A beautiful young buck roaming the north woods.

Our uninvited bad-news gremlin, Duende, showed up on our doorstep once again, interrupting our adventures. It all started with a green card that we received in the mail from our township. It reminded us that our mandated bi-yearly septic pumping was due this summer. I called the guy that has performed this lovely ritual over the past decade. He has warned us that our antique steel septic tank, installed in 1979, was rusting. Steel, because of this tendency to rust, has since been replaced by concrete tanks.

It was this summer that our guy discovered a hole in the bottom of our tank. Fortunately, the top and the sides were still intact. If that would have rusted through we would have had a major catastrophe on our hands - a sewage sinkhole. Anyway, he said it was time to replace the tank.

It turns out that replacing a tank requires several rather time-consuming steps. We have to first dig up (pun intended) a septic designer. This is a guy that checks out your property, your soil, your ground water flow, etc. and draws up the unique system just for you. Our soil, thank goodness, is sand. It perks. This means that we shouldn’t need an expensive mound system or a bothersome holding tank.

Next you need to get permits galore. Then send out bids to contractors, Then dig. Then pay for it. Best case scenario? $6,000. Yikes. Not only is this time consuming little project cutting into our idyllic adventure time, it is cutting into our adventure funds.

OK, I know that this is way more septic info then you bargained for, but it does explain the slowdown in our August adventures. Still, we have managed to get a few licks in. After digging up our designer, we returned to St. Germain for some ebiking, boating, ATVing, hiking, and motor biking.

SHANNON LAKE TRAIL. We drove our UTV to Shannon Lake Trail about 10 miles from our St. Germain base. The back roads to the trail are tree-canopied and the trail is a 2-mile gem around a small undeveloped lake.

The beautiful Shannon Lake Trail.

The undeveloped Shannon lake.

A short boardwalk through a mossy swamp.

HEART OF VILAS COUNTY BIKE TRAIL. There is a picturesque 58-mile paved bike trail from St. Germain to Mercer. Along with our niece, Mo, we ebiked a 15 mile section from Boulder Junction to Manitowish Waters, out and back for a total of 30 miles. This is one of our favorite sections of the trail.

Just outside of Manitowish Waters is a gorgeous rest area on the bike trail.

Our Wellgo quick-release pedals make loading and unloading our bikes a dream.

PLUM LAKE. We took my sister, Donna, on a pontoon boat trip on Plum Lake, just outside of Sayner, WI. It was a chilly day. When the sun went behind a cloud the stiff breeze was biting.

Most of the summer has been hot, so it is almost comical to see us all bundled up on this uncharacteristically cool afternoon.

Plum Lake features a weekly waterski show. However, on this day the seagulls are putting on the show.

This A-frame boathouse has seen better days. Most buildings on these northern lakes are overbuilt mansions. These decrepit boathouses are the exceptions.

VAN VILET HEMLOCK TRAIL. Old growth Hemlock forest near Presque Isle, Wisconsin. (The road leading up to the trail.)

State Hemlock Natural Area.

Big Hemlocks.

Yes, we are tree huggers.

Glossary of terms used for newcomers: 1) V-Jer. The name of our camper. 2) Saturn. The name of our Van. 3) Duende. Our mischievous gremlin that breaks things. 4) Tata. The good gremlin that helps us fix Duende’s dirty work. 5) The Black Hole. This is what we call Walmart because every time we go in for just a couple of items, we come out spending way more than we figured. 6) QT. Quaint Town. 7) Little Buddy. This is what we call our Dyson cordless stick vacuum

Dave and Wanda

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