Bars, Bears and Bare Birkebeiners

We left Minnesota, crossed into Wisconsin. Again, a new day and a new state for Daisy. We decided that "we're goin' fishin'." Like hell we are. Ain't eatin' no fish that eats leeches. Gave up that idea and decided to tour the old town section of Hayward, Wisconsin. Main Street, in case you haven't guessed.Hayward was settled by Canadian immigrants from Victoria, British Columbia at the turn of the 14th century so you see a lot of Victorian-style structures, or something like that.They also built gazebos and brought in their own water to fill in these holes in town. They call them "ponds". Wisconsinites think way outside the box. Now the damn state is nothing but pond and lakes. Oh, and by the way, we failed to mention while we were in Minnesota, "Land of 10,000 Lakes", we stopped by a Welcome Center on I-94. The sign has been changed to "Land of 15,000 Lakes". What the hey??? We notice stuff like that.Oh, again, here's Mary, Mother of God, outside the one true church. This is back in Hayward. I'm always noticing stuff like this.Them's flowers. Duh.And did ya know Hayward is home of the American Birkebeiner, a massive nude-in that takes place every year on the first of January when there's a "nip in the air"?  Thousands of visitors strip buck naked, run through Hayward's town square and jump into that aforementioned pond. (Actually, the Birkebeiner is a 31-mile cross-country ski race from Cable, Wisconsin to Hayward.)A windmill. Yep, that's Daisy sitting on a chainsaw-carved moose chair. Just after we took this shot Daisy took a big one right outside an outdoor restaurant in downtown Hayward. She topped it off with a poop-scoot, laying down a streak on the sidewalk running the full length of the restaurant filled with diners. I don't think we'll be invited back to Hayward any time soon.A pity because Hayward has one of the finest old Carnegie Libraries in the country. I obtained a library card with my fake ID, checked out twelve rare books and guess I'll try to get rid of them at a garage sale back home.We spent a couple of nights outside of Hayward at an RV park at the site of an old farm.It's called "Camp Namekagon", a Christian kids' camp with an open bar. You know this is gonna be fun.This is part of the 200-mile St. Croix Scenic Waterway running very near our camp (with bar open). And this is a kayak on the St. Croix. I'm doing the paddling and taking a picture at the same time. Paul stayed back at camp (with bar open) and babysat Daisy. A primitive campsite along the St. Croix. And if you like mosquitoes, you'll love primitive camping here. And just to prove I was there paddling the St. Croix, them's my feet. Don't have a clue why I didn't turn the camera around to get a shot of me. I suppose I thought I'd drop the camera into the drink. Now that I've lived to tell the tale, I question the wisdom of heading out on my own. Remember, the last time I went kayaking (on Lake Powell), the kayak sank. This time I hit a bridge post, got tangled up in a snaggy tree, and almost tipped the kayak over in a small rapid. Water and I don't mix. That's why I live in the desert.But, I made it. Wrapped up the five-mile downriver paddle in about two hours, pulled into shore and miracle of miracles! Probably because I took the picture of Mary, Mother of God in Hayward outside the one true church (and where the annual nude-in is held), when I put my life jacket down, I looked on the ground and there was a twenty-dollar bill and two ones.  Thank you, Mary, Mother of God. Of course, I believe our Blessed Mother wanted me to give the money to charity but I pocketed it instead and have been fighting scabies ever since. (Not really.)Here's where the miracle occured at North Springbrook Landing. Scabies set in shortly after. So word of warning: if you come into money suddenly, consider it a miracle from Mary and give it to charity. Or pass it onto us and we'll know what to do with it. (We've been eyeing the 2011 Lance. And oooh boy, she's a honey.)Oh, when I embarked on my kayak trip, the concession owner warned me about local black bears that like to eat people on the river. In fact, several black bears were in our campground a week earlier climbing trees. We did see a mother and three cubs right outside Hayward crossing a busy highway. Of course you never have your camera at the ready when a sighting like that occurs so we found this shot. It's a bear, it's black and has cubs.

Next, we're really off to Lac du Flambeau, Wisconsin, where we are staying with friends who winter every year in Arizona. Gotta go. Daisy says "hey".

TWISTER!

Here we sit at 9:20 in the morning in St. Joe, Missouri. We slept in this morning because of the sound of truck traffic all night--rucks whizzing by about twelve feet from the trailer. Turned on the TV to catch the news at the end of the "Today Show", switched over to ABC and there was Regis Philbin. I must make a comment in that area, as if we've exercised any restraint on this blog. Can we start some sort of campaign to get Regis Philbin, Willard Scott, and Martha Stewart off the air? There is a time and season for everyone. Theirs came and went about a decade ago. The three of those birds are enough to gag a maggot off a gutwagon. And while we're at it, this clown Mike Rowe, who went from "Dirty Jobs" to Ford pitchman, is about as funny as that poor iron lung man hauled out of our campground awhile back. Mike Rowe, Rachel Ray, Maury Povitch, Kelly Ripa (egads). Others on the list: O'Reilly, Beck, the Lou Costello-look alike, un-American Hannity I think his name is, Olbermann, Palin, and that Blitzer feller on CNN. Oh, and Larry King. Is he still breathing?

Paul knew when his time had come and gone.  He wisely took the money and ran. And got the hell out of California. What a mess. Unlike some over-the-hill on-camera/producer people, Paul didn't dye his hair, get a facelift, lie about his age and engage in subterfuge to keep his job (this is me talking).

Have you seen Bruce Jenner lately? Lordy.

