Dolmen Project (Year Twelve) Confessions of a “Guerilla Artist”: Top of the Hill (Western Exposure)

"Top of the Hill" (Western Exposure)

Day 4 (6/29/17)

As I mentioned in an earlier post from 6/13/17 I had decided to make twenty four hour time lapse videos from “The Top of the Hill” on the farm that I grew up on. I had played around enough with the camera that I felt pretty comfortable giving it a try. We decided to take a couple of days and camp at the farm along with a trip up and down the Minnesota and Wisconsin sides of the Mississippi. These are my old stomping grounds so I try to do it at least every couple years. It usually becomes a food fest and is centered around hitting our favorite restaurants. We worked our way up as far as Wabasha the first day and spent the first night on the river there. The next day we worked our way over to the farm. When we got to the top of the hill it was incredibly hot. We spent some time setting up camp but we spent even more just sitting under the trees waiting for it to cool down. Eventually I set up the time lapse camera and we finished setting up camp and had something to eat. As the sun went down we were treated to a incredible sunset. Unfortunately because of the heat and humidity shortly after sunset the fog started rolling in so we missed one of my favorite parts of camping on the farm, watching the stars. Being on top of a hill with no towns within fifteen miles makes it a spectacular view. When we woke up there was a heavy fog covering everything. As we made breakfast it started to burn off. We left the camera setup but packed up camp. Our plan was to continue our trip up the Mississippi and come back the next day and pick up the camera. That night we stayed in Pepin and went to our all time favorite restaurant “The Harbor Café”. We hit all our favorite haunts and eventually had to retrieve the camera. It turned out my first attempt at making a time lapse video from the farm was a success.