Visits to friends and family...

We could have easily stayed in the UP for another week, so much still we didn't get to see, but we did meet some really nice people! Speaking of people - it seems as if most of our travels to date have all been about visiting. Does this ever stop? I am really not so sure it will because every time we leave someone we all say, "can't wait until we see you again." And most of the time we spend so much time visiting we don't see anything of the area we are in...

We had a 12 hour drive to our next stop and instead of our usual Walmart or Cracker Barrel overnight we opted for Two Lakes Campground at the Chequamegon National Forest. With Bill's National Parks Senior card it was $9/night. It is so nice that the National Parks keep quite a few campsites for those without reservations. I have been pleasantly surprised that we have had no problem, all summer long, finding really nice campsites. We parked, got settled, and headed immediately out to the lake which was about 200 ft from our site. It was a relaxing place to stay and we had a pleasant night.

As we were leaving the campground Bill spotted this little convertible driving toward us & as they turned to go to the boat ramp Bill said that it was a boat too & you could see the propellers on the back of it. He stopped and I jumped out to get a shot of it!

the vanity license plate read "Guppy"!

So next on our list was Hudson, Wisconsin, where Bill's step-cousin, Matt, lives who he hasn't seen in 40 years (when Matt was a baby!). We ended up there because when we visited his mom in Virginia, this June, she called him up and told him all about us. He then gave us a call and said we must stop by, so, of course we did! We found a great little rv park close by, St. Paul East, and headed over to his home for dinner with his family.

Matt left a job he loved last October to become a stay-at-home dad and is loving every minute of it. If you're interested you can read his blog here.

I finally had a good internet connection and some a/c to deal with the heat,got online and spent the day working. It felt good to get another tax return done, especially well before the extended deadline.

Then it was time to go see my dear friend Margie. I had met Margie when I was first married and living in Sacramento. She and her husband owned the Haggin Daz ice cream store there and we were both pregnant with our first children. There was a group of us that were all about the same age, married and having babies. We spent a lot of time together and became really good friends. After our second kids were born they were having problems with their franchise and closed up shop to move back to Minneapolis where their families were. Needless to say, we were incredibly sad to see them go and the following year we flew out to visit. They had just had a third child and it was fabulous to see them again. They made a trip out to California in 1995 and in 1999 we took a cross-country road trip and saw them again Since then our children have grown, we both got divorced and we've kept in touch very sporadically but we were the kind of friends that no matter how long it had been since we last spoke, it was just like it was yesterday! I was pretty excited to see her and the kids and when she said that her house was a mess, but the food would be good, I knew she was the same Margie I loved 28 years ago! Her house was always crazy with the kids and good cooking and when we walked in last night it was as if time had stood still. We had a great visit - all the kids were there and she got to meet Bill.

It was a short and sweet visit to the area but we were on a mission, at this point, to get to Montana and Idaho. I was only sad that I was having so much fun I forgot to snap a pic of us, but I did find one from 1995!

San Francisco 1995 (in the middle) with Sindy Kirsch & Margie Goldfine