Wyalusing was Awesome!

So this was my first time, and I guess our first time going to the campground at Wyalusing. It's where the Wisconsin River meets the Mississippi, and the place we stayed at was right up on one of the tall bluffs. We could see Iowa from where we were. And we could see the parking lot of the Wal-Mart near Prairie du Chien. Charming. We took our trusty little pop-up trailer, Svetlana, and camped mid-week, hoping to avoid some of the yokels. I guess we avoided some, but not all. There was certainly a kids' group of bicyclists, a regular clan of Hell's Angels, they were. I really loved watching the helmetless ones on their scooters, zooming down the hill and back up the other side. I guess they are mostly invincible.

Our campsite was right near a full-service bathroom and shower facility--flush toilets and private showers and Everything (hardly roughing it). But the restroom was just down this very steep hill from our campsite. I managed to negotiate it well enough during the daylight hours. But maybe around midnight of our first night, still half-drunk from a good wine, I had to pee and started down the hill with my flashlight. I was still half-asleep too, which might account for the fact that I didn't see this big hunk of mud in the middle of the hillside...I was wearing my crocs and they had zero traction against said mud dollop. Whump...down I went, hard on my right hip. If I were a little old lady, I'd-a had me a busted hip. I think the fall even knocked the wind out of me a little. I know it sent shocks up both my wrists--I tried to catch myself, of course. Ugh. So I was hyper-vigilant in going up and down that hill ever after. Dork. I realized the next morning that my night clothes were just about plastered with mud, particularly on the butt. Charming.

We took Abby with us, our ancient-of-days mutt dog. We usually leave her with a sitter when we camp, we're normally worried that it'll be too hot or that we'll be away from camp too long. But it was slated to be cool (and it was, yum) so we took her along. Our logic for Thursday's activities was to "wear out" the dog on walkies (hike-ies, for the humans), then leave her in the pop-up while we went paddling around the circuit through the slough and into the Mississippi. It took us three walkies before she was finally not tugging at the leash every opportunity she got. She was acting all "seven" again, really cute. I joked that her eyebrows were making a beeline for the back of her head. She was very "cow-eyed" (whites of her eyes showing) and seriously over-stimulated. She had a ball, and so did we, watching her. She's exhausted now, needless to say.



Many of the trails are closed right now at Wyalusing, due to a 7" deluge they got about 4 weeks ago. So we hiked the Sentinel Ridge Trail a ways, saw some of the effigy mounds there, and took photos of flowers and lichen. And got eaten by bugs. We drove around to a picnic point, and hiked a little of the cross-country trail there. We even spooked up a deer, watched it bound off into the woods. After that hike we went back to camp, and I took a quick snooze while Jim took Abby for another stroll around the campground. She was finally tired enough to come inside and lie down, and we loaded up the NovaCraft Blue Steel canoe we'd borrowed from Rutagaga, and headed for the river.

The road down to the canoe landing is on a seriously steep hill. The road and surrounding forest had taken a big hit from those rains--it was amazing to see what that much water could do to the land and the road, and the trails at the bottom of the hill (what trails?? No dere.). We got ready to paddle out and some incoming canoeists told us that the park signage for the canoe trail was kinda fubar, that we should take our map. So we did, and it helped quite a bit. We saw tons of wildlife--a river otter, great blue heron to beat the band, turtles, big schools of little fish, slapping of much bigger fish, kingfishers, some tiny little heron-looking bird that I'd never seen before. My favorite was seeing the eagle. There may have been two birds, because we had two sightings, but it might have only been one. The first view was the closest, it didn't spook off until we were really close. The second view was longer, we gently chased it down the river left bank as it seemed to be eating something in its talons. So. Freaking. Cool. Thanks to Jim for the pictures we have, with my little dinky camera, mind you. We'd talked about bringing his "big dog" camera in the dry bag, but we weren't sure what conditions we'd encounter. Turned out it might have been okay. But I was glad we knew something about paddling a canoe--some tight spots and turns in the slough, and some tall wake waves from passing speedboats on the Mississippi. Yokels (neophytes) would more likely capsize.
I forgot to mention the waterbugs--as we paddled back to the landing, there were hundereds of them and as they skimmed the surface of the water, they made this almost-argyle pattern on the water. Jim thought that was a cool analogy, eee, and so do I.




Back to camp, the dog is still crashed. But not dead, so that's good. She begged her way through dinner, which was fabulous, and she got her share. Boring old Hormel Chili from a box, mixed with Smart Chicken fire sausage (which actually has flavor!), topped with a Jiffy cornbread mix, all in the Dutch oven over a raging charcoal fire. More beer, and some of those single servings of some cheap Cabernet. Kicking back by the fire until I just couldn't stay awake any more. I actually slept pretty well in the pop-up that night. It's still camping, and you just don't sleep as well when camping as you do in your own bed. No real explanation for it.

Made another lovely breakfast in the pop-up, this time it was eggs, left over from the Jiffy Mix necessity. Toasted up some leftover buns on our camp toaster, and since we were low on regular coffee, we indulged in the only-half-narsty Taster's Choice Vanilla instant coffee. Beats cleaning a percolator, really. We had five eggs, I could only eat one, Jim ate three, and Abby got most of the last egg to herself. Happy dog.

After that, we pretty much packed up and headed home. Stopped for one more short hike on our way out of the park, again, trying to wear out the dog. Mission accomplished, I think. And I forgot to mention the hummingbirds--they have about 6 feeders at the main ranger station at the park entrance, and they're swarming around them, looking more like big bugs (cicada??) than birds. Really neat. I even saw one or two near our campsite.

I think my most profound thought while camping, was the general amazement of humanity and camping. We spent all our evolutionary lives, hunting, gathering, forming clans and civilizations, fighting wars with each other when we didn't get along. All that work to finally live in individual family dwellings, only to come out and still go camping, to pretend--definitely pretend--we're still capable of surviving in the wild. Some of us are lucky to build a fire (myself included). Okay, so maybe I've offended someone who can indeed pull a Grizzly Adams, some NOLS graduate who's proficient in Leave-No-Trace. But most of the "camping" we saw this time around was in some form of pop-up or more serious 5th-wheel, or at least a tent with rooms. Or a vestibule. I mean, I saw women actually Primping in the restroom! Dudettes! Yeah, I took a shower, but I didn't bring make-up or a hair-dryer. I'm camping! Yes, we purchased an electric site for our pop-up, but we didn't use it all that much, and didn't even try to plug in anything until just before we left on Friday. (By the way, our refrigerator, the Dometic [note the lack of an 's' in Dometic], doesn't seem to work using any form of power, propane or electric. A problem for further inspection and solving. Oh for sad.) Anyway, I can't rant too much, we are "cheating" with our camping. But it does seem ironic, doesn't it?