Leaving AINL

(This post covers August 4-7)

Volunteer Susan (pictured playing her violin) pointed out to us the other day that the park’s abbreviation – AINL – is pronounced “anal”. 

Hopefully that revelation will not detract from the poignancy of this post’s recap of our final days here.

We’ve really enjoyed the park, the month spent on the northernmost tip of Wisconsin and our volunteer duties in the visitor center at Little Sand Bay.

Our last three days at AINL were spent on duty in the visitor center and our evenings were spent partying at night with park rangers and other volunteers. 

One of Betsy's favorite tasks, swearing in some new Junior Rangers

The social life here is a bit like living in a dormitory or being at summer camp because there is a lot of communal space and everyone is away from home and here for a short time. On several occasions there would be a knock on the trailer door and one of the seasonal rangers would come in for an hour-long visit.

Monday we had a rib cooking competition that we did not enter but four others did. There were lots of ribs and they were all very good. We did not enter the rib contest but we did contribute copious amounts of Shiner beer.

 The guy in the red jacket in the center of the photo won the rib contest. He is an odd but interesting law enforcement ranger who delivered his ribs on the 4-wheeler in the background.

 Note that I am using the watermelon knife that I got for my birthday for the first time. BTW, this watermelon was very good...some of the best I've ever had. It was purchased from the back of a pickup truck parked along the road in Ashland, Wisconsin.

 Unfortunately, we did not get a photo of the copious amount of ribs but we did get one of these desserts, all of which featured fresh-picked local berries.

You can see who does the laundry.

An epic battle between wolf and moose in the north woods of Wisconsin.

One last sunset photo.

The Sunday night phone call in the maintenance shed.

AINL gets its place on the camper shell window.

We left Wednesday morning and drove to a state park in southern Minnesota and then crossed into Iowa to visit Worth Brewing in Northwood, Iowa - one of the smallest breweries in the U.S. The last photo is a sign in the window of the gun shop across the street from the brewery.