August 1996

August was the best of times and the worst. It seemed we would never get all the way through August but looking back, time really flew by.

One of the worst parts of the month occurred when Fred (wearing docksider and not his hiking boots!) slipped on a muddy footpath along Lake Superior. The winter had been very hard and most of the sand was removed by the winter's ice. This left a few large cubes of cement (man-made, purpose is unknown) along the shoreline. The corner of one cube was Fred's stopping point. He appeared to be hurt but you know Fred, he tried to "walk-it-off." The following day, after a four mile hike along the Black River, it became apparent he wasn't going to "walk-it-off." We spent the next few hours getting to an emergency room and having the doctor look at Fred's ribs. The conclusion: nothing broken but his ribs were seriously bruised. Three days of no heavy lifting and complete rest. It actually took a week before Fred was back to "normal." Now Suzi knows how to "set-up" and "break" camp and has the biceps to prove it.

One of the best parts of the month was a little campground in the Nicolet National Forest called Bear Lake. It was so cold and wet during our stay, Suzi wore sweat pants over her bluejeans but we had a great site overlooking the Lake. That Lake was the "home" for a family of Common loons. Now, if you have never heard a Loon's call you are probably saying, "So what?". If you have heard a Loon's calls, you'll understand why we thought this place so special. The only way to describe the Loon's call on that crystal clear lake, its mirror-like surface reflecting eternity, is to say it sounded like tranquility and solitude.

Another bad part of this month was Kermit, our Dodge Ram pick-up, developed a very loud and frightening scream in the front wheels. This occurred while at a Superior National Forest campground called Sawbill, is located 25 miles down a neck-snapping, butt bouncing county dirt road north of Tofte, which is 88 northeast of Duluth, Minnesota. In other words, it is w-a-y out there. Of course, the nearest Dodge dealer was in Duluth. Well, it turned out to be something with the brakes. The impact of this problem was we had to worked straight through two week-ends getting back on schedule.

In the past month we completed surveying the Nicolet and Chequamegon National Forests in Wisconsin and the Superior and Chippewa in Minnesota. As we moved through the four Forests we noted some similarities and some differences.

The Nicolet National Forest, located near Michigan's UP, shares many of the UP's characteristics (fairly flat, heavily logged around the turn of 19th century). But unlike Michigan's NF, many of Nicolet campgrounds provide for a variety of "family-centered" activities such as ranger lead hikes and nature centers. They have also have preserved some of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) more unusually structures.

Chequamegon (pronounce She-warm-again) also appears to have been heavily logged but the CCC's influence is not as apparent. Here we saw for the first time a bald eagle catch it's breakfast. We also saw men training dogs for the upcoming bear hunting season. We must say every one of those "bear-dogs" we saw looked like a first cousin to Disney's "Goofy." Those "bear-dogs" had the most expressive faces and most uncoordinated bodies. They run as if each leg was independent of the other three.

One the requirements for a BA at George Mason University is a year of a lab science. For that requirement Suzi took Geology. One of the best thing about these Forests, in Suzi's opinion, is seeing the lessons taught in that class. The Superior NF, located in the Arrowhead of Minnesota, provided wonderful examples the dynamic power of glaciers. Carved by those glaciers, Superior, along with the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW), is as beautiful. One can stand on a rock overlooking a lake, carved by a glacier some 10,000 years ago, and look down at the rock to see the etchings of the glacier as it moved through. Its weird to realize, at some point, the whole area was once located beneath a mile or more of slow moving ice.

The Chippewa NF, located within the Leech Lake Indiana Reservation, contains several huge lakes (most are over 1,000 acres with the largest at 99,999 acres). Although the lakes are impressive the quantity and quality of the White pine, the tree that symbolizes this area, are amazing. Nicknamed the "King of the Woods" in many ways this tree is the "Spotted Owl" of Wisconsin and Minnesota. The White Pine lives for a couple of hundred years, growing to such heights it towers over the other trees, and is an important component to the health of the ecology. As you sit under a White Pine on one side of a lake, you can see across the lake another White Pine, it's pagoda-like branches curled upward. Suddenly a limb breaks free and soars high, circling once before it falls toward the lake's surface. Just before it enters to water, you see wings extend and you realize its an bald eagle fishing. So awesome!

We started the month off in very Spartan conditions but end it in luxury! We are at an Army Corp of Engineers campground with electric hook-ups! There is a dump station and water spigots (no handpumps!!!!) plus flush toilets and showers. We have been so far in the sticks they were twigs so this feels like a real vacation spot. We think back on our life before and wonder why we are so happy now. Just before we left Burke, the Washingtonian magazine had an article about people who had "returned to the basics" and how much happier they were. Well, we are down to the very basics and can't remember ever being happier. Yes, August had some "bad" periods but overall, it was a GREAT month. Can't wait to so how September goes.

Suzi and Fred