I'm not following them!

Just something I don’t see everyday.

Anyone have a huge bottle of wine?

You know I’m attracted to big things, so when I saw this huge corkscrew (World’s Largest?) on the roadside, I made Dennis turn around while I grabbed the camera.

Further proof that Wisconsinites are crazy ;)

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Wonder why all those snowmobiles are parked on the frozen lake. Yes, that is a lake, as far as you can see, clear over to the tree line. And there is a snowmobile path growing straight across the lake.

And honestly, I don’t remember the exact temperature when we were out this day but I know it was frickin’ cold. Probably either near negative or in the negatives.

But this is what brought us out, and all those snowmobilers. Do you know what’s happening yet? Well, a big hole has been cut in the ice, a platform assembled, and that guy is scraping off the forming ice to make sure we have water. He did this several times while we waited. It was freezing quickly!

Soon, people are all lined up to the platform and the crazy people are jumping in that freezing water! Are they nuts? This guy has a cigar in his mouth, can you see it?

Ker-splash!

Uncle Sam and the Statue of Liberty jumped.

They just got a tiny bit wet. ;)

Don’t you just love the water draining from the tip of his hat? The guy in camo was there to help people back out of the water. And there were two ambulances standing by.

Now here’s some brave girls! I loved their expressions and how they all seemed to be “in it” together.

And some more brave girls! Look at those expressions! That water is cold! Remember it will freeze if not kept moving.

Apparently frogs like freezing water.

There were 144 plungers, and they weren’t entirely nuts. This was an Angel on My Shoulder fundraiser and they raised over $29,000!

They don’t look cold at all, do they?

When it was over, the jumpers went to warming tents and hot tubs. And the snowmobilers went back to the trails.

The snowmobile with the flag is the trail patrol.

FAW

Would you believe this is art? Yes, it’s Forest Art and this is a continuation of the post on Tuesday.

Before we long we came up a turtle big enough to eat us.

Luckily, this is his tail end.

I think he’d make a good house, don’t you?

Near the tail of the wooden turtle there’s a Worldwide Letterbox Rubber Stamp Circle Poem (worldwideletterboxrubberstampcirclepoem). Of course, I had no paper so I stamped my leg, then promptly forgot about it and washed it off unknowingly in the tub. Let’s go inside the tortoise.

See, he would make a nice home, there’s a front door, back door, and skylights.

Here’s the nose. To the left is a river for us to fetch water from for our new home.

After I quit walking backwards and turned back around I discovered another art piece up ahead. The last on our walk.

This is the Tornado.

Beautiful and impressive, no?

Dennis is on his knees, but still, look how massive!

Forest Art Wisconsin

Forest Art Wisconsin Native/Invasive (FAW) is a place we have been wanting to get to for quite some time. Well, we finally made there last month and we walked the 1.5 mile Raven Trail to see what displays were left. If you’re interested in where in the Northwoods it’s located, here’s a map. The artists are from USA, Germany, Scotland, and Finland, if you would like to know the thoughts behind their creations you can find all that on the artists’ page.

Since there are no signs pointing to the correct place for the art we looked at a couple of different parking lots and a couple of different trail maps before we decided on a place to park. Yes, we had looked at the map I linked to above, but we didn’t print it to take with.

Luckily, we did remember the name of the trail was Raven, but the lack of signage really had us wondering if it would be a wasted walk. Well, no time in the woods is wasted but we wanted to see art. We had barely started on the path when we were greeted by these logs full of carvings and we knew we were on the right path.

Yes I know the lighting was the best that day. But guess what, it took us well over a year to even make it up there so I took photos anyways. Shortly after we left the woods, it rained and hailed like crazy!

This little noisy red squirrel made a spectacle of himself and although I had a wide lens on, instead of the huge honkin one, I snapped his photo anyway.

I think he wanted to be a piece of art.

I wonder how long it took to build this nest. Let’s get a little closer.

It is huge! I did climb inside and there was still plenty of room for at least 7 more adults to sit comfortably with me.

Inside the nest. I’m guessing the rocks are supposed to represent eggs?

Dennis tried to create some art of his own while we were there. We call this ‘Shaded Shades’.

There was a little bog with some Pitcher Plants.

But of course the blooms are past their prime.

A monstrous web. I don’t want to see the spider that made it!

More to come.