As for entertainment, in the evening at the campsite we played cards. Americans, or at least the ones I interacted with, love board games, including card games. Moreover, there are many card games with a non-standard deck, that is, made (and bought) specifically for a single game. And we had a full-blown collector's deck from Germany, featuring fantasy artwork. It was meant for a game called Wizard, the only one I remembered and even played later on in Latvia. The rules of the game are on Wikipedia; a regular deck will also do, but with some modifications.
HDR, as you can guess
Since I ran out of my own photos, I'll be shoving Flickr ones at you, even though they are a bit too pretty—I haven't personally seen such places in Wisconsin. Then again, maybe all this HDR-cheating plays a part. In real life, everything is a lot paler.
What follows next is a bunch of random, disjointed facts that I just can't seem to glue together.
- I was impressed by the gas lantern — it shines very brightly, just mind-bogglingly bright. I hadn't seen ones like this before, though I'm sure we have them too. You can easily play cards with it even after sunset — almost zero inconvenience.
- Food is kept in coolers. A cooler is a thermally insulated, waterproof plastic box where you dump ice before leaving home, keeping the inside cold for the entire camping trip. By the end, the ice turns into water, but that's fine, because you can just drain it by opening a special little spout at the bottom of the cooler.
- We also played a game where you have to toss balls tied together with a string to hook them onto crossbars. Ideally, you want to knock off your opponent's balls that are already hanging there while you're at it.
- Everyone present at the campsite was signed into a ledger — Big Brother is watching!
Madison Surf Club
I also have to mention tsunamis tornadoes, which are not at all rare in Wisconsin. A tornado is an unpleasant thing; it can easily rip roofs off houses or flip cars over. That's why all basements in the state are designed to withstand the onslaught of this natural phenomenon. If you happen to be outside your own four walls, there absolutely must be a shelter nearby. At the campsite, the toilet serves as the shelter, its reinforced concrete walls looking more like a Soviet bomb shelter. And so that you catch on in time that a storm is brewing, any radio or TV broadcasts can be interrupted by an emergency alert, which happens quite often. It sounds psychedelic: first a long electronic screech, similar to the sound of an ancient dial-up modem, and then a robotic announcer states which counties are expecting a cataclysm. On top of that, there is even a dedicated radio channel that talks about nothing but bad weather all day long. There are different danger levels: a Tornado Watch is when a tornado might form, while a Tornado Warning means it already has, even if it might not end up hurting anyone. Obviously, you absolutely must listen to such a channel on a special radio that is only good for these broadcasts, otherwise how else would the poor radio receiver manufacturers make money off you.
The other works by the author of all these photos are also worth taking a look at
During the day the weather was nice, no tornadoes in sight, so we went for a walk on the trail. Camping is a popular pastime among Americans, so forests usually have trails, meaning paths for hiking, meaning walking. When we got to it, it turned out there was a “No Dogs Allowed” sign at the trailhead, so we had to call someone to come pick up the pooch named Maggie, who had been walking with us until then. Talk about totalitarianism again, not for the first time in the USA, as you may remember. Where is that notorious freedom anyway? The trail was small and neat, but because of recent floods we still had to splash through puddles sometimes. What's more, Dan (the American) stepped right into them like a tank, which surprised me a bit. Later he told us how in his youth he was into hiking and walked over a thousand kilometers on foot over a few months. That's when I figured out that Dan's sandals were most likely meant for hiking and weren't afraid of water.
The trail itself
In the evening, conversations around the campfire were on the agenda, but they flowed somewhat sluggishly, and in Russian to boot. Those poor Americans — how do they even survive surrounded by Russians. Although, the husbands of Russian girls are already used to it. I don't even know what else to write about the camping trip. Except maybe about how Sasha, a professional photographer, was shooting on a disposable camera from a supermarket. The main thing is not to overthink it. On the other hand, her husband Lee, a sports fishing enthusiast, liked my name, the only one of the Russian names Sasha suggested to him for their child.
HDR is definitely cheating, so here we are looking at a classic
Oh, just remembered something else. Lena's husband Brandon told me about the website www.youvebeenleftbehind.com. It was founded by Christian zealots who came up with a highly questionable business venture. They declare that at some glorious moment (after the second coming of Christ or something like that), when all the righteous ascend to heaven, their less fortunate relatives will be left behind to suffer on earth. And the site is designed to send emails or wills to these relatives and friends. There's even a special expression in English for such systems — a dead man’s switch, meaning a mechanism that is triggered after the operator dies.
Also a trail from Kettle Moraine, but a different one. The other photos from the set aren't bad either.
Honestly, I'm so sick of idiots who dumbly claim that the English language is “poor,” or “poorer than Russian.” First let them objectively define the term “poorer,” and then let them study English for about ten years, and only then should they open their mouths. In any case, I hope there's no need to explain to my readers that the aforementioned site contradicts Christian values, smacks of scamming, and, if I may be permitted to use such a dubious expression, is generally immoral.
I also need to tell you about the worms. After the rain and thunderstorm in the evening they came crawling out in such numbers — Lena even got scared. Personally, I'm not afraid of worms, snakes, or frogs at all — I can pick them up in my hands, and I'd be absolutely thrilled to taste the meat. But Lena was terrified by the fact that these weren't ordinary worms, but ones that jumped at people. Nobody in the camp had heard of such a thing. So Brandon and I walked around marveling — how on earth did a worm move at such a crazy speed. As soon as it felt a vibration, bam: one second it's there, the next it's gone, buried into the ground. I was joking about the jumping ones, they just seemed that way to Lena - fear magnifies everything.
Blackberries from Kettle Moraine
I must say, Wisconsin forests are absolutely teeming with wildlife and flora — nature is well preserved here, partly thanks to tourism. The badger, as I already mentioned, is the state symbol. I wrote about the raccoon in the trash can, too. There are plenty of birds and insects — they chirp like crazy, making it hard to sleep. Also, for the first time in my conscious life, I saw fireflies — they light up really cool, you gotta hand it to them. The forests in Wisconsin seem somewhat more deciduous than ours, or at least it seemed that way to me. Otherwise, the climate is slightly warmer, so nature is a bit more abundant, even if similar. For example, on the way to the trail we ran into a turtle, and not a particularly small one either — about 30 centimeters long. In Latvia, as I found out later, there seem to be turtles in the wild too, but no one has ever seen them.
There are so many beautiful photos on Flickr that I'll never stop