Hike at Dusk

Tasting Dorset and a Hike

Part 2 of the Up North Bartmann Family Gathering report.

The first full day everyone was together we hit a festival just a couple miles down the road called Taste of Dorset. We could sample great food from about ten different places, drink $1 beers, partake in minnow races, and try frozen monkey tails. One of those small town things on a highway, with no roadblocks… Good times.

That evening, we hit the Heartland Trail for a family hike at sundown. The highlight: bats.

More to come.

A hike with Gram and Gramps

The girls and I went hiking with Grandma Kelly and Grandpa Pat on Sunday while Jaimie was working. It was a beautiful afternoon.

Good Sundays

Ours was the right kind this weekend. Waffles with blueberry syrup for breakfast. Knocking each other out in Wii boxing (and discovering Wii golf is more fun that we first thought).  A little football on TV. A good cold hike. Giving thanks together. Some good stories, told and read. Snow angels. And ice skating with an almost-hot chocolate and warm cookies break. Sweet.

Autumn Flowers, Sinister Blueberries and Dangerous Pine Cones

I’ve been on the road most of this week. Tuesday morning I was in Lead, SD and took in a wonderful early morning hike along the Mickelson Trail south of Lead. I was given several lessons out there by Mother Nature–one was the flowers. I was really taken by the variety of beautiful wildflowers in bloom this time of year. Here’s a sample (more on Flickr).

Another cool thing I encountered were the ‘thumps’ of fresh pine cones falling to the ground from towering ponderosas. At first I was really puzzled by the pretty frequent thumping sound I kept hearing, ’til I was almost whacked in the noggin.

I also came across what looked like wild blueberries. I picked a few, but thought I better not eat them ’til i could confirm they wouldn’t require a puke bucket for the carride home. I asked a few locals, and looked up wild blueberries on google. and I still don’t know for sure. Can anybody help me? Above are a couple pics of the blueberry-look-alikes, along with a haiku (below) I wrote on my hike back to the trail head.

golden Aspen leaves
green cones thump home to Earth
berries show in blue

Enjoy the Autumn!

Evening Hike

A few shots from our family hike last night at Lake Vermillion. There’s a new trail called “Otter Stream Hiking Trail.” The state is also restoring a chunk of prairie along side a little learning kiosk. It’s a good start.

I put more pics on Flickr.

Empty Nester Weekend

We lost our kids this weekend. On purpose. Mom and Dad took all of them camping for a three-day weekend. We missed them, and it was nice for Jaimie and me to have some time to be with each other. We went out for dinner Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights, took a long bike ride, slept in, took a little nap here and there, got some chores done around the house, watched a few movies, and just hung out. We only sat and stared at each other a little. It was really peaceful. We were really glad to see the munchkins this evening, even though Mesa was the only one that seemed happy to see us. Zoey figured they should go camping for another two weeks. Thanks for the break Mom and Dad. Now back to the roudy mayhem…

Here’s a pic of our first gladiola saying hello yesterday morning, and a couple shots from my hike this afternoon. I just uploaded a whole bunch of new pics to our flickr site too…

first glad bloom

purple coneflower

green bug’s lunch

one seater

thistle meadow

running rain