The Solas family went camping this weekend up in the near north: St. Croix State Park, a delightful and huge state park following the St. Croix river as it traces the border between Minnesota and Wisconsin.  I say "delightful" here in the slightly hypothetical, for while in retrospect and from the safety of our truly delightful deck the trip was a success, the park itself over this weekend can be summed up in three words: Full.  Of.  Bugs.

We arrived about 8:30 Friday, ate and played some games, then hit the sack about 10:30, both tired from long weeks.  This was Bruno’s first time in a tent, and we were anxious to see how he would do.  No fool, our dog, he would wait for either of us to sit up to adjust the lantern or grab a book and then quickly lay on the most comfy part of our sleeping bags!  Having none of this we tried a few arrangements for his bed and finally settled between our feet, where he was content to alternate between leaning his full weight against one of us or just resting his head and chest on our feet.  The rain I expected never came, and it was 6:30 (doggie breakfast time) before we knew it.

Anticipating bad weather, we got up and ate and decided we should go hit the trails – there was a CCC-built camp a few miles away that looked interesting, and the trail followed the river.  Perfect.

Almost as soon as we got out of our campsite, the mosquitoes began their attack.  We made it to the camp, and I kept telling myself it would get better soon.  We pressed on a bit, thinking we’d come to a lake we saw on the map — surely, it will get better soon.  There’s a breeze, the sun is out, they have to stop swarming sometime, right??

No.  The answer is no.  I’ll spare you the details of my freakout, but as long as there is sweet human (and doggie) flesh anywhere in range, the mosquitoes of St. Croix will rally to the feast.  I don’t know if I’m more sensitive to their bite (I used to get quarter-sized welts that lasted for days, and it’s still pretty bad), or just taste sweeter, but it was Out.  Of.  Control.

Perhaps most troubling was the fact that everywhere around us there were happy campers wearing only shorts and T-shirts, sitting around their camp sites with no visible protection.  (This pic of K is in the one hour on Saturday where they calmed down enough we could take one more walk)  How could they survive the onslaught?  Were they hardy midwesterners used to the bugs?  Were they simply tougher, or less tasty?  Why could we not poke our heads our of our sanctuary without being swarmed by the bloodthirsty hordes?  I think the answer is deet, which we were slightly reluctant to slather on ourselves, but saw no such hesitance in our fellow campers.  Not complete fools, we did use some bug spray, but it seems that without a visible sheen it’s just not enough to ward them off.

There were a few highlights: the screen tent we got from my grandparents (a.k.a. the Sanctuary), the "Pudgy Pie" maker we got from them, and the sweet marshmallow roasting sticks from Karen’s parents (up at the top of the post).  The pie maker produced the most amazing ham and cheese sandwich, tuna melt, and finally a bacon, tomato and cheese delight.  Yum.  Karen discovered her all-time favorite S’more combo: ginger snap cookie, marshmallow, and mint chocolate.  Whoa.

We also stopped by Taylor’s falls on the way home, a pretty amazing geological site along the river.  K had been out there before, but it was my first time – very cool.  And hey, no bugs!

The trip report wouldn’t be complete without at least a semi-comprehensive writeup of the multitude of brewpubs we visited!  You’ve already read about most of our adventures drinking through Michigan, but the city of Montreal has some gems worth mentioning.

Our first night, which Karen blogged, was spent at one of the walking-distance brewpubs, Les Trois Brasseurs.  Overall: give them a pass.  Not bad, some good "European" flavor, but points deducted for a recurring "off" flavor in all their beers except the very nice Wit.  On the plus side they offer a huge number of beer "cocktails", and Justin and I sampled the Wit plus whisky and maple syrup: a bit sweet, but hell yeah!

The next day I realized the full impact of my post on the conference site which called on all beer geeks to join up and go out – I found myself coordinating more than a dozen people as we struck out the crown jewel of Montreal brewpubs: Dieu du Ciel! (the exclamation point is part of the name!)

It wasn’t too be – hockey playoffs left no room for our posse, so we rode the Metro and walked to L’amère à boire.  It was fantastic!  They had a house pale ale on cask, an imperial stout we tried, a great dunkelweizen, and much more.  This one definitely makes the list of "stop in if you can".

Next day for lunch, determined to hit Dieu du Ciel! that evening, I talked some people into walking through the cold wind to Brutopia.  Another good choice!  We liked it so much I was talked into going there again that night with more people and found the downstairs area where they offered a really amazing IPA on cask and a few of their own beers in bottles.  The IPA tasted like "England in a pint" to me: malty and rich with just a nice zap of hops.  Really excellent.  And we sampled a bottle of their maple beer – also nice.  Dry and complex.  Much fun was had by everyone at this one, we lost a few of our earlier members and gained a few new ones.  Here’s a washed out picture so you can see some of the beer list behind me…  So:  go here too, and try to get the cask IPA.  The scotch ale is also a pleaser, as is the excellent mocha chocolate stout.  Mmmm.

Finally, we were down to the last night of the conference, and still no Dieu du Ciel!  I announced firmly to anyone that asked that I didn’t care what everyone else did, but I was definitely, no question about it, going to Dieu du Ciel tonight.  So we did – as soon as the closing plenary was done, I grabbed Karen and we took a cab to the pub.  Another hockey game was starting soon, but we grabbed a seat at the bar (beer geeks always sit at the bar), and I started massively drooling over their beer list.  It’s seriously phenomenal: I think 17 beers on tap and one on cask.  Started with the maple scotch ale (maple’s a theme here, I think) which was truly amazing.  So good.  There was a peppercorn rye beer, a smoked pale ale, and an "indian cream ale" which was the I-could-drink-a-million-of-these winner for the evening.  We watched hockey and drank beer and life was good.

Speaking of "beer geeks always sit at the bar", I happened to recognize a guy who came in after us – he’d been at Brutopia the night before!  A Canadian in town for business, he’d been making the brewpub rounds just like us!  We struck up a conversation and had much good beer talk, and you can thank him for all these pictures since our camera battery had died.  Beer brings people together, yo… :)

Finally it was time to leave.  Entering the US was pretty uneventful, other than a 14+ hour day of driving.  We made it Chicago after stopping in Kalamazoo to visit Bell’s Brewery – come on, I’m not gonna drive through KZoo and not stop at Bell’s!  Another beer trade for some amazing available-only-at-the-brewery bottles and we were back on the road to Chicago.

Chicago was great, a super-quick meet and great with the crew there – who, to my distress/excitement, are almost all moving to CO in a few weeks!  Got to play a quick round of Garage Band (?), grab some delicious breakfast, and back on the road.

I leave you with a road trip self-portrait, snapped in the hubcap of a truck we were passing in Wisconsin.  If I did the math right, and I think I did unless I lost a receipt, the Corolla got about 41 mpg on this trip!!!  Whoa.  Guess that’s what cruise control coupled with Canada’s lower speed limit will do for you??  Anyone have a similar amazing mpg story?

Now trying to recover and catch up at work.  Always hard after the conference because I just want to work on implementing all the cool things I saw and learned and want to steal…

Up early-ish to pack and load up the car before breakfast at 8 – fruit salad again, equally delicious, and a three-layer cornbread: organic whole wheat, unbleached white, and cornmeal, followed by a baked raspberry cream cheese French toast.  Yum.

Then we had to bid adieu to Bayfield and hit the road East…  The first leg of the journey was full of wildlife: a big coyote on the side of the road, a heron that I’m going to call a Great Blue, a bunch of swans, and some sort of grouse – tufted head, brown, white and black markings…  Handsome big guy, whatever he was.  Rick?

By lunchtime we had reached Houghton, home of two brewpubs on our list.  We started at the Library with a sampler of their 10(!!) beers.  Great stuff, they had a wheat that Karen was fond of, and a Rye and a Bock that were really working for me.  We filled a now-empty growler from Fitger’s for $5(!!) and moved on to the Keweenaw Brewing Company around the corner.

[ side note: on the way to Keweenaw, we saw a pawn shop with a sweet accordion in the window.  We’d been chatting about accordians earlier for some reason, and Karen had said she’d love to play one, so we stopped in.  Ended up having a great chat with the employee about his polka band and accordions and concertinas in general.  Fun, but no purchases this trip.  Car too full of free llamas. ]

They’re a bigger brewing company, with a full canning facility down south of town – I think I read 30 barrels?  Their tasting room has an 8 barrel system so they can bring on more variety – we tried an ESB, 30 Shilling, Pale Ale, Black Ale, and a Stout.  All excellent, the 30 and ESB stood out to us both…  Learning from our friends at Odell’s in Ft. Collins, we busted out some of our Surly, New Belgium, and Breckenridge beers and worked out a trade for a growler of ESB!  Woo hoo!

After Houghton we hit a few intense patches of rain, but it stayed near 40 so no snow.  Our friend at Keweenaw had hooked us up with a nice map of Michigan brewpubs, so we found one that I’d left off our list: Jasper Ridge.  Another round of samples later (skip the samples and go for the stout and the pale ale!) plus free popcorn and we were on the home stretch to our destination for the night in Marquette.

We’re actually staying a bit out of town, and on our way back in for the run to the Marquette Harbor brewpub – called the Vierling, I think – we saw this huge crazy structure extending out into the harbor.  We were both at a loss as to what the purpose might have been – no train tracks led to it, no freighter could approach, and what were all those sections that looked like they could be lowered individually?  We considered it for a while on our walk to the restaurant, and then gave up.  Any ideas?

The beer here was also very good, and we picked up on a theme – blueberry wheat.  We’d seen this in Jasper Ridge, and I’d also experienced it in a bar in Boston: they throw a handfull of fresh blueberries into the glass just before they serve it to you.  The berries ride the carbonation up and down, presenting a fantastic visual element to the delicious beer.  The other winner here was a pretty awesome chocolate wheat – sort of a stout but with some softer edges from the wheat instead of just roasted barley.

And now, dear readers, like the sleepy Travelodge bear, I can "bear"ly keep my eyes open!  More tomorrow if you’re lucky, but we actually have to cover some serious ground tomorrow so don’t hold your breath…

Thanks to Quentin in the last post for his condolences that our trip sounded so terrible.  Well, it sure hasn’t gotten any better…  Last night, for instance, we were forced to sleep in the most comfortable bed we’ve ever experienced with pillows that I’m seriously considering stealing because they’re amazing.  Then this morning we had to get up and eat a scrumptious fruit salad made with maple-sweetened yogurt and vanilla, followed by local raspberry buttermilk muffins and a delicious potato-based three-cheese quiche.  It was rough.

… so, if you haven’t gather by now, we’re spoiling ourselves these first two days.  We’ve both been working far too much and too hard lately, and by golly there’s something to be said for taking the fruit of some of that labor and spending it on ourselves once in a while!

Karen, during her research of places to stay, found a deal at our B&B where for a bit extra you get a bottle of wine, a cheese plate, and two one-hour massages.  That’s the one we’re currently enjoying, and if this post sounds all dreamy it’s because I’m currently basking in a state of total relaxation following my first-ever massage.  Ahhh.  Gotta say, I was a bit nervous, but when you think about it your job is easy – just lay there and breathe!  Done, and done.

Karen should be wrapping hers up soon and then we’ll get to our wine and cheese plate.  And hopefully write a post about what we actually did all day.  :)

The pictures largely speak for themselves here: what’s a trip through Duluth without a stop at the Brewhouse at Fitger’s??  No trip we’d be on, tell you that!  And what’s a stop at the Brewhouse without a few refilled growlers??  And what goes best with two full growlers??  The answer of course, lies two doors down: a malte from ye olde shoppe.

Then down along the South Shore — a first for both of us! — where we took in an amazing view of an enormous bald eagle hunting in a field.  This natural beauty, however, was utterly upstaged by the even more amazing view of the offcie / office sign.  Come on.  That’s just too cool.

Then we were in Bayfield at our wonderful green-tourism-friendly B&B, the Pinehurst Inn, where we made best friends with the innkeepers.  They are a driving force in the Wisconsin sustainable business scene, and it was great to chat with them about travelgreenwisconsin.com and compare it to greenroutes.org and possibly dream of partnering someday…

Finally we went out to pick up our free llamas, only to be sidetracked into a crazy but delicious and fun flamingo-filled restaurant called Maggies.  Yum.  On the way out Karen was inspired to snap a quick pic of this pretty cool wood carving of a couple embracing and releasing a butterfly.

Bayfield is deserted this time of year, which I suppose is understandable, but really it’s almost nice to have the small town to ourselves!  The innkeepers tell us the ferry is planning make it’s first run of the season tomorrow(!!), and we’re hoping to watch it break the ice and come in to the dock (it leaves from the island).  Then we’re planning to take it back to Madeline Island and explore for bit before returning for one more night here and then off on the rest of the journey!

Took a quick trip to Chicago last weekend for a super-fun Halloween party: Heaven and Hell(icious)!  Now that Laurel and Freddie live upstairs from my usual Chicago destination, they decided to throw a joint party and decorate the downstairs like a creepy idea of hell and the upstairs like heaven.  It was awesome!  Not sure you can see the amount of detail that went into heaven, but they laid down white paper on the floor (looked good and protected against spills), hung blue plastic on the walls, blew up a million balloons, hung streamers, and even printed a ton of gorgeous cloud pictures to put on the walls!!  No idea who these people are but it shows some of the decorations…

Karen and I went as a portable (pirate!) bar, and won in the informal costume contest!  Who could resist a working tap and snack vending machine??  No one.  (You can’t see it, but Karen has a three-compartment snack vending machine like you see in grocery stores.  I rigged it so it was free, and we filled it with bar snacks!)

Laurel dressed up as Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas — including a hand-stitched patchwork dress!  Whoa.  Clearly the costume judges were being nice to their out-of-town guests to have overlooked her…  :)

Cody brought back out his creepy baby outfit.  Creepy.  Karen let him rest on her bar.

A great time (and much pumpkin ale) was had by all!  Happy Halloween!