Scenic Fall Colors - Central Wisconsin

Door County - Birthday Weekend Away

Last weekend was both our birthdays, so we decided to make a weekend out of it and go to Door County. It was a perfect weekend, accept for one thing...the colors had not started changing yet....but even still we had a wonderful time. Here are just a few things that happened along the way. We watched this man reel in the largest Fish I've even seen from someone fishing from the shore, we went to a wine festival, had lunch in Algoma. I love that town, we did some wine tasting and found out that the apple wine really isn't too bad; but at Throwing Stones Winery where they buy their grapes from California they had the best wine. Clayton got pulled over for speeding, and was so lucky to get off with only a warning...We ate dinner and stayed the night in Sister Bay. The next day, we took a ferry (truck and all) that was the coolest thing since....I've never been on a ferry before that took vehicles. There we went to an ostrich farm and saw other animals too; the camel I swear blew up his big fat tongue at us as if it was a bubble. It was the funniest looking thing. We drove around the island and went to an art and nature store. I saw the inside of a bee hive there...We only stayed a few hours, then it was time to head back home as we had to pick up our dog by 6PM; we had left him in a kennel. We had a nice lunch on the way back and then got stuck in Packer Fan Traffic. We arrived 5 min's late to pick up the dog. She said he did very well. He came home with laryngitis and his bark was horse for 4-5 days after...poor pup. And here are a few of the pictures I took along the way...

Artrageous Weekend - Wausau Style

Today was a perfect day. We started by putting Sparky in a Kennel for the day; his first time ever in a kennel, and he did very well. He got to play and socialize with other dogs while Clayton and I got to spend the day at a wonderful and very large art show. This art show was held in three different area's in the City of Wausau; the first was called Art in the Park in Marathon Park, the second was Festival of Arts held in downtown Wausau and the third was Birds in Art presented at Woodson Art Museum. They offered a free shuttle service as well going back and forth between the three festival area's. Well in viewing all these artist's work, I got a little inspired and came up with some artsy pieces myself from the day....

in Marathon Park, they held a butterfly release event, in which you paid 1$ to receive a butterfly to release in a group (there was about 100 people releasing 100 butterflies) While my picture didn't show the butterflies very well, I helped by making them a little more visible...as they were so small in my photo. I felt really bad at first when they started handing out all the butterflies in small paper envelopment, the butterflies had wings together and could not move (who knows how long they were in this confined condition before being released. It did bring a smile to everyones face once they were all released. Andthinking about it, the butterflies could have done damage to their wings if there were held in more open bags or boxes, at least the envelope kept them from damaging their wings....well take a look, Oh and since I was more interesting in taking pictures rather than releasing the butterfly itself, Clayton gave my butterfly to a boy who didn't get one as they oversold and that little boy was sooooo happy!

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Hiking...at Schmeeckle Reserve

In Steven's Point there is a small park that is also a preserved wilderness area called Schmeeckle Reserve.
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This information was taken from the University's website "Schmeeckle Reserve is an interface between the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and the central Wisconsin community. The 275-acre natural area makes up 2/3 of the University campus. The Reserve was created to protect and restore native ecological communities, serve as an outdoor classroom for students and teachers, and provide recreational opportunities to all visitors."
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The Green Circle Trail also goes through this area. I went for one reason, and that was to scout out the fall colors and see how much color there really was. This hike, .5 miles to the Lake (Lake Joanis) then 1 mile around the lake, then the .5 back plus a few side trips to cat-tails and a Mirror Loop...was just perfect as it was swarming with mosquitos's. I had to splash some repellant on...seems your fine as long as you keep moving and moving fast, they don't bother you, but stop for one moment to set up for a picture and ACK they are all over your face and between face and camera...not the most pleasant picture taking location, but sort of worth it, as it's quite beautiful there...
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ummmmm, I have a feeling that from now till the last leaf falls my posts will most likely contain fall colors in one way or another :-)

Labor Day Weekend - Part 3 - Jazz Festival on the River Front

...and so the other fun thing we did over the weekend was attend the Jazz Festival along the beautiful Wisconsin River at Pfiffner Park, Stevens Point, Wisconsin. This park is very nice and there is a walkway that runs along the river, but I don't think it goes very far. This park allows dogs! Which was great news to us and so we brought Sparky along too so he had a change to see more people and other dogs as we all enjoyed the music.

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Here are some of the pictures I took during the show....We got there just before sunset, and so once the sun started going down I left my chair and went to the rivers edge...Enjoy

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This first group we listened to was very good, their name is Ziji; and they played Brazilian - contemporary style.

The second band above was called: Tom Gullion Quintet - they were not quite our style and so we left shortly after they started...but all in all; the evening was beautiful....

Labor Day Weekend - Part 2 Rosholt County Fair

My first small time county fair! what an experience; and how fascinating it was to see a rooster crow close up and personal. (yep I've never witnessed that before in my life) I've heard them from a far, but never seen one up close. We watched a dog show, saw pigs, goats, cows, very large cows even, saw all types and colored bunny rabbits and birds, roosters, chickens, geese, and one species I forgot to look at the type on, I actually photographed from behind their cage. Oh and there was dancing...sort of felt good and brought a tear to my eye at all these dancers spinning around in circles and not crashing into each other. I'm not a dancer, it's just amazing to see....

The dog show we watched first.

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Then we went into the barns, well it was sad to me to see the pigs; just laying there with flies all over them (ok well this one just so happens to be standing) and getting their noses full of cornmeal while trying to eat it out of those bowls...

thought the little curly pig tail was cute though...
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The goats were in the same barn as the pigs and they were so adorable!

Then we hit the cow barn...felt sorry for these guys too as they were all tied up and could hardly move; thinking most would be heading on down to the Peoples Meat Locker soon after the fair was over....

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This cow above was massive! Tried showing the size by having Clayton standing next to it, but seemed larger still in real life.

Then we went into the bird and bunny barn....Roosters of all colors and shapes and such different facial features...didn't know there were so many types....




and little baby blues above

Below I was so busy focusing on the bird to the left, that I barely even saw the bird on the right. Hiding under the fanning tail of the other...I refocused and took another shot of the one playing hide and go seek....so pretty and these are the ones I didn't see the name of. What type of bird do you think they are?

These folks dancing looked like they were having so much fun; and I didn't even see any toes get stomped!

On the way home we stopped along side the road and took these two shots; The image above is of the first colored trees of the season; first in that the entire trees were mostly fully colored and the image below is of a long horned steer, sitting on his farm right next to the road....