14 posts tagged “photos”

My wife and I marked a quiet 38th anniversary last Friday.

It was quiet because the previous three days were spent running around central Wisconsin on a mini-vacation trip. We came home a bit tired out and spent out. So for the big night, she made chicken parmigiana for supper, and then we went to the local theater (the only movie house in the entire county) to see “Up,” which just arrived in town. (According to the posters, “Public Enemies” will be getting here soon. Before the DVD comes out!)

We planned this vacation so she could go to some places she was interested in. With the help of her AAA book and some diligent web-surfing, she picked some pretty good ones off the beaten track.

Our first one was a stone arch bridge in Merrill, Wis., which carries traffic through the downtown area …

We saw a park nearby and walked down a path to another, even older bridge. This one had a sign from the construction company, dated 1909. It was much narrower–one lane wide …

The next stop was Wausau. Our main stop there was the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum. My wife was mainly interested in a sculpture garden on the grounds, and we walked around there. They had an exhibit with metal sculptures by artist Wendy Ross …

We also walked down by a small garden, where the bees were busily at work …

From there, we walked around to the main (temporary) entrance of the museum and went inside. They had two temporary exhibitions. One was photos of jungle life, taken by a National Geographic photographer. The other was called “American Ruins,” about places like ghost towns and crumbled, overgrown mansions from long ago. All the photos were taken in black-and-white, using infrared film, so the leaves, grasses and other foliage comes out white, not dark as you would expect. Interesting effects. We studied the photos for quite a while.

None of the photos on their website show the white leaves that well, but they give you an idea of what the exhibitions were like. No photos were permitted inside. The LYW Museum is best known for its “Birds in Art” permanent display, but we had to bookmark it for a future visit. We had one more place to visit this day.

This last stop for Tuesday was way out in the country, about 70 miles away on country roads. Called Jurustic Park, it is composed mainly of fanciful sculptures of animals and other creatures made from scrap metal.

But we had spent so much time at the museum that we arrived about 15 minutes after it had closed for the day. All we could do is take a few photos of the main entrance …

… and a telephoto shot of a “hobbit house” inside …

… before leaving. You can look over some of their other creations on their website–they really are fun to look at.

From there, we drove south to Marshfield and then east to Stevens Point, where we spent the night. Wednesday, we drove back west. This time our destination was the Rudolph Grotto, a Catholic shrine, gardens and “wonder cave.”

This place was started during the 1920s by Father Philip Wagner, who became very ill while studying for the priesthood in Europe. According to the brochure from grotto, Wagner went to Lourdes in France, to the Grotto of Our Lady, in 1912. He prayed and prayed and promised that if his health was restored, he would build a shrine in Mary’s honor. He got better and started planning.

Wagner became the priest in Rudolph in 1917, a new church was built, and he started envisioning flower beds and tree arrangements for his grotto. He used rocks from the surrounding area to build shrines. “Stones and large rocks were piled because he knew nothing of construction or masonry. In order to create the beautiful structures we see here today, Father Wagner began using concrete and the trial-and-error method of construction.”

Father Wagner lived at the church and worked on the grotto until his death in 1969. Another man worked with him on the grotto until he died in 1991. They kept making more and more shrines in the park–the last one was completed in 1983.

It is intensely Catholic, of course. There was a series of stations of the Seven Sorrows of Mary, including this one …

They also had statues for all 14 Stations of the Cross, plus many other shrines, plaques and statuary. Even a little wooden chapel …

And then there was the Wonder Cave. We couldn’t miss that. “A 1/5th mile catacomb-like passageway through the grotto depicting 26 shrines of the life and teaching of Jesus.”

It sure was narrow, and you had to duck your head pretty often. Even my wife, who rarely needs to duck her head for any reason …

It’s very dark inside, of course, and the shrines are illuminated with colored lights. Quite difficult for a camera without a tripod or a flash, but at least this scene came out well …

Outside we walked around the grounds a little longer when suddenly we encountered an untamed Wisconsin wildlife creature …

And we also stopped at a museum about the history of the shrine, the parish and Rudolph, Wis. And among everything else, we came across this heartbreaking relic …

One more stop before leaving the Stevens Point area: The Herrschner’s catalog outlet store. How many of you have seen the Herrschner’s catalog of craft items? This is where they come from. Here is the door to the store …

… and here is a wall of yarn of all colors of the rainbow …

They also had a large variety of fabrics. I was impressed, but my wife said she has seen larger varieties at the Hobby Lobby stores, which was on our schedule for Thursday. She was especially disappointed by the relative lack of needlework items and the large quantity of “close-out” items for sale–she thought there would be a lot more to look at.

From there, we got on the highway and drove to Oshkosh, where we met up with S and her husband. It happened to be his birthday, and our original plan was to see “Public Enemies,” which they hadn’t seen yet (even though some scenes were shot in Oshkosh and they took me to see the preparations over a year ago). But S doesn’t like violent movies, so she wasn’t going to go. They also had their 5-year-old grandson with them, whom they were babysitting. Hmmm.

We finally decided: We would go to a movie that everyone could enjoy. We opted for the new “Ice Age” movie, and everyone went and had a good time. From there, we had supper at the Golden Corral buffet, and then we went to our motel, to relax in the swimming pool and (especially) the hot tub.

That wasn’t the end of our day. They invited us to join them at a neighborhood bar near their home, for a birthday toast. Neither of us visits bars very often, but we went this time, spent another hour with them and had a good time. The highlight was when Johnny Depp (from “Public Enemies”) came on the David Letterman show, and life at the bar ground to a dead stop. The younger women were swooning!

That capped a very busy Wednesday. Thursday was supposed to be a lot easier: Just visit a few stores my wife wanted to visit (Hobby Lobby, Fashion Bug) and then start driving home. By about 11 a.m., the shopping was done, and we pointed the car north. In Appleton, the last big city on our way, we stopped at a sub place for lunch. As we walked to the store, I reached for my cell phone out of habit, to see if there were any messages. It wasn’t there.

I checked my pockets, to see if I had stuck it in there. Then I went back to the car and checked the area around the front seat. Then the trunk, where I had changed a shirt earlier and may have absent-mindedly put it down.

It wasn’t here. It wasn’t there. It wasn’t anywhere.

My wife said, “Maybe we should go back and look.” “Back there” meant Oshkosh, about 30 miles south, where we had started the day. We had only made a few stops, and I knew I had it while waiting at Hobby Lobby. We zipped back south. Once we got there, we stopped at each place. Nobody had seen anything. I left addresses and phone numbers, just in case.

We still hadn’t had lunch–it was 1:30 by now–so we went to a Subway, and my wife got something. I was just too upset at myself to eat anything. I had a sip or two of her soda, and that was all. Nothing to do but drive back north, phoneless, my mind racing, imagining the cost and hassle of getting a new phone set up.

Three hours later, we were home. My wife checked the answer machine. Sure enough, a woman had called, saying she had found my phone in a parking lot. The next message was from S. The woman had contacted her, too, and they had gone down to pick it up.

They aren’t going to mail it to me: We had earlier made plans to meet again this weekend at that clothing-optional “beach,” where they like to camp in summer–I haven’t been there yet this year, and that was on my to-do list. A mailed phone wouldn’t arrive until late this week, so I told them to just keep it until I get down there.

A hectic end to a busy trip. On Monday, the first official high school football practices were held. Summer is nearly over.

We’ve got just one month to go in a summer that never really got going. We didn’t know that back in early June when my wife and son and I took a one-day trip to Rhinelander to have a little fun.

That was before the short trip to Canada and before the Fourth of July trip. On this one, the featured stop (aside from exercising our shopping muscles) was a visit to a city-operated historic museum named Pioneer Park.

It’s not pretentious at all, but there was a lot to see and study. It’s a quick jump into the time machine and back a few generations. Back when trains carried goods and supplies and raw materials all over. When lumberjacks chopped down trees with pure muscle power. When children went to schools that had all the grades in the same room.

An old train and a semaphore marked the outside of the depot and the Rhinelander Railroad Museum …

Nearby, a crossing sign showed the little reflectors that were used on signs in the days before reflectorized paint was invented. I turned on the flash to get the reflections …

Then inside the depot, to the ticket counter, which stood under some old station signs …

A little further, a display showed what life in the old train depot was like–manual typewriters, glass insulators, hand-written account books and a hand-wound clock in the corner …

Downstairs, they had a model train layout that showed what Rhinelander was like back in the old days–minus the pillars, of course. At the bottom right, there are some coin slots that were supposed to make the trains run. David and I both deposited quarters … and shrugged our shoulders as the trains remained stationary …

We went back outside to look over a big log sledge that once carried logs out of the wood in winter, pulled by horses on ice trails …

What kind of loads did those horses pull? We went to the Rhinelander Logging Museum to find out. This photo from 1897 ought to answer that question. Several other pictures in the museum showed huge loads …

The museum included a cook shack and the loggers’ barracks. Here is the room where the loggers ate0–the kitchen is in back, beyond where David and my wife are standing …

We didn’t get to the barracks in time, but this is what they were like back in the day …

Then we went to another building and went down a short entry hall …

… into a one-room school building, the Rhinelander School Museum …

Very nostalgic place. How many of you learned how to make letters (printed and cursive) by following these guides lined up above the blackboard? …

And how many of you first read from books like these? …

How did the one-room schools teach eight different grades in one room at the same time? By intricate planning, as this schedule shows …

The old classroom had a working stereoptican with cards, and my wife enjoyed trying that out. Outside of the wall maps and blackboard and books and globe, that was the extent of multimedia. Most of the stereoptican cards were over a hundred years old …

Such teaching demanded a lot from a teacher, and so did the rules that they were expected to follow faithfully. I got several different sets of rules set for teachers, and here they are:

• You will not marry during the term of your contract.
• You are not to keep company with men.
• You must be home between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. unless attending a school function.
• You may not loiter downtown in ice cream stores.
• You may not travel beyond the city limits unless you have the permission of the chairman of the board.
• You may not ride in a carriage or automobile with any man unless he is your father or brother.
• You may not smoke cigarettes or play at cards.
• You may not dress in bright colors.
• You may under no circumstances dye your hair.
• You must wear at least two petticoats.
• Your dresses must not be shorter than two inches above the ankle.
• It is understood the teacher will attend church each Sunday and either teach a class in Sunday school or sing in the choir.
• To keep the schoolroom near and clean, you must:

1. Sweep the floor at least once daily.
2. Scrub the floor at least once a week with hot soapy water.
3. Clean the blackboards at least once a day.
4. Start the fire by 7 a.m. so the room will be warm by 8 a.m.

Here are some teachers’ rules from 1872:

• Teachers every day will fill lamps, clean chimneys.
• Each teacher will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of coat for the day’s session.
• Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs to the individual taste of the pupils.
• Men teacher may take one evening each week for courting purposes or two evenings a week if they go to church regularly.
• After 10 hours in school, the teachers may spend the remaining time reading the Bible or other good books.
• Women teachers who marry or engage in unseemly conduct will be dismissed.
• Every teacher should lay aside from each payday a goodly sum of his earnings for his benefit during his declining years so that he will not become a burden on society.
• Any teacher who smokes, uses liquor in any form, frequents pool or public halls or gets shaved in a barber shop will give good reason to suspect his worth, intention, integrity and honesty.
• The teacher who performs his labor faithfully and without fault for five years will be given an increase of 25 cents per week in his pay, providing the board of education approves.

****
I’ve got many more things to write about. The trick is finding the time, especially since my wife and I will be making a mini-vacation trip to central Wisconsin this week. Three days and two nights, starting Tuesday morning.

Coming attractions include some photos from the recent U.P. firefighters tournament and the rodeo held here last weekend. Believe me, I’ve got some really spectacular rodeo action shots–stuff good enough to submit to the state newspaper contest, I think.

The firemen’s pix combine action with humor–at times humor too suggestive for a family newspaper. But you aren’t offended by stuff like that, are you?

I didn’t think so.

That distance (1,732 kilometers for those of you who are into metrics) is how far I drove during my extended Fourth of July weekend trip. If you plot it out on a map, my course looks sort of like a backwards "7," as I drove mostly west to Minneapolis-St. Paul, then southeast to the neopagan gathering ... and then retraced my tire tracks a couple days later. My wife and I left home on Wednesday around noon and got back home the following Monday at about mid-afternoon.

I did this so I could have my first visit with B, my friend from Alaska. We met at the MSP Airport on Thursday just after noon and parted on Sunday, late in the afternoon. That gave us most of four days and three nights together. Without getting into a lot of words, we both had a great time, and the days passed very quickly. Way too quickly. We had packed a lot of activities into those four days, so we were very busy, and we both slept well each night--even I, who often wake up in the middle of the night and can't settle down again.

Thanks to our cell phones and texting, we kept in touch with each other as we neared our rendezvous (the baggage pickup area at the MSP airport). I had parked at the nearby Mall of America and took the light rail train to the terminal. She texted me when her plane landed. By the time she phoned me a little later after exiting the plane, she had already spotted me. It was a 10-second phone call. Happy hugs and kisses ensued.

We rode back to the mall, where we did some shopping, got lunch (Arby's), then hit the road for the three-hour drive to our motel. Supper was at Pizza Hut. The next morning, we finished the drive to the gathering, passing through some very scenic, hilly country that thrilled her, including a brief drive up narrow roads to a top-of-the-mountain park. Lovely place, but we didn't stay there long; we had places to go.

We got to the gathering site, where she started meeting some of my friends. All went very well there--she said she had a great time at the events we went to, meeting many new friends along the way. She had never been to an event like that, and it was exotic, to put it mildly.

We missed many of the events--B wanted to see sarong-tying workshop, and I wanted the drumming and dancing circle; we arrived a day late for that. But we made it to a discussion of the group, a potluck dinner and a "henna play party," with people decorating each other with henna. B really wanted to see that, and she did. We took part--I drew a little butterfly on her ...

And she drew a moon with some stars on me ...

They only exist in these photos now; the henna has already faded away completely.

A symposium was held in the evening, and I hoped for a starry night, because you can really see the stars and Milky Way from this hilltop location--no light pollution at all. But it was mostly cloudy. We went back to my tent and slept well. I just brought one sleeping bag for the two of us. When it got cool overnight, we put the thermal blanket under us on the air mattress and the sleeping bag over us. Problem solved.

The next day, we stumbled through a "mirror dance," then enjoyed the sensual pleasures of taste at a "naked lunch," where a poem of that name was read. "Clothing is definitely optional," said the program, and so it was. One important rule: When someone feeds you something by hand, you have to happily moan with pleasure. Strawberries (a few with chocolate on top), grapes, melon, date bars. Mmmmmmmmmmm!!!

After that, we took part in a very serious discussion of polyamory that went two hours and could have gone for two more. The people there are very committed to the lifestyle they lead and their lovers--all of them. After it ended, B and I went back to our campsite, took down the tent and moved things back to the car. We stayed long enough to take part in the main ritual was that evening, and we left right after that, with more hugs for the people there.

We drove back north, and she was delighted to come upon a big fireworks show in one of the towns.  B has lived in Alaska for years, and they don't have fireworks that far north on the Fourth of July. Just after the start of summer, the sun is up 22 hours a day, and the sky never gets dark. They have fireworks for New Year's, but people have to bundle up for subzero weather to see it.

We got to our motel at 11:30 p.m. and were pleased to find the hot tub and whirlpool still open. We relaxed and let the rushing warm water sooth away our tense muscles from the drive before going to bed. During our final morning, as we were getting ready, I remembered that we still had to do a tick check on each other. Lucky that I remembered--I spotted one on B's tummy. We had to get out her tweezers to carefully pull the little bugger out. She said I was tick-free.

She had gifts, both for me and my wife. She gave her a book on Alaskan wildflowers, a cutting board and an ulu (an all-purpose cutting knife with a rocking handle, like those used by the Inuit). She gave