Part 3: Final days in Rhinelander and return home

We arrived safely in Monticello yesterday evening after another long trip home. As usual, the kids were real troopers, putting up with seemingly endless miles of highway and often grumpy parents.

During our last few days in Rhinelander, we had much better weather, and we tried to take advantage of the sun and somewhat warmer temperatures. Here is a picture of Kenny and Beth playing miniature golf on that course just north of town on Highway 17:

Hope had a little less luck, as can be seen with her ball retrieval style:

and I was a good sport, as always:

My brother Bob came back up after working a couple days in Madison, and we spent some time working on my 1968 Dodge Charger, as well as going on a canoe trip on Thursday. We canoed down the beautiful Tomahawk River about 20 miles west of Rhinelander. Here's Bob surveying a rapid that we portaged around:

and here's a scenic view of the river:

The stretch of the Tomahawk River we canoed is nice, if somewhat shallow and rocky. What really blew us away is the wildlife, including an abundance of deer:

We also saw a number of ducks, turtles, and other small critters. Most noticeably, we saw eagles. Everywhere. Although it was hard to keep track of individuals, we may have seen 2 dozen or more separate eagles along this 8 mile canoe trip--both adults and juveniles. This particular eagle was not inclined to move for us:

He just sat in his jack pine while I snapped pictures and we floated within 30 feet of him. As we were watching him, Hope called my cell phone, and yet he did not leave. We finished our canoe trip late that afternoon and returned to Mom and Dad's for supper. I soon thereafter left to pick up my buddy Kevin, and he and I spent the rest of the evening fishing on Muskellunge Lake near the small village of McNaughton northwest of Rhinelander. Kevin caught a bunch of fish, I didn't, but had fun anyhow.

On Friday, Bob and I worked on the Charger some more, and we packed our minivan. We left Mom and Dad's early in the afternoon (to big tears from Beth) and drove south to Madison. We were able to drive all the way to I90/94 on I39, which must have just reopened after flooding of the Wisconsin River closed it for the better part of a week or two. We had a fantastic meal at Morel's (as usual), got in a brief visit with Laurie and Mark, and then headed a couple hours south into Illinois before stopping for the night.

On Saturday, we drove over 12 hours to be sure to get to Monticello. Why the rush? Today (Sunday) was the dedication and consecration of our new church building by the new Bishop of Little Rock.

The new bishop was a pleasant fellow (in the picture above, he's accepting a fighting boll weevil T-shirt from our priest), and the picture below has him with the Hispanic contingent from our joint parish (they attend St. Luke's in nearby Warren, AR, which is served by the priest stationed in Monticello).

This gives you some feel for what the inside of this new church looks like. We've been working hard raising funds for this new facility, and we've still got a ways to go yet, but we've gotten a lot done over the last few years, and I'm sure we'll get this project paid off in the near future. Hope's sold cookbooks for several years now to help pay for this, and she's also helped with yard sales to raise money--every little bit helps!

So, just a day or so after returning to Arkansas, I'm off again--I leave tomorrow morning to join that archeological dig near Malvern, Arkansas, that I volunteered for last year. I'll spend the next week there (Hope and the kids will probably join me by mid-week). Hopefully, I'll have some cool new pix from this dig for my next posting!