Sunny Ones

It turned out that my daughter Katrina had nothing to do today and tomorrow either so she's driving the hour and a half from Menominee to Algoma to camp with me!  With that in mind I got up early, went to the gym, and then hit the road for the 3 hour drive.

Just north of Milwaukee it became nothing but fog, but the temps dropped too so I was okay with that.  The fog continued all the way to Manitowoc, but by the time I turned off the main highway for the final half hour the fog had given way to clouds.  About 10 minutes from the campground I stumbled on this field of sunflowers and just had to get out and get snapping!

These babies put the wild ones I've been seeing to shame, and there's something about a whole field of them that just takes your breath away.  It's like your eyes are sending the message to your brain but your brain is like, "I just can't be seeing that, all that yellow isn't possible!"  The cloudiness was working for me, noon sun would have been too bright.

At knee height between all the sunflowers were these pretty white blooms, a type of aster? a dwarf echinacea?  I'll have to keep my eyes open for more in the area and see what I can find out.  I love the button-like center.  Also between the rows was a lot of dense mud, which was a good thing in that my camera lens that I dropped was cushioned from the blow.  It was bad because I got mud on my lens and my sneakers were caked with it as well.

Speaking of echinacea, I made the mistake of checking out the varieties available on the Burpee website.  I may be in trouble.  How much money will I spend on flowers before I feel guilty, I wonder?

Katrina got a flat tire on her way to Algoma, but someone stopped and helped her out.  She made it to Green Bay on the spare and wandered into the casino while getting her tire replaced.  She spent $5, won $50, and headed out the door like a smart girl.  Doesn't quite cover the cost of the tire, but it made her feel a little better about it all!  I'm at the campsite waiting for her to arrive, watching the sun chase away the clouds so we'll soon be basking in the sun for the rest of the day.  Tomorrow...well, the weather forecasters say that is quite another story.