Megan's dad takes Thomas's bike for a spin, fully packed with gear.

Jack and Avery can't wait to get back to the campsite to burn these leaves.

Jack posing at Perrot State Park.

The family hike to the bluffs.

Avery and Jack running ahead.

The spectacular view of the Mississippi River.

Megan's Mom.

Back at group site A for happy hour. Megan's parents didn't forget the Manhattans.

They loved the fire!

Sheeep!

Canoeing the two hour canoe course.

Jack and his parents.

Jack sat behind Megan.

Avery was into racing.

The Sheeep!!!

Lauren and Stephen canoening with Banshee.

Megan's parents with Avery.

We couldn't avoid getting drenched by this industrial strength sprinkler.

The hills and river bluffs were beautiful as we got closer to Merrick State Park.

Read the full story below:

We drove to Merrick State Park last Friday. We stopped at Burger King along the way, and didn't make it to Merrick until it was dark and starting to rain at 10 PM. We had an interesting drive that even took us over the Mississippi into Minnesota.

There were still plenty of sites left to choose from, so we got a nice secluded tent site with water in back of our site and across the street. Merrick is full of peninsulas near the Mississippi river. There is also frequently a loud train going by.

We woke up to a nice day Saturday. We managed to get on the road by 11:30 AM. The roads we took were very nice, with huge hills and lots of trees. We passed a quarry and it was interesting to see the rock. Thomas was amazed to see more Giant Swallowtail butterflies than he has ever seen before in his life.  We went through a little run down town, Dodge, with a very small post office. There was a park in Dodge with the grossest pit toilet in Wisconsin, but that was the only public toilet we passed on our ride so we took what we could find.

We arrived at Perrot State Park around 3 PM and ran into Mom and Dad, Lo, Stephen, Avery, Jack, and Banshee. We put our stuff into Dad's van (not before Megan's dad took Thomas's bike out for a short test ride to experience riding with so much gear), locked our bikes, and set out on an unforeseen long hike up a bluff with an amazing view. Thomas almost had heat stroke, and luckily a lady at the top of the hike gave him some grape soda to save him.

After the hike we went our group site A. We enjoyed happy hour with manhattans and beer, and mom heated up baked beans with vienna sausages.

Sunday we all went canoeing on the 2 hour course at the park. Jack was in the canoe with Thomas and Megan, Avery went with Megan's mom and dad, and Banshee went with Lo and Stephen. It was very scenic.

Then we packed up and started our ride home. We had to cross paths with an industrial strength crop sprinkler system, and were forced to get soaked. We ran into another biker who joined us for a bit on a hilly and beautiful road, county highway P. We told him he was the first biker we had seen. He told us some of the locals do have bikes, but they aren't in good enough shape to make it up the giant hills.

We made it back to the car around 4 PM. We were already very hungry, so we stopped in Winona, Minnesota for dinner (Megan had spaghetti and Thomas a burger). We made it back home by 8:30 PM.

We biked a total of 52.8 miles at 9.3 mph.

Next weekend we will bike in Illinois, and then we will pick up Thomas's dad from the airport. We plan to show him Chicago the weekend after that.