Chris Loehmer Kincaid's Blog, page 82

McLain State Park from Sun Up to Sun Down – 2019 Camping Post #1

    It seems so long ago already that Hubby, Dino and I were camping at our favorite place in Michigan’s U.P. I feel as if another vacation has gone by in a blur and I haven’t been able to entrench it in my mind. Perhaps that is why I take so many pictures. Also why I appreciate the internet more each day.
 And away we go.   I saw this in a restroom at a gas station on the Wisconsin/Michigan border. I know that by “above” they mean heaven. But it could be up above in the U.P. 
 Been camping at McLain State Park since the early seventies. Wow, so probably forty-five years.
 Camp is set up. Dino is settled in. And the refrigerator didn’t work. Oh, well, that’s minor.  Sunrise the first morning.
 Sadly, the park has had major erosion issues over the last few years.
 They’ve lost quite a few sites since I started going there.
 Two years ago, they had to build a new bathroom and last year they took out a whole section of trees to put in more campsites further from the lake.  Can you believe I didn’t get any pictures of that?
 Dino settled in again, this time in my bed. 
 Campfire.  Making s’mores.
 Can you believe they make marshmallows just for that now?
 Sunset over Lake Superior. I think I could share an entire post of the sunset pictures from that night. Maybe another time.

Where My Feet Go

 Give careful thought to the paths for your feet    and be steadfast in all your ways. Proverbs 4:26 (New International Version)
You’d have to look back over a long list of blog posts about the Green Lake Christian Conference Center for all the pictures of my feet that I’ve taken there. I think they all show my legs stretched out before me, toes pointing towards Green Lake.
When I was at the conference center this weekend for a writers’ reunion, I didn’t take the time to sit along the lake in quiet reflection. Instead, these feet were taking me on the usual walks around the grounds. And my hands were snapping the usual wide array of pictures.
I wonder though from the above Bible verse if our feet have taken us to places we shouldn’t go. For me, that would be places where I could buy ice cream and other goodies which aren’t good for me physically and are emotionally my addiction.
There are the obvious places we shouldn’t go. But what about walking over to a friend to tell them some gossip you heard about their boyfriend. Or walking up to a co-worker to tell them about their work ethic you don’t agree with.
Just like our eyes, ears and mouths, our feet can get us in trouble too.
Lord, God, watch over my steps today and lead me where you would have me go. Amen.

And then there was one

 You may have heard stories of the many cats who have been in my life – Pebbles, Bam-Bam, Keisha and most recently Fred, Betty, Alice and Cheshire. Even a two-time border, Brewster. And one story about the orange Tom from my teen-years, Alice Cooper.

Last September, I blogged here about the passing of Fred, age fourteen. Hubby thought he was diabetic; I thought he was in kidney failure. And I suppose the two would have been related. Whatever the case, we found him a few days later, resting peacefully in our woods. 

































Alice, at only nine years old, died suddenly and unexpectedly on March 10th of this year. I haven’t mentioned it here until now, because, well, it was sudden and unexpected. 




And with heavy heart, I guess it’s time to announce the passing of my sweet uni-kitty, Betty, at age eleven. We haven’t seen her since the first of July. Perhaps, she has found a new home with a loving family somewhere else. With her beautiful green eyes and bewitching tuft of hair on the top of her head, anyone would want to claim her as their own if they were able. Of course, there are other not so happy scenarios, but I will finish her story by saying she is only in our lives in our memories now.

Which leaves us with one. I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for big orange boy kitties (is he still a Tom if he’s been fixed?).  




















Cheshire feels all these losses the same as we have. We are thankful that he and Dino still have each other. 

The Last Photo

 Recently I’ve written and shared four blog posts chronicling a few tidbits from a quick trip Hubby and I took to the southern part of the state in June. As always, I included a lot of the pictures I took.
 Here is the last picture from that trip.   You probably think I’ve totally lost my mind this time. But first look back over those Wednesday and Friday posts for the last two weeks and really study some of those pictures. Argh! In so many of them all I can see is this huge blemish right down the middle. (I didn’t share the really obvious ones.)  
 I first noticed this fault in my camera during the winter.  Snow really makes it standout, as do zoomed in shots.    I tried cleaning it, but it appears that a hair has gotten inside, between the lenses somehow. I did some research on-line as to how much it would cost to have it repaired. The dollar figure came to almost half what the camera cost in the first place when I bought it four years ago.

