wire—amazing!

The single log—seems very wide after the tightrope.

The zip line—zips us back to the front steps of the climbing building in one quick swoop.

WHOOO  HOOO!

We are the only family in our group whose members all complete the ropes course.  In fact Grandma Gayl is the only grandma in the group who even tries to do anything more than walk on the swinging bridge at the start of the course.   We find out later that a few grandmas who were in other groups finished the course, including one we think is about eighty, but we are a rare few.

Our other big event of the day is a folk dance evening.  We have a fiddler, our accordion playing counselor Erin, and a terrific dance caller who can also play a lot of different instruments, including the banjo and the harmonica.  Teenagers from other programs in the camp come and join us for part of the time, which makes it even more fun and festive. It is a great way to end our last night at camp--do-si-doing and swinging and joining hands to circle left with all our new friends.

A Superior Field Trip

July 13
After breakfast, we board a school bus for on an all day field trip off campus, but on the way we stop at Wolf Ridge’s bird banding operation to see a few birds they have just pulled from their mist nets, to listen to the heart beat of a chestnut-sided warbler and a Cedar Waxwing held right up to our ear, and to check out the mist nets for any new catches (there aren’t any).

After many of us check out the bird lab’s environmentally friendly composting toilet, we pile back on the bus for a twenty minute ride to Sugar Loaf Cove, a privately owned and funded nature center.  (We were supposed to go to a state park, but Minnesota has closed down all their state agencies in a budget tug of war.)

We make Swedish birch baskets with willow handles in the morning.

We use our free time after lunch to take a short trail to Lake Superior, where we walk the shore and collect beautiful smooth stones of many colors.  The boys can’t resist the urge to throw and skip countless rocks.

In the afternoon we hike up a trail along the falls of the Temperence River—so named because most rivers deposit sand when they flow into the lake, creating sand bars, but this river does not, so there is no bar at the mouth of Temperence. 

After dinner we use the camp’s GPS units to go on a Geocaching search for caches hidden around camp.  Each cache has a clue to help us fill in a crossword puzzle with words related to things we have done while at camp. We proselytize about the joys of geocaching (we are up to over 900 found by now), and we are pretty sure that several families will look for caches after they leave camp.

Then it is time for our campfire with s’mores, and entertainment provided by our talented fellow campers.  The kids surprise us with a skit they learned yesterday during their outing to the lake. 

Did we sleep well tonight?  You betcha (as they say around here).

Water Sports

 July 12, 2011

Not by design, but by happenstance, this turns out to be a day filled with water sports. 

Fishing:  Our Morning Program is entitled Fisheries Management.  Fortunately, it turns out to be much more fun than it sounds like from the title.  We stare down the local fish species in a huge aquarium tank that fills one wall of our classroom, learn about brook trout and their habitat, then hike to a stream that we recognize immediately as the perfect habitat for brook trout.  The hike includes 248 stair steps down the side of a very steep hill.    

This is a photo looking down on the stream and boardwalk from the top of the ridge, where the trail begins.

Before fishing, the boys make a stream on a water table, and modify it to improve it as trout habitat. 

Then they use nets in the trout stream to catch trout food (bugs and minnows). 

Finally, they get fishing rods, bait their hooks with meal worms and drop them in the stream.  Within two minutes of dropping his line, Andrew pulls up the first fish of the day.  He catches two more, and another (his biggest) gets away.  He is the run-away winner in this fish derby. 

The grandparents slowly slog and pant their way back up the sloping trail and its 248 stairs, while the boys run ahead, eager for lunch and the next adventure.

Swimming:  The kids have an outing to the lake without grandparents.  There Andrew gets in the water long enough to pass the swim test, then gets out because it really is too cold to swim.  They play games and make ice cream from scratch.  

Laundry:  We engage in a much needed water sport—laundry, and an even more needed activity--relaxation.  When we dug around to find Andrew’s beach towel for his swimming outing, we realized that the beach towels we used at the water park were still damp, and after moldering in a beach bag for all this time, a little laundering would do them a world of good. We are happy to have this excuse to skip the grandparents program that runs concurrently with the kids program, because we have hit our limit on back-to-back organized activity, and we know we have a busy night ahead of us.

Canoeing:  After dinner, we hike down to the lake for a pleasant little paddle in the canoes.  Our relaxing paddle turns into a more spirited water sport when we spot a beaver swimming across the lake.

Beaver Chase:  You’ve heard of Steeple Chase, but it can’t hold a candle to beaver chase.  We try to paddle over to the beaver, but every time we get close, he slaps his tail on the water and dives.  Then we watch for him to come up someplace else far across the lake, and  paddle hard in that direction, only to have him dive again when we get close.  Eventually, more beavers arrive, so we have more targets to chase.  We are sure the beavers are quite relieved when our counselors call us off the lake at the end of our designated canoeing session.

