May 9-11, 2014, Lake Kegonsa State Park, Stoughton, WI

With a beautiful Mother’s Day weekend forecast, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to do some camping and try out our new canoe, a Nova Craft Prospector 17. We invited Lorraine’s cousin Julie’s family-husband Steve and two kids, aged 5 and 7. I left work a couple hours early to beat traffic, finish packing and get the canoe on top of the minivan. It was my first attempt to load up the canoe, and I was pleasantly surprised at my competency in doing so. I was able to flip the 68 lb, 17-footer onto my shoulders in one, slightly awkward movement. After tying it down and making some last minute checks of the camping gear, I was ready to dig up some worms for bait from the garden bed and take on Lorraine’s last packing job, the ice chest. Where’s the cold food list? Shrug, I guess I’ll wait. After Lorraine got home, she couldn’t find the list either. At least we didn’t need much cold food. It was to be more of a luxury than a necessity, so anything forgotten would be no big deal. Finally loaded up and pulling out the driveway right at 5:30.

We pulled into site 10 at the park after a short, but annoying 45 minute “rush hour” drive. We stayed at this site before, so we knew what to expect. The park is not fully of great sites, and they are close together (as is typical of the state park campsites), but many of them, including site 10 are “fully shaded”, meaning surrounded by trees, not necessarily shade in early May before the leaves bloom. Our companion family arrived a few minutes after us and took site 12. I helped Lorraine set up the tent and presented her an Exped DownMat 7 for an early Mother’s Day present. Once the tent was secure and bedding ready, I set up the tarp. I got a lot of questions from the 7 year old about what I was doing with this multi-colored “thing.” Not really knowing what I *was* doing, being only my second time to rig it, and having him underfoot made me a little terse with my answers, but in short order, I got it up without any foul language or leave me alones. This time I hung it a little higher than I intended, but it was nice to have some shade on Saturday and Sunday.

My daughter and I were the group sleepy-heads, sleeping in till about 8 on Saturday and 7 on Sunday, although that’s pretty early for me to wake up on the weekend. After having oatmeal with brown sugar and bacon for breakfast, the kids were begging to go fishing, which is another thing about which I know next to nothing. I got my first ever fishing license this year and had some worms, so I might as well put it to use. We also decided to take the canoe down to the lake. I was a bit nervous after our windy maiden voyage, but once I saw the calm lake, I knew we were in for a good time. I let our friends take it first while Lorraine and I helped the kids fish. They quickly became bored and were ready for their parents to swing by and take them on their first canoe ride. It seems that the kids enjoyed their first time in the canoe, but apparently it didn’t stop them from whining about not having anything to do and wanting to come back. After they returned less than an hour later, it was our turn. Now their kids are excited to go again since my daughter was going to go. After they promised not to whine, we agreed to letting all three kids ride with us.

Well, it turns out little kids aren’t very good at keeping promises! Within ten minutes of setting off from the fishing pier, the boy has to use the bathroom, but the shores are lined with houses for probably about 1.5 miles, so we promise we’ll paddle to the North shore and find an undeveloped spot for him to get out and relieve himself. By this point, there was only mild whining at the presence of some boat wake, so we were pretty happy to continue on toward our destination of Door Creek, which I heard was good for wildlife viewing. We made it over to the entrance to the creek, but we were initially unsure if it was navigable due to shallow depth and some logs. After closer inspection, it was pretty obvious that it was passable, although with a half-submerged log to push past. There was really no discernable current, so we pushed on, but the children were freaked out by a tiny bump of the canoe on the log and insisted we return. Wow! We finally got to a beautiful nature spot with turtles sunning themselves and birds galore, and the kids wanted to turn around. So, for our peace of mind, we turned around by trying out some draw strokes we witnessed on some canoeing videos. We successfully, but ungracefully turned the canoe around pretty readily. Our paddling skills need some work, but hey we got the boat to do what we wanted. We made it back to the pier hungry after an hour and half or two hours of paddling. We will have to try the creek again without so many whiny children.

After gorging on brats by the lake, the men took the canoe out for an hour-long paddle across the lake while the women watched the kids. After returning, the women went for a hike, while we held down the camp and supervised the kids. For supper, Lorraine and I tried our hand at making some pizza but did not come away confident in a method for doing so. The first one cooked in a skillet over propade had burnt crust. The second one we cooked in an aluminum foil “tent” over the fire. I removed that one before all the cheese was melted to prevent a repeat of burnt crust. The third one was mildly better, but we have to figure out something else if we want pizza in the back country.

We kinda retreated to our own campsites as darkness set as the kids really needed some rest. I stayed up to 11 staring at the fire. On Sunday, we lounged around eating breakfast, followed by a hike of the white oak trail, then we finished breaking camp and headed home after a stop at Dickie’s BBQ.