 So, on the way home back in June, we stopped at the camera store in Madison where I bought my first Nikon Coolpix many years ago. They gave me the same answer I had already discovered – something inside the lens, which would require sending the camera in to be taken apart and it wouldn’t be cheap.
 The solution? I bit the bullet and bought a new Nikon. Comparing the two, for me, it was worth it.   Old camera New camera That being said, is there anyone out there who would like to take the old Nikon Coolpix 9900 with a 30x zoom and all kinds of other features off my hands? I’d like to get a few bucks out of it. I mean, it still works well and is in good shape. I just can’t get past that hair, or whatever it is.

On the Other Side of the Door

“So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”Luke 11:9-10 (New International Version)
Last Sunday’s passage here was taken from a little known and probably little read book of the Bible, Haggai. Yet one of the most commonly recited passages, the one above, almost mirrors it.
Last week, Haggai told us that we plant but don’t harvest much, we eat but are never full, we earn money but are still broke. We continually strive for things we will never achieve on our own.
Today, we’re told how to get everything we need. We have to stop working so hard all on our own. All we need to do instead is ask, seek and knock. Maybe we won’t receive what we want or find what we think we are looking for, but the door will always be opened to us. On the other side, salvation is waiting for us. It is a free gift which costs us nothing other than to let go, believe and step through the open door.
Lord, God, send Your Holy Spirit into our lives so that we may let go of our self-centered natures and turn to You for all we need. Amen.
I know - I take the dumbest pictures. This was on a bathroom door in a gas station we stopped at while we were camping last month. Thinking about today's blog, I'm reminded that sometimes God doesn't open doors for us because He knows what's on the other side.

Oh, to Explore Every Town

 Fort Atkinson, population around 12,300, sits in the south-eastern corner of Wisconsin, thirty miles south-west of Madison. It is filled with historic buildings, which in turn are filled with wonderful stories. Unfortunately, when we were there for just overnight, on a rainy night at that, in June, we didn’t have time to uncover much of anything. Only the surface. 
 The Sauk chief, Black Hawk, is honored throughout the historic down town. The city actually grew up around the site of Fort Koshkonong, which was used during the Black Hawk War of 1832. A replica of the original fort has been built just outside of town, and we missed that.
.   Didn’t miss that sculpture between those two buildings.
 Yes, it’s a giant catfish.
.  Along the Rock River.  And randomness.
 The band shelter in Barrie Park.

 The old historic water tower.
 Another thing we missed. The Hoard Historical Museum and Dairy Shrine, closed on Mondays, the day we were in town.
 Will definitely have to go back. Wish I had time to explore in depth every town I came across.  

Mounds in the Grass

 While we were in Fort Atkinson in June, we toured the Jefferson County Indian Mounds Park. The park is home to eleven Ancient Indian Effigy Mounds, which is only part of the original General Atkinson Group which at one time consisted of 72 mounds within a distance of less than a mile. Those original mounds included the following shapes: 39 conical, 15 linear, 3 tapering linear, 8 bird effigies, 5 turtle effigies and 2 unidentifiable forms. Historians claim that the ancient mounds were built between the years 300 and 1642 by groups of semi-nomadic American Indians.
 I don’t know. I tried to view them with an open mind, but I only saw mounds in the grass.
 Recently, archeologists have dug up shallow test spots through the park and have discovered unusual amounts of antiquities among the mounds, but few artifacts in other areas. These antiquities include potsherds and flint chips. Historians are unsure if these mounds were built for ceremonial, spiritual, or practical purposes. They may have been to mark territories, designate gathering places or were places of sacrifice. There’s evidence that some of them were for burials, but not all of them.
 The question is asked why the mounds were shaped like animals and birds. I mostly wanted to ask why anyone thought they were shaped like animals and birds.
 In 1983, archeologists working on all of the mounds in the area found that the southern part was fairly unaltered. In 1993, Hugh Highsmith purchased the land containing the select group of 11 mounds and gave the site to Jefferson County to become the Jefferson County Indian Mounds and Trail Park.

 The park’s eleven mounds contain animal, bird and conical mounds, as well as a section of an old
Indian Trail. The mounds vary from 75 to 222 feet in length and from 15 to 30 feet in width.
 Whatever is up with the mounds, whenever I see a Boy Scout’s Eagle Project, I have to recognize it. I’m not sure if this boy’s project was just the bench or more in the park. I guess I missed that.
 Unfortunately, we also missed the most unusual of the effigies in the area. Instead of being a mound, it is actually a depression in the earth called an intaglio. The one just west of downtown Fort Atkinson is supposedly the only complete surviving intaglio in North America. Looking at pictures of it on the internet, it doesn’t look like we missed much. But I’ll still have to go back one day to see it, I guess

Striving

Now this is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much, but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.” Haggai 1:5-6 New International Version (NIV)
I read the book of Haggai a couple weeks ago and was struck by these verses. First of all, who is this Haggai and how did he manage to write a book worthy of entrance in the Bible?
As you already know, I’m not a Bible scholar, and I’m not going to pretend to be one, so I’m simply going to tell you that Haggai was one of the minor prophets. His message is a plea for the people to get to work on rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem, which doesn’t seem so important to us now, but as usual, the Lord’s message speaks to us here and now.
I don’t care who you are, you can find the personal message in these verses. Don’t we all have a tendency to strive for something we cannot have? Search for happiness in the wrong places? Set our priorities on the wrong goals?
Instead we need to strive for a relationship with our Savior. Turn our sights to the One who can fill our empty tummies, empty pockets and empty hearts. He said that only He could offer us water so that we would never be thirsty again. We will always stay warm in His loving arms. And the sand won't get in our shoes. 
Lord, God, Heavenly Father, thank You for sending Your Son to be our Savior, to save us from our sinful natures, to allow us eternal life. Amen.   

Southeastern Wisconsin Pics

 How about if I just share some pictures today from the area around Fort Atkinson, taken in June, when Hubby, Dino and I were there for an overnight visit.

 I'd love to visit every historical marker in the state, all 575 of them. I should probably start now, huh?
 A flock of turkeys. Are they called a flock?
 Boys doing what they do - showing off.
What's that up ahead, Dino?   This red covered bridge is part of the Glacial River Trail, a 39-mile on- and off-road bike trail between Watertown and Janesville (it connects with the Glacial Drumlin State Trail north of Jefferson).

South of Fort Atkinson, the off-road paved trail follows an old railroad bed along Highway 26. The bridge is a nod to that past and was designed to look like a train caboose, complete with a cupola on top; some of the hardware used to build it came from the old railroad. It was built in 2000, and the wood came from a local barn that was built in 1906.
Find it: The bridge is south of Fort Atkinson on the west side of Highway 26, north of County Line Road. Find parking for the trail at County Line Road and Old Highway 26. From there, it’s a half-mile walk or ride north to the bridge. (From https://www.jsonline.com/story/travel/wisconsin/day-out/2018/11/08/covered-bridges-wisconsin/1893951002/)  Maybe visiting the covered bridges of Wisconsin would be a more achievable goal. 
 Always fascinating.
 A stream hardly worthy of this structure.
 Covered bridges will always remain romantic.
What's in the flowers, Dino? And more flowers.
I took seven pictures of this fella, and this one is most in focus. Stupid camera, that's another story.

When Summer's a Blur

Looking back, I realize that summer has become a blur. When the calendar is once again as full as mine, it’s hard to keep it all straight. I’m gonna give it a shot, though.
Back on the rainy Sunday morning of June 16, Hubby, Dino and I took off on a quick overnight foray to see our son in the southern part of the state. I’m always about taking random detours, so we didn’t take the shortest route there.  
When I was going to college in La Crosse, I traversed part of that route to get home on the weekends. I rode through the city of Wisconsin Rapids many times throughout that year, but never had the chance to stop and nose around. I always enjoyed riding down Highway 54 along the Wisconsin River, with its parks and big old homes. One of those parks, Ben Hansen Park, was named after Benjamin Hansen who was credited with beautifying the local riverbanks.
In 1996, the state decided to create a Wisconsin Firefighters Memorial and the centrally located city of Wisconsin Rapids was chosen to be its home. Beautiful Ben Hansen Park could not have been a better site.
I didn’t know any of this, that Sunday morning, when I asked Hubby to stop at the park I had ridden past 35 years ago. 







     The mission of the Wisconsin State Firefighters Memorial, Inc. is to establish and maintain a memorial honoring all firefighters in the State of Wisconsin, recognizing not only those who have given their lives as the ultimate sacrifice, but also to honor those who have and continue to serve their respective communities.      Every year approximately one hundred firefighters die in the line of duty in the United States.  The Wisconsin State Firefighters Memorial Board of Directors has chosen to provide a unique and lasting way to pay tribute to firefighters from the State of Wisconsin who have made this ultimate sacrifice while in service to their communities. This tribute has taken the form of a Memorial Park dedicated to preserving their memory.     The vision of the WSFM was to create a park with a natural and scenic setting to house a memorial to our firefighting heroes from across this great State of Wisconsin. The serenity of the setting allows park visitors to be alone with their thoughts and emotions and at the same time realize that their loves one will never be forgotten(From the WSFM website)