A few weekends back we had our annual Ritterbusch Camping trip planned and Joey and Andy couldn't make it this year, but we decided to go anyways. I'm SO SO glad we did, we had the most lovely time with my parents.
Ryan has been on the road for almost 2 years now. The first year or so was a little more on/off than this last year where he's been gone nearly every single week, home only on the weekends. But, this summer we finally got a little break - maybe a light at the end of the tunnel? Ryan had Friday off, and the girls hadn't started school just yet so we took off early Friday morning and met my parents for lunch at a brewery (one of our favorite things to do) in Sauk City WI called Vintage Brewing.
After the brewery we headed over to our campground just maybe a mile or two away from Wisconsin's most popular state park, Devil's Lake. Devil's Lake is nearly impossible to get a campsite reservation at, we typically camp there off season in the spring when there's less demand, so my parents found a private campground called Merry Mac's that was just perfect for us on this hot weekend. The campground had a lake (?) with a ton of floating blow up stuff in it that entertained the kids (and Ryan) for hours while Mom/Dad and I lounged on the chairs in the shade and ventured into the water when we got too hot. We spent the afternoon and evening just hanging around the campsite enjoying each other's company and playing with the kids.
Our big plan for the weekend was to take the kids to the Circus World Museum located in Baraboo, WI. It was the winter home of the Barnum and Baily/Ringling Brothers circus for many many years and we've been wanting to take the kids for a few years now. Last summer we had it al planned to go a weekend after Labor Day and then realized that the circus show itself only plays in the summer months so we pivoted to something else. But this year we were prepared and guys, it was so so so much fun! If you are looking for something fun for kids in the summer, you should definitely try to check this out. Its not too far outside of Madison so if camping isn't your thing, you could make a whole weekend out of it easily by staying somewhere in Madison and just bouncing up for the day.
There's something about a circus that makes it impossible not to smile. The Big Top show was so fun and we were able to sit SO CLOSE - I swear we were less than 30 feet away from the two giant elephants in the show.
Of course Grandma and Papa spoiled us all with all kinds of treats - cotton candy, popcorn, an RC soda (who even knew they made those anymore...). We saw a really nice "How to be a Clown" show that they offer before the big circus show where we learned about the different types of clowns (Did you know there are three archetypes of clown?), how they put their make up on, where they get their clothes and all kinds of fun facts that I'm glad I now have in my back pocket. The kids even learned how to balance spinning plates on a stick!
The museum itself was really really well done. There were two circus restoration buildings where they restored the old circus wagons and decor...there were tons of animal buildings to poke around, lots and lots of displays of costumes and historic memorabilia to look through. We probably spent 3 hours walking around exploring and honestly, if we weren't all ready for lunch we could have spent more time walking through. Of course, the kids were making us nuts asking about the gift shop so we had to get out of there and onto the next thing - but I would totally be willing to go back again.
Saturday evening Mom and Dad offered to watch the girls for us so that Ryan and I could go on a date night to one of Wisconsin's most famous supper clubs, called Ishnala. According to the signs, they have the best old fashioned in the whole state (it was good...but Erin and mine's is better) and it was clear that this place was a tourist destination like no other when we arrived at 5 pm on Saturday night (early?) and were told there was a three hour minimum wait. We put our names on the list, told them we'd be back for a buzzer in an hour (they were so busy they'd run out of them!) and spent some time hanging around with Mom/Dad and the girls, grabbing one old fashioned together as a group before Mom and Dad packed up the kids and went back to the campground for an outdoor movie night (with Papa's popcorn!).
Ryan and I hung around at the bar - which was really so so fun! I can't tell you the last time I sat an the actual bar. Something you can't do with kids and I didn't know I'd missed it. We chatted with the bartenders and the people sitting next to us and finally decided we were too hungry to wait on our table so we ordered appetizers bar side and gave up on the idea of actually sitting down to dinner. By the time we'd hand 2 or 3 more drinks, eaten our appetizers (and a dessert!! That was really really good), our buzzer finally went off so we handed it to the couple sitting next to us (who likely had another hour to wait on theirs) and figured we'd done our good deed for the day.
Sunday morning we did Hole-In-One's for breakfast (a Ritterbusch camping trip tradition) and then went on a hike nearby called Parfrey's Glen. We've been camping and hiking in this area more times than I can remember and we've never stumbled on this hike before. Mom and Dad knew about it somehow did it on Thursday before we arrived. They wanted to take us and you know us McGrath's are always up for a good hike.
This hike was SO cool!! It is clearly popular. We got there around 9 am and had no issues with the small parking lot, but by the time we left the lot was full and people were parking quite a bit away on the side of the road.
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