Wisconsin State Parks - Black River Forest - Castle Mound

I have been terrible at even keeping track of our vacations or anything else for that matter. The desire to share any of myself is gone. Still, I come back here when I cannot recall what a park I know we've visited was like. It's depressing to find it's either been deleted or I've written nothing about it.

Life has proven to be a constant series of complicated challenges these past few years with little respite. I've had to let go so many things some good, some not so. In it all I seem to have lost many of my passions. There are a few things we try to hang on to, for me, my gypsy spirit is a calling I cannot ignore no matter how difficult even simple weekend trips have become. We do our best to make them happen and while it's far from the frequency we'd like we still manage a few.  So, at least in this, keeping track of the places we've been, I hope to do a better job. 

As I looked back I realize we visited this park 2 years ago in August. I know this because I found a few select photo's (The photo above is from 2015. Unfortunately this trip I forgot to bring the camera.) from the park and it's listed in our reservation archive.  I recalled very little from this place until we'd arrived and even then what I recalled was limited.   I won't go into that except to say we were in the very same site (E021) and it looked exactly the same two years later. They are large, surrounded by trees and maintained decently. With that said they are not as private as we prefer. Because our site was ADA it was paved. My husband said he preferred that to tracking in stones and dirt. My only thought when he said that was, "boy are we getting old...and persnickety". Honestly, to me the only part I agree with him on that is when it some to my sleeping bunk which unfortunately is the one that gets climbed on all the time. I HATE sleeping on a dirty, crumby, gravely bed! Still, it's just a matter of making sure I brush it out before I climb in for the night so the surface isn't a big issue to me.

There are vault toilets within the camping area itself but private showers and a flush bathroom are available near the entry of the grounds. Because we were there for just a weekend I didn't need to use those facilities so I don't know what they were like except by the husbands description. He said the handicapped shower did not have a hand held shower but did have two heads which made showering our son doable. It's still so much easier to rinse him off, especially when water softeners are used, with a hand held but we are camping and showering at all is a luxury.  We were not happy that the grassy edges of the sites were often used as dog toilets and owners didn't seem to feel the need to clean up after said animals. I don't want to hear the argument about wildlife shitting in the woods is the same thing either. It's not regardless of how you want to justify what is to me plain laziness and inconsideration. Leave no trace people. No trace means none!

As with the visit two years ago, and in spite of the fact that it was late season and very quiet this round, I was disturbed by the lack of wildlife considering we were in a FOREST.  I think I saw two squirrel and heard a few whooping crane in the distance. There were none of the usual sights and sounds we commonly see in the parks. 

This trip was met with temperatures that reached into the 90's (Lows in the 70's), unusually hot for this time of year. We were worried about the mosquitoes that we found intolerable two years ago. Fortunately some cool temps earlier in Sept. may have done away with that problem. There were a few mosquitoes but we were not terribly bothered by them. There were no flies or yellow jackets either, which are common autumn pests in these parts.

Unfortunately, we came here hoping to seem some early autumn color and found none. Strangely the forest floor was covered in downed leaves and pine needles and yet the canopy was still lush and green. I'm not certain where the fallen leaves came from except perhaps smaller hardwoods had lost their leaves in the earlier cool weather and recent rains.

Over all,  this isn't our favorite place to go, but it's not the worst either. We'd return for the weekend but I doubt it'd be a place I'd want to spend a week at.