Memorial Day camping trip

How is it already almost the weekend? I've been confused about the day of the week all week, because of the holiday on Monday. I finally had some time to pull together photos from our camping trip to Wisconsin last weekend.

We woke up bright and early Saturday morning for the drive up to Wisconsin. And by bright and early, I do mean bright and early. We were on the road by 6 a.m. I never used to think I would ever become a morning person, but in the last year or two we've found ourselves getting up much earlier than we ever used to. There really is something awesome about being done with your road trip and setting up your campsite by 8:30 a.m.! We were already out on a hike by about 10 o'clock.

You'll see in that photo a reoccurring theme in all these pictures, which is my braids doing goofy things. I tried to come up with a relatively easy hairstyle for camping, but because of the way I pulled my bangs back, that hair was significantly shorter than the rest and spent most of the weekend sticking  awkwardly out of my braids. Oh well!

The hike was on a leisurely trail that we really like that goes through forested areas and meadows. This is one of my favorite spots, and interesting little clearing with a bench.

There were lovely wildflowers blooming...

And it was so green!

Now we're the kind of people who almost never let their dog off leash, and certainly not somewhere where you aren't supposed to. But in one area of the trail, with no one around, we felt safe in letting Pia off leash for a game of fetch for a couple of minutes.

Yes, she's actually airborne!

Back on the campsite she was pooped out...

On Sunday we were waiting for our friends to arrive and had to endure a few hours of rain under our rain shelter. Can you see it dripping down the sides?

It wasn't that bad though. I knit and Mel read from The Princess Bride aloud. (We're trying to finish the book before the wedding—it's one of my all-time favorite movies.) We even set their tent up ahead of time for them in case it continued to rain the rest of the day. Fortunately it only lasted for a few hours, and it was done by the time they arrived. Though we had to dry out a few things...

And boy, was I was really glad to have my wellies with me on this trip. I wore them almost the whole time. This was my "vintage camping chic" look, ha ha!

We met our friends in town for lunch that afternoon when they arrived, but once we all got back on the campsite a toast was in order because it was Mel's birthday!

It was shortly after the rain stopped that I started to be annoyed that the sides of the rain shelter made you have to duck under it each time you wanted to get to the picnic table. However every good knitter is armed with a needle and spare yarn, so I whipped up a quick fix.

I simply threaded a strand of yarn through the holes in the mesh and tied the sides up higher. Perfect!

Actually I did a lot of knitting that weekend...

We all had a late dinner by the light of a mantle lantern. We had a variety of things including hot dogs, veggie burgers, potato salad and fresh grilled asparagus.

And last but not least, here's Mel starting a camp fire. Of course there were s'mores later that night over the fire! With yummy Cadbury Dairy Milk that Emma brought back home from Wales for the chocolate, which of course is far superior to our American standard of using a Hershey bar.

Overall it was a great camping trip, and we're really glad to have another one planned at the beginning of July!

Birthday weekend round-up Part 2, Instagram style

Part two of my weekend round-up, this time in Instagram photos. There's no narration for these, you already got the main round-up so you can fill in the blanks. I just love the old feel this app gives photos (when it works right). It's so much fun to tinker with!

 I hope to have a mini tutorial on making vintage-inspired earrings up a bit later this week, stay tuned!

Birthday weekend round-up Part 1

After work on Friday, we picked up two of our close friends and hit the road, heading to southwestern Wisconsin to spend a couple of nights in Dodgeville.

Saturday morning we headed "downtown" (since I live in Chicago, quotation marks are definitely needed when talking about the downtown of a town of 4,000) in search of coffee, tea and breakfast goodies. I wore my Freddie's overalls (they were my weekend staple), a vintage cowboy shirt, some Bakelite bangles and a wicker purse, which is the reason I'm no longer fretting about a brown purse for VLV right now. See? Brown lucite handle and accents on the front. Suitably brown enough for now.

First day of spring

Happy spring, to those of you up here in the Northern Hemisphere!

Yesterday morning we decided it was the first weekend day that was nice enough to kick off the outdoor season for us. We love going to state parks and forest preserves for day trips and start doing that before it's really warm enough to go camping. I looked for a park close to the Wisconsin border since we also had an ulterior motive: drive to Kenosha, get lunch at a favorite Italian grocery store, Tenuta's, and pick up some New Glarus beer and lambic (only sold in the state of Wisconsin, something many Illinois neighbors lament).

We decided on the Raven Glen Forest Preserve. There were only a few other cars in the parking lot when we arrived which is just our speed. Partially because we're sticks in the mud and like to commune with nature on our own, and partially because Pia acts like a turd whenever she sees other dogs, so taking her on a hike where we're constantly passing other people walking dogs is not exactly relaxing.

It was delightful! It was a chilly and clear day, and you could really see the potential for spring everywhere you walked. I love that time between the end of winter and the beginning of spring, when nothing is really green yet except a few buds, it's still kind of drab out, but you just know what's coming.

It also marked the beginning of Cowichan season. Yay!

I absolutely love Cowichan sweaters. With a Pendleton underneath, a scarf, and knee high wool socks in my wellies, it was just the right outfit for the day.

The forest preserve was lovely. There was a nice gently rolling gravel trail and an equestrian trail. Since there weren't any horses out, we meandered between the two. This shot below was taken from the equestrian trail, looking at a grassy wetland in the middle of the park.

The trail went alongside a lake. It was still partially frozen, which you can see in the photos below.

It was a little windy out on one of the fishing piers. I like how my hair is blowing one way and Pia's is blowing the other way. (Like her hand knit sweater?)

I like this photo because it looks like I'm on a farm or something. Hee!

The sky was so blue! Eeven though the prairie was still rather desolate, we could tell how beautiful this place would be in the coming months. (Though a controlled burn will come before that stage.)

Look at the little tongue!

Remnants of last year's Queen Anne's lace...

After a hike in the park we headed to Kenosha. This was our sandwich. Yes, ours. We shared. Would you believe this was the SMALL size??

We were a little hungry, so we didn't wait until we got home to dive in. (I'm starting to think I need a category on this blog for novelty sized food and drink. Clearly it's a reoccurring theme.)

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!