The 1,000-Mile Great Lakes Adventures

Friday, July 24, 2009

Segment 8 Day 2 Fox Park->Kleinke Park camping 13 miles




High of 81 degrees. July 15

After breaking camp this morning (that's my hammock/tent in the trees), I continued south along Green Bay. Since I walked through some tall weeds, I made sure I wore my tan colored pants so that I could get rid of any ticks that tried to catch a ride.

The day was hot and my pack heavy, so I took my time along route 35 to the next campground.

Kleinke Park is really set up for those house-size campers that people park for the summer at campgrounds. It was comical to string up my hammock tent in between these structures, and I got a lot of questions from fellow campers about my adventure and choice of shelter.

My nearest neighbors, Doug and Julie (along with Doug's parents, Ron and Sue) invited me to join them for a grilled dinner complete with steak, roasted potatoes, stuffed squash, and salad. These Wisconsinites were very kind. They had been coming to Kleinke Park for years and told me how they used to catch their limit of perch just offshore in the bay, but now the perch were mostly gone. The invasive species, the round goby, had replaced them.

The bay and the lake are under many pressures: pollution, invasive species, habitat destruction, wetland destruction, building on the shoreline (among many others). It looks like the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative will probably pass both houses of Congress and next year over $400 million dollars will be put toward making the lakes healthier, their ecosystems more balanced.

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