I was lucky enough to spend two days with some old friends from high school. Roy is an old hiking buddy from way back. We’ve been to the Porcupine Mountains and to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. I’ve seen him two or three times since I returned to Wisconsin, most recently about a year ago for a campout at the North Trout Lake State Park. The last time I saw Barb and her husband Alan was about two years ago. Barb, Roy, and I all graduated from high school the same year.

We had planned to meet in the North Highland – American Legion State Forest for a couple days of camping, where we would do a little hiking, a little paddling, and maybe tell a few of the old stories around a camp fire, but the weather conspired against us when the forecast changed to rain and more rain to fall on exactly the two days we meant to be out in the open.

Spending two or three days soaking wet didn’t sound like much fun, so we switched to Plan B: look for things to do indoors, or wherever the weather wasn’t going to drench us in rainwater.

It turned out that Tuesday in Waupaca County was forecast to be warm and sunny, so we headed for the Chain O’ Lakes near Waupaca. We put in at the Knight Lane boat landing and spent the morning and part of the afternoon paddling lazily through Knight Lake, Orlando Lake, Manomin Lake, Pole Lake, and Marl Lake. And although we didn’t have a campfire, we spent plenty of time on “remember when” stories.

We wanted to grab a pizza at the Wheelhouse afterwards. It’s a local landmark and a restaurant all of us have enjoyed in the past, but sadly it was closed on Tuesday. So instead, we drove to a local golf course to grab a hot sandwich at the Par 4 Bistro while we continued visiting.

Wednesday looked like a rainy day, so we met at the National Railway Museum in Green Bay to spend the morning and an hour or so in the afternoon looking at the exhibits, walking around the grounds, and taking a short ride in a passenger car on the short track that surrounds the museum grounds.

After the museum, we drove up to Copper State Brewing for a late lunch. Our waitress gladly agreed to take a group photo of us. While she was taking our photo, one of the co-owners of the pub, Missy Martens, photobombed us!