Quality Chicks

We've been incommunicado with no internet and spotty cell phone service for the last few days. It's been pretty nice, actually.

Wednesday we went up to Duluth and the North Shore of Lake Superior and then we swung east over to the Apostle Islands of Wisconsin where we stayed in the fishing cum tourist village of Bayfield. Our last morning there we ferried over to Madeline Island (the only remaining inhabited Apostle) and rented some bicycles to cruise around the island. It was actually pretty fun, but it was the one crisis point on the trip thus far. SGK wanted to try riding her own bike even though she hasn't ever quite mastered it and when we tried her out the poor thing was gripped with fear and couldn't get going. That was fine as they have the little tagalong bikes you can attach to the back and have the little ones pedal along with you. But she was crushed and had to pout which started me on a slow boil. Then she didn't want to get on the tagalong bike. Then we had to go through the whole, "I can't..." and "I'm scared" routine. You know how it is when you have someone going into hysterics. The only guide we really have for that is the classic TV/Movie scenario where someone goes into hysterics and their loved one gives them a hard slap across the face. No, I didn't do that but I did loose a few mild expletives in a low tone. It's where I fail with girls. As a boy all I know that work are the bullying things we grow up with like accusations of cowardice, girliness, and sissiness. Those don't work here obviously. But refusing to give in and coddle, I just ignored her, put her on the bike and took off. She was fine after that and we cruised around the wooded island for an hour and a half. She really loved it and I paid for my persistence with an hour of running commentary on a range of arcane topics.

YHWH absolutely fell in love with the whole of the Lake, though and SGK has rekindled her geologic passion, having discovered the Lake Superior Agate and rock shops. Our swanky auto now cruises a bit more sluggishly and the tires have a little less bounce owing to her rock haul. Thanks to Tex's gift of a mineral handbook, she now regales us with the Mohs scale hardness, luster, and classification of each rock.

We have all enjoyed our time on the trip so far, but the one shared opinion we have is that the people in the North Woods are not very friendly. We've discussed it a lot and we can't decided whether they are "unfriendly" or "not friendly" or whether we have too-high standards because of our own state's legendary friendliness. So far we have shrugged it off and figured it must be a Scandinavian thing owing to the stereotype of the taciturn Northern European.

So, signing out from somewhere on the Mississippi River...