Our final activity of the day is not a water sport, but a Logging Camp Life presentation by our very talented Voyageur guide from yesterday, who tonight plays the role of a very amusing lumberjack cook.  He gives kids in the audience laminated cards with lumberjack lingo phrases on them and the English translations on the back, then interviews them for a job at the logging camp, urging them to read their cards to establish to him that they are real lumberjacks who can talk the talk.  Along the way, he talks about all aspects of life at a logging camp (and Wolf Ridge is near the site of an old logging camp).   Behind him he projects a Power Point slide show of scenes from logging camps that illustrate his talk, but we have no idea where he is hiding his remote control. He has lots of lumberjack jokes and funny stories, but between the laughs, we all learn a lot about the rough tough life of lumberjacks.

Then, we come back to our dorm, where our nightly cookie snack and hot chocolate awaits us.  We are eating like lumberjacks, but not working quite as hard as lumberjacks.  We fear the bathroom scale will tell the tale when we get home.

We Put our Lives in Andrew’s Hands

July 11, 2011

Our first activity of the day is rock climbing on an immense indoor wall designed to look like a real cliff face.  We learn the skills for safe climbing and safe belaying (managing the rope connected to the climber’s safety harness), and all three of us climb and belay each other.  Granddad and I put our lives in Andrew’s hands while he belays our climbs, and we are proud of the great job he does in keeping us safe.  

On his second or third climb, Andrew somehow manages to get his elbow stuck in a crevice, and we all have some tense moments while he tries to maneuver himself and his arm to get his elbow released.  With a little help from one of the instructors, Andrew gets unstuck.  After a bit of recovery time, Andrew is back climbing the wall with boundless energy.  We are proud of (and relieved by) his resilience.

After lunch we learn about the Voyageurs, French Canadians who paddled big canoes around here transporting beaver pelts and supplies for the Northwest Company Brigade in 1793. We all get costumes and learn the names and histories of the characters we will play this afternoon.  Most of us are dirty swarthy uncouth uneducated guys, but Dick is Mr. Harman, our very smart well-paid brigade clerk and Andrew is George Bongo, the first Black Voyageur.  Andrew is happy to learn that he earns twice as much as me, because he can read and write and is a very strong paddler.  

We hike to our big canoe, struggle to paddle in synchrony across the lake, and enjoy an outing on the other side featuring games the Voyageurs would have played and opportunities to play with fire and knives—a big attraction for our team of five young boys.   The most popular activity is attempting to make a fire with flint and steel (both Andrew and Granddad succeed—most others do not).  They also try using a drawknife to make a tent stake. Then we have biscuits cooked over the campfire served with maple syrup as a snack, before paddling back across the lake.

After dinner, we go to star lab, where Andrew knows more about stars and constellations than anybody else there, with the possible exception of  the instructor. He points out several constellations and tells some stories about them to the group. As far as we are concerned, he was the hit of the presentation, but we may be biased.

After Star Lab, we attend a raptor presentation, where we meet Wolf Ridge’s great horned owl, peregrine falcon and red-tailed hawk, as well as a chicken.  The highlight of the evening is a demo of the strength of an eggshell. A whole parade of kids, including Andrew, pick up rocks, weigh them, and pile them carefully into a crate balanced on top of a normal chicken egg.  They put 47 pounds of rocks on top of that egg before it breaks!  Now we all understand why birds do not break their eggs when they sit on them (except when they were exposed to DDT, and the shells became so thin that just a few pounds of weight would break them). 

We are amazed at how much we learned while having so much fun today. 

Destination: Finland

July 10, 2011

We are up before 7 a.m. and on the road before 8.  Our destination is Finland, Minnesota, where we will be having great adventures at the Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center for the next five days.  

We drive through a deluge, including one lightning flash with synchronous thunder that seems to hit right in front of the car. We are thankful that this was not the weather we had yesterday at the water park.  Speaking of yesterday, I seem to be the only one whose arm and shoulder muscles are sore this morning from clutching the steering wheel tensely during my go-kart drives (and also holding tight to the bar on the roller coaster, while Andrew was waving his hands in the air).

 

Fortunately the rain lets up mid-morning, and we have a mostly pleasant drive.  We are a bit confused when we get to Duluth, and the temperature is 81, despite the weather channel’s claim that it is 69.  Locals at camp later explain to us that the temperature varies widely throughout Duluth (sometimes by up to fifteen or twenty degrees), depending on how close you are to Lake Superior and which direction the wind is blowing.  Those same locals are sweating, fanning themselves and complaining about a temperature of 81 degrees (with no humidity), which we find quite pleasant.  They are promising us the weather will get better as the week goes on, meaning it will get what we call “chilly.” 

We have a crowd-pleasing spaghetti and garlic bread dinner, followed by “getting to know you” games and a camp fire (featuring us singing along while our counselor plays Havah Nagila and This Land is Your Land on her accordion). 

Our post-campfire game of dominoes with Andrew is disrupted somewhat after we finish our first round and find that we not only cannot find a double eight domino to begin the second round, but there is also no double seven in the camp’s domino set.  This puts the credibility of the entire set of dominoes in question, but does not hinder Andrew from beating the pants off us.

Wisconsin Dells: Water Park Capital of the World

July 9, 2011

The Wisconsin Dells is verifiably the Water Park Capital of the World—no less authority than the TV game show Jeopardy corroborates the claim.  When in Rome . . . we spend the day at Mount Olympus, a massive theme park with both water and amusement park attractions.  By day’s end, Andrew has ridden four roller coasters—Hades, consistently rated in the top five wooden roller coasters in the U.S, featuring a steep 140 foot drop, two very long underground tunnels, and speeds up to 70 m.p.h.; Zeus, reaching soaring heights; Pegasus--the only coaster wild enough for him and mild enough for me; and Cyclops. 

We expect the coasters to be his favorite attraction, but it turns out that Mount Olympus has other treats in store for him—and us. 

Mount Olympus offers Go Karts we drive on courses that look a lot like roller coasters.  One track climbs the heights of the Trojan Horse, passes through its belly, and spirals back down again.  Another course, Poseidon, twists and turns above ground, and sends us below ground in long dark tunnels.  On our last Trojan Horse ride of the day, Andrew flies past both of us in his Go-Kart, firmly hitting the back of our cars as he passes.  This is exactly how he drove his virtual car in the Arcade last night, so why are we surprised?

One of our favorite spots is Poseidon’s Rage, a huge wave pool that creates a six or seven foot tsunami every four minutes or so.  When we hang out in the deep water, the crest of the wave sweeps us (and a thousand other people) up and leaves us gently behind, but in the shallows where the wave breaks, it throws everyone about in a wild frothy melee.  There are thousands of people in the pool, and we can’t believe that no one is hurt or drowned while we are there being manhandled by Poseidon.

There are lots of different slides combined with tubes and mats, and we sample most of them.  A lot of the time, Dick and I alternate shifts on the rides or in the water with Andrew, and even so, he wears us out. We arrived at 9:20, shortly after the park opened, and we leave at 7:20, shortly after the water park closes (although the amusement park was still open—if he hadn’t been so hungry, Andrew might have been tempted to stay until it shut down, too).

Amazingly, Andrew shows no signs of sunburn, which I take full credit for, since I purchased, applied and reapplied the sun screen on both Andrew and myself, while Dick, who is the only one among us who has had skin cancer cells removed, just put a little sun screen on his face and head.

Discovering the Dells

Friday, July 8, 2011

We drive 325 miles today to get to the Wisconsin Dells, and find the Meadowbrook Resort, where we will stay for the next two nights.  The indoor water park turns out to be an elaborate kiddie pool, and they have our pre-paid package all mixed up, but we end up having tickets for more attraction options than we expected when granddad finally gets everything all straightened out (while Andrew and I get out of his hair by touring the grounds and getting in a few rounds of tetherball, and Andrew uses his own money for a car race arcade game).

When we all sit down together to try to decide which of the many choices in our package to do this afternoon, Andrew doesn’t really want to do anything.  He finally admits he has an upset stomach.  We puzzle over the cause, and are a bit worried until we find the large size box of Hot Tamales candy we bought him yesterday night is sitting empty in the back of the car, meaning he consumed roughly 120 hot tamales today.  Lesson to us:  supervision of candy consumption is necessary with an almost ten year old who has clearly inherited Dick’s sweet tooth gene.

We decide his stomach can handle a ride in an army surplus duck built in 1942.  Since we end up being the last to board, Dick and I sit in the very back of the duck, while Andrew rides up front with David, our very entertaining guide, who introduces Andrew as his co-pilot.  We ride through the woods where we get a preview of the zip line course we will do when we stop here on our way back to Indiana after our camp experience in Minnesota, then we plunge into a man-made lake, followed by a natural stream with tall sandstone bluffs and islands sculpted smooth by eons of flowing water.  We all agree that this ride is a great start to our time in the Dells, and Andrew’s stomach is fully recovered by the end of the ride (maybe even by the beginning of the ride).

Granddad finds the perfect spot for dinner---Buffalo Phil’s, an over the top Disney version of a wild west saloon where a model train delivers dinner in one dining room, and our upstairs table has great views of a stuffed buffalo and a mountain goat, and lots of heads of other western animals.  We can look down on the antler chandeliers lighting the floor below.

Conveniently located next door to the restaurant is Knucklehead’s, an amusement emporium where Andrew could spend hours if it wasn’t already getting very late.  There is a black light bowling alley, an inflatable play area, a huge arcade area, and, best of all, go-karts.  Andrew drives a go-kart for the first time and declares it “Definitely worth $7!”  There was a loud crash when he was on a portion of the track that was out of sight—we declare his emergence unscathed “Definitely priceless!”

By the time we get back to our room, we are pretty tired from our long day, although Andrew still has enough energy to propose a swim in the pool before bed.  Granddad nixes the idea, and Andrew retires to his very cool in-room bunkhouse, where he is asleep in no time.