Grandparents

My parents flew out to visit us in Washburn. Somehow they managed to find a rental house outside of town (there isn’t much besides hotels and camping in the these parts) with a spectacular garden.

We took them out to Madeline Island for the day, which meant the kids got a second trip on the ferry, always a popular way to spend the day. We’d do it more regularly if it wasn’t so ridiculously expensive.

Mostly we had nice weather while they were here, but one day while we were parking to get some ice cream up in Bayfield it started to rain, so we ducked into the nearby Bayfield Heritage Museum. If we hadn’t recently been the Milwaukee Public Museum, I’d say the Bayfield Heritage Museum is the best museum we’ve been to. As it is, it’s pretty close, for one simple reason — the kids could touch everything.

The woman working even came over and told the kids to open the 1890s oven, the dresser drawers, the kitchen cabinets and the rest. That’s really all it takes to make children totally enthralled by anything, just let them do what they want.

Down in the basement there was a very detailed model of Bayfield at the height of the timber industry. There was a scavenger hunt that involved finding ten little scenes in the model. We found everything but the “happy hobo.” Damn itinerants, always hiding out at the edges of town.

One of the great things about having visitors come is it gives you a reason to do some of the things you just never seem to get around to otherwise. Houghton Falls is less than two miles from the campground where we’ve been all summer, but for whatever reason — maybe because it was too close by — we never made it until my parents came.

It turned out to be a great little trail. Judging by the wood planks on the trail, it is probably boggy and miserably buggy in the early season — maybe it’s a good thing we waited until August — but it was dry and nice when we went. After wandering through the forest for a quarter mile, the trail drops down to the river bed which has cut a deep gorge through pre-Cambrian sandstone. The result is a wonderland of caves and pools with plenty of climbing to keep the kids busy.

The namesake falls are a bit back from the lake, but there was no water anyway. The trail ends at Lake Superior, just beyond a shallow bay where the river finally empties into the lake. There’s a little rock outcropping about 10 feet off the water that looked pretty good for jumping. I actually would not have gone if the kids hadn’t been gung ho about it. But then they were less so after I jumped and they saw how far down it was. I ended up being the only one to jump. Pretty sure the eagle up the tree was laughing at me.

My mom celebrated her 80th birthday the day before they left. The kids helped bake the cake and decorate the house for her. And then, sadly the rental house turned back to a pumpkin, and their grandparents headed back to California. It’s always hard to say goodbye. But we’re thankful for the time we have with friends and family, and that’s part of why we never say goodbye, we say “see you again soon.”