Sooo we went offroading again today. We met up with some friends from Sigma Tau Gamma, which used to have a cook named Clive. Clive owned a very small cabin right on Lake Superior, along with the land around it. He died awhile ago, but before he did he told the Sig Tau guys that they could go ride out there any time they wanted, even stay at the cabin once in awhile. I'd been there once my first year up at Tech and loved the ride out there, so we went there again today. We invited our friend Dana to come along, so she did.
Today the trails were a bit rougher. We got the truck pretty muddy today and crawled through a lot of puddles and cool ruts. At the end of the trail is the cabin. The shore is made up completely of sandstone and it's beautiful, so we got a lot of cool pictures HERE.
Offroading Again
Moving up to School and Offroading
Well, I'm back up at school. The move-in went smoothly and the apartment's pretty much completely set up, after some help from my dad and Cassie. It's a nice little studio right on the main street that leads through campus, so it's in a very convenient location. I'm living next door to my buddy Nick now and Cassie's just down the street- about a block away.
Last weekend Cassie's folks came up and we took a trip down to their land in Crystal Falls, MI. We cut up some trees that had fallen, then watched the dog swim for a bit, talked about the cabin that's going to be built withing the next couple of years, and headed back home through Marquette, stopping at Culver's on the way.
Today Cassie and I felt like doing some exploring on our own, so we took my truck and did some light offroading on a few logging trails up north. There are miles upon miles of beautiful trails just south of Copper Harbor (which is the far northern tip of the Keweenaw), so we drove around back there, packed some food, and got some great pictures which can be seen HERE. We found a little area where water had backed up (we think from where a beaver had built a dam), so we decided to take some pictures because it was beautiful. Well then we noticed a beaver swimming around in it. We just froze, kept quiet, took pictures, and eventually the beaver came within about 10 feet of us... We also got some good pictures of a a frog, painted box turtles, and a cool caterpillar in the same area. On the way back, we drove up Brockway Mountain to check out the awesome view, then headed home.
Tonight we hung out at our friend Billy's house, caught up with some friends, and watched "Inside Man," which is a very good movie in case any of you haven't seen it.
This coming weekend we're heading down to Tomah and picking my friend Bobby up on the way, then spending the Labor Day weekend in Tomah and heading back up to Tech with Bobby. He'll stay here for a week, then head home. Everyone should be back up at school by then, so we should have a blast.
Wolf Trapping & Lynyrd Skynyrd
Well, two nights ago was the long-awaited Lynyrd Skynyrd show at Fort McCoy in Wisconsin. As we entered the place we realized how many people were there and just how insane leaving was going to be. So anyways, we started walking in and they were checking all of our chairs and stuff for anything dangerous or items like cameras, etc... Scott had a little pocket knife on him so they made him go back to the car (which was a million miles away) and drop it off. I managed to sneak my camera phone in though, so HERE are a few pictures. Both Lynyrd Skynyrd and their opening acts were nothing special, but we did have a good time watching drunkards stumble around.
The next morning we headed out to check on some wolf traps that Cassie's dad's group had set up (he's a wolf biologist) on a cranberry bog. A family had reported that a wolf family with 5 pups had been living in/near their cranberry bogs. There were some traps set up around the place and after checking a few, they found one that had caught a small 28 lb pup. They drugged it, then bandaged up the wound from the trap. Despite all the blood in the PICTURES, he was totally fine. They tagged him, tried to radio collar him (but he weighed too little), then released him. We also got to see one of the parent wolves on the edge of the bog, which was really cool.
Hanging Out with the Thiels
This weekend was awesome. On friday night, I drove down to Tomah, then left in the morning with Cassie's mom and grandma (Deb & Loretta) to go to a birthday party for a 98 yr old woman. It was fun meeting a bunch of new people, along with a pontoon ride, playing po-ke-no (bingo with cards), visiting Deb & Loretta's old hometown, etc... We stayed with Loretta's sister, Alice, that night, then headed out in the morning to Chicago to pick Cassie up from the airport.
O'Hare is a pretty cool airport and it was quite easy getting there, so we had a bunch of time to kill before Cassie arrived. So we decided to hit up the Cold Stone Creamery for some reeeeeeeally good (but rich) ice cream since they'd never been there before. After that, we headed to the airport and waited for a few hours for Cassie's plane to arrive and for her to get through customs. Cassie had no idea I was going to be there too, so I hid behind a pillar and when they walked past, Loretta said, "Are there any bag boys that might be able to help us out here?" and I popped out and said, "Oh I think I could help a lovely lady like her with some bags!" and Cassie started crying lol. She was really happy to see everyone and be home, so we had a good ride back listening to her stories and stuff. Considering it was 11 and Cassie had been up for over 24 hours, we headed to bed.
Then, this morning we woke up and lounged about. Deb made us some awesome food from the garden, then Cassie and I went swimming in the pool. The temp was perfect and we even got J.D. (their little Jack Russell terrier) to swim with us. Afterwards, Cassie was picking some flowers in the garden for the party at her grandma's tonight, so I decided to take some pictures with our new camera. Below are some of those ;)
