Well, not really down south. Just south of Madison, but that’s good enough to warrant using a Benny Goodman song title, right?
We got Elenore out a few times before the summer got away from us, but that was mostly because it was hot and humid and horrible for most of July and August. Joe’s a little more tolerable about that sort of thing than I am, but before we even started looking for a vintage trailer, I said I’d sleep in the pseudo outdoors during the worst of Wisconsin’s sticky summers over my dead body. We also cancelled an early July reservation at Brunet Island State Park to instead spend the sweltering, 90-degree weekend at the downtown Chicago Hilton. (We Vivianis are nothing if not well-rounded in our leisure time interests. 😉 )
We finally snagged a campsite on a late August weekend with the most perfect weather imaginable (read: comfortable), and took Luca on his first camping trip to Yellowstone Lake State Park. It’s about an hour’s drive southwest of Madison, and I was expecting it to be pretty mundane, but we were pleasantly surprised: the campsites were clean, quiet, and full of gorgeous white pines; the lake was warm and there was an adorable little ice cream shop/diner on the park property.
Yellowstone Lake is also unique in that it has literally hundreds of bat houses scattered throughout the park, so I honestly didn’t see ONE mosquito. It was absolutely heavenly. Viva la Eleanor!
A Life, Untitled. 