Hello, finally!

We returned from vacation Thursday and have been running full speed ever since. We have still not totally unpacked! Our friend Anthony is here, and we've been trying to spend all of our 'free' time with him, which is infinitely preferable to the housework and yardwork we would otherwise be doing. The cold, hard reality of the real world will set in tomorrow morning, when I have to get up early and return to work after a delightful time off. Unfortunately, animal atrocities don't take vacations, so there was no shortage of that to get caught up on either. :(


We camped in the northwest corner of WI, at Pattison State Park. As usual, Mark picked a beautiful location with lots of waterfalls to keep Luciana and I happy. Dej stayed home and did a decent job at caring for the animals and the house. Everyone was alive and healthy when we returned, so that was a relief. We missed the critters terribly, and I called home and left messages on the machine for them, so they could hear me and (I hope) not feel abandoned.


The first night we camped turned out to be quite cold--it dropped into the 40s at night. We have dealt with that before, though, and were able to sleep quite cozily in our tent. Getting up in the night to go to the bathroom, however, is a really rude awakening. We spent our days hiking the waterfalls in the area (there were many of them) and playing at the beach. The daytime weather was very nice--a bit on the hot/humid side, but still bearable. The second night, we got horrible thunderstorms all night, with heavy rain, lightning, and wind. I wasn't sure we would make it through the night in the tent, as it got pretty nasty for a while. We stuck it out, though, and didn't need to move into the van.


We did not see or hear any raccoons at all, which is really, really strange. We did have many other encounters and visitors at our campsite. The campsite itself, by the way, was huge! It was also quite private, so we really enjoyed the location. We were frequently visited (especially at meal times) by red squirrels. They're so tiny and cute! They are about the size of chipmunks--maybe a little smaller. They're very loud and quite brave about begging for/stealing food. More about them and the other critters later.


I have to be brief tonight, but will have lots more to say tomorrow!