Back from vacation

We're back from vacation now. Bummer. We had a great time, though!

Wednesday we boarded a ferry boat and headed to Mackinac Island. That was quite a step back in time. The streets are all very narrow, and the buildings are old. There are no cars allowed on the island, but bicycles and horses are plentiful. We rented bikes and rode the 8.3 mile loop around the perimeter of the island. The views were breathtaking. By the end of the ride though, our legs were sore (and so were our butts!). Neither of us have a bike now, and we hadn't ridden in many years. After the bike ride, we walked around the island, ate lunch, toured the shops, and walked as close to the Grand Hotel as we were allowed without being charged admission. Of course, before we left, we had to buy some fudge-a Mackinac staple!

After we got back from the island, we drove over the Mackinac Bridge. That was so awesome. This is a 5 mile long bridge that connects the upper & lower peninsulas of Michigan. We then drove through the upper peninsula to our next destination-the city of Menominee, Michigan. The UP life is quite simple, just a few farmsteads between towns. Not too much going on. There were many nice views of Lake Michigan though. There were also many timber/forest areas where the leaves were just beginning to turn their fall colors. Once we arrived in Menominee at about 7 pm, we just ate supper and crashed. No sight seeing around this town!

Thursday, we departed Michigan and headed through the Wisconsin countryside. We made our way through Marinette, Shawano, Wausau, Eau Claire, and LaCrosse. We found a really nice county park in Eau Claire county that had a cool bridge with a river and neat rock formations. We crawled out on the rocks and snapped quite a few pictures. We are such suckers for water views. Between Wausau and Eau Claire, we went about 5 or 6 miles off the beaten path and found the exact geographic center of the northwest hemisphere. It is on the 45 parallel of latitude (half way between the equator and the north pole) and the 90 degree parallel of longitude (1/4 of the way around the world from Greenwich, England). It is literally a tenth of an acre park in the middle of a beanfield. We are such dorks for finding this! After a long drive through Wisconsin, we ended our day in Prairie du Chien, arriving at about 8pm.

Friday morning, we toured Cabellas and drove around Prairie du Chien, and then headed back into Iowa. We took Hwy 52 down the Iowa side of the Mississippi and into Dubuque. There we went to a 1 hour photo Walgreens store to develop a roll of film and print off some digital pictures. After that, we headed back for the big city of Monticello. Friday afternoon, we attended an open house at Orbis celebrating Karen's 30th anniversary with the company. We spent Friday night there, reliving our vacation with our families, and left for Altoona Saturday afternoon. We got home at about 5:30.

Of course, when we got home, we had a weeks worth of laundry to do, and no food in the house. We did a couple of loads of wash, and went to the grocery store. We actually had a home cooked meal this evening, but we haven't really done much else. We have Sunday and Monday to get everything put away! All in all, it was a wonderful vacation, but we are glad to be home now. We just don't want to go back to work on Tuesday!!

We will post some pics later.