Lake Ripley: Believe it or Not!!

Last week Tom and I went on vacation to Lake Ripley in Southern Wisconsin.  Yes, we went on "summer vacation" in September.  I love the fall, so we thought we would go beginning-mid September to get warm enough days but nice chilly fall mornings and nights. It turns out our timing could not have been more perfect. 

The house we rented was really, really nice and it was literally right on the lake. I loved being able to lie on the couch in the living room and gaze out at the lake (and watch our 3 duck friends float by as they came to say hi every morning and evening).  There was a really cute screened in gazebo that we had coffee in the first two mornings and dinner in the second night....until we saw the biggest, scariest looking spider either of us had ever seen in our lives and then we didn't set foot in the gazebo the whole rest of the time.  One thing is clear from our vacations, when we eventually buy a house someday, we need to have some full glass sliding doors for Bailey to look out from. She did this at the Pine Chalet in February and enjoyed watching the chipmunks and squirrels run through the yard here. 

Bailey loved swimming in the lake and then running up and down the dock and doing the Basenji 500 in our yard and both of the adjacent neighbors.  She was playing her game (that she has mastered) where she pretends to be deaf when we call her name.  So she earned herself a spot on the leash every time she went in the lake so she didn't disturb the neighbors and a "barricade" was put up when we were out on the dock so she couldn't run back into the yard.  She also learned how to doggy paddle without inhaling the lake at the same time, so that's an improvement from last year. We spent a lot of time at the end of the dock, reading (me and Tom), playing guitar (Tom), eating a rawhide (Bailey), staring at the neighbor's cat (Bailey), and just enjoying the view (all of us).

Saturday morning we went to a local orchard to get some fresh apples.  I walked in and the place was practically empty....the lady said they had a really hard time this year. I felt bad :/  But they did have a few bags that didn't make the "first or second cut" on the table for clearance. They looked good to me, so I walked out with a 10 pound bag of apples for $3!!! I see baking in our future......

The other thing I loved about the house was that you could see the sunset every night.  I forgot that the sun would be setting a little bit earlier in September, but we still had plenty of daylight. And I loooooved watching the stars at the end of the dock at night (except I watch too many Ivestigation Discovery shows and was paranoid someone was going to break into the house while we were out on the dock)!  We had a perfect view of the Big Dipper and even saw a shooting star or two.

And, somehow Bailey sleeping in bed with us on vacation has become a tradition, because she didn't hesitate to jump right up on the bed every single night (at home she has never slept in the bed with us).  She was a tired pup.  The last night she even tried to herd us up the stairs....twice. She would circle around the living room looking at us, then walk up the stairs, I guess hoping we would follow.