Now, enough about clowns, how 'bout clouds? Traveling through the upper Midwest this time of year, while Paul is driving and ogling chicks passing by, I'm doing the important work of keeping my eye on the sky. We are in tornado country. We hit one last year in Alabama and don't really want a repeat. And speaking of Pete, wonder how that dude's doing in Memphis. It has suffered under a 120-degree heat index for the past several weeks. Paul says "Yo Pete. What up?"Okay, back to the matter at hand. When you see clouds like these, it means a storm's a-comin'.Storms mean humidity and that makes my hair stand out like a fright wig. If this were Halloween it would be a plus. In July and August it's just a fright wig and very scary.But the upside to that is the possibility of a tornado or two and while a bit frightening like my hair, it's damn exciting.Pulled into a campground  connected to a casino in Hinckley, Minnesota. Turned on the TV to see the weather report and violent storm warnings and...a tornado is blasting across the screen. We had little concern because when was the last time you heard about a tornado hitting a trailer park? Or wait a minute...oh well...Here come da storm.Batten down the tin box. What you soon realize is that there is nowhere to go. We were told when we checked in that if the warning sirens go off that we must evacuate to the nearby casino, a safer place to be than in the RV.Here come da storm. Golf ball-size hail and it sounded like Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich doing a battle of the bands on the tin roof. Wind is howling, Debris is being blown around the park. The warning sirens are blaring......And I started to make a quick run to the casino, was outside for no more than ten seconds, was soaked to the bone... And here comes park security ordering an evacuation to the casino. We figured the whole thing was a scheme on the part of the Ein-jine casino owner to get us inside to scalp us financially.The casino. In the storm. Ain't goin' there.Paul's attitude was that since we used all our quarters for the laundry, he grabbed a glass of wine and Daisy and said, "Dear Lord, if it's my time, please take me. But I ain't dyin' in no casino." The storm blew over, as they usually do. A tornado did hit north of us but caused little damage. But speaking of damage, like the town of Hinckley isn't one big wreck to begin with, this is a monument to a disaster that occured here in the late 1800s. Half the town's population, as many as 800-plus people, were killed when fire swept through this old lumber camp community. This is no joke. The buildings were all made of tinder-dry wood. Wood chips littered the street. Bone-dry forests surrounded the town. A drought had set in and fire erupted. You think of disasters on this scale happening in China, Pakistan, or Central America, but we had massive disasters with great loss of life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Does anyone have an update on that asteroid that's supposed to impact earth in the 2020s? The astrophysicist Stephen Hawking says it's on its way. And we're worried about Al Qaidah waging jihad (that's Arab talk for "holy war"). (Al Qaidah is also publishing a new online manifesto/magazine called "Inspire". As in "inspire the base", which is what Al Qaidah means. Look it up. Oh boy.) 

Next, we're off to the land of the cheeseheads and beautiful Lac de Flambeau. Daisy says "hey".

Buffalo Gal

Well, if you have nothing else to push, push the meat scatter. This is in Jamestown, North Dakota. And in these parts, with the bitter cold winter, North Dakotans will eat anything that moves. Oh, this was the restaurant in our RV park, a semi-sorry excuse for a park but that's life on the road. We chose to eat down the street at a restaurant next to a casino certain they would serve wine. The waitress said they had no alcohol and you can bring a bottle and two glasses back from the casino. Paul bought a bottle of Chianti to go (the waitress called it "Chee-an-tie", no kidding).Since when can you gorge on red meat, smoke cigarettes but can't get a drink? Well, not since Utah, anyway.This was the sign at our RV park on the side of the restaurant. How classy. Somebody hit the girl in the boobs with paintballs. Of course in Jamestown this passes for excitement.Our laun ro at at the RV park next to a dumpster. Life on the road. Nice.Adjacent to the RV park, the town's major claim to fame, the house where Louis L'Amour was born. Lou who?   We know. Do you?But Jamestown also has what's billed as the "world's largest buffalo". It was actually a metal sculpture which, of course, we missed as we flew out of town. But we did find a mate for that lonesome, horny bison at Teddy Roosevelt National Park. Our RV park had four buffalo. Imagine. Four here and only one there. So we shot through North Dakota like poop through a goose and found ourselves in Wadena, Minnesota. Thought "what a trashed up place this is". Couldn't the townspeople at least spiff up the road leading into town? We discovered later that what we saw was a small part of the damage from a tornado that hit Wadena in mid-June and killed three people in the area. God will get us for thinking otherwise. Of course we'll already burn in hell for having that park ranger pull the plug on the guy in the iron lung. We found a great little Minnesota state park called "Crow Wing" where the Crow Wing River meets the origins of the Mississippi, a river at this point you can easily throw a rock across. It was here that a couple of  tribes of Ein-Jines, the Sac-and-the-Wac or something like that, had a major battle. French "voyageurs" (fur trappers) took advantage of the confusion, moved in and built a small trading town in order to send their beaver pelts downriver and onto Europe. At one time, around the 1880s, the settlement of Crow Wing boasted some 330,000  people, a Costco, an Applebee's, and a Dell Computer call center staffed by who else but Indians.Today, this lone building remains. Ware did day go? Nobody know. Is mistery. Look it up.We think they all just walked this dock, loaded onto cruise ships, and sailed downriver. The Ein-Jines went to call centers in Bangalore. That's in India.Meantime, back at camp, unable to solve da mistery, Paul builds a campfire, puts hotdogs and some long, shiny thing on the grill.And Daisy sits waiting in eager anticipation hoping for one of them dogs. She got two, since it's all about Daisy.

Up next, batten down the hatches in Hinkley, Minnesota. The tornado sirens go off. Yee-haw.

ONE MORE TIME, GET YOUR BUTTS UP AND AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER. GET ON THE ROAD. IT'S A HOOT AND A HALF.