Company calling- Edition **2**

Wednesday boasted some of the most beautiful, perfect summer weather we have had all summer.  It was warm, but not too hot; it was breezy, but not too windy; it was sunny, but a little bit cloudy.  Sigh, it could be 75 degrees all summer long as far as I am concerned!

It was the perfect day to be taking the Apostle Island Cruise out of Bayfield.  We had to be up there by 9:15 to pick up tickets and board the boat about 9:30. Which meant a get up time that was cruelly early for the guests, but was fine for me- we left Park Falls about 7:30.  We knew enough to dress in layers, for you never know what the breeze will be like on the lake........too bad certain cranky members of a bus tour didn't!  But we won't go into that.

The Mad Art Teacher and the Mad Niece!  :)

We boarded the Island Princess, a double decker boat and were pretty disappointed to see that we did not have tickets to get to the top of the boat.  Apparently the bus full of old people beat us there and got all of the seats.  But we made the best of it and enjoyed sitting by the window, with the cold wind blowing in our faces and the lake spray occasionally hitting us as well.  It was awesome!

Rose, Emily and Debi

We were apparently safe!

We went on what is called the Grand Tour, which took us on a journey through and around the Islands that are in the middle of the Apostles.  We made no stops, but saw 2 light houses, one on Devil's Island and one on Raspberry Island.  We also saw lots of sea birds, eagles, a few 1000 ft ships, a couple fishing boats, and sea kayaks and lots and lots of sail boats.  It was a great day to be out on the water for lots of living things! We had popcorn from the cute little concession stand that was on board and enjoyed the guided tour by the captain.

Gorgeousness on calm waters

Gorgeousness under partly cloudy skies

Gorgeousness on a rock

Brownstone gorgeousness

Fishing boat with trailing seagulls

Rocky gorgeousness

Rough water gorgeousness- extra point for the eagle!

Lighthouse on Devil's Island

Seabird on a buoy

1000 foot ship in the distance

Sailboats

Sea Kayakers

Raspberry Island Lighthouse

Once we landed back in Bayfield about 1:20, we found a nice little restaurant to eat lunch in after Emily played around on the beach a little.  It was wonderfully warm in Bayfield!

Some of the locals!

Emily on the beach

On our way back home, we stopped and did a little bit of beach walking and fooling around in Ashland.  Ashland is a beautiful town, and had lots of photo opportunities!  We played in a park for a while and then had some Dairy Queen cones!

Beautiful beach tree

Rose and Emily in Ashland

Swinging at the Park

More swinging at the Park

Rigged up swing over the lake

Remnants of an oredock

Fishin'

Little show off!

And just because we didn't have enough jammed into one day, we had a campfire on Wednesday night and roasted a few marshmallows!  Too bad we had run out of fireworks.

Starting the fire

Monitoring the fire

Poking at the fire

More monitoring!

Who needs to roast them?

Needs roasting lessons!

 Whew, that was a great day!  Joy was found all around!  And there's more to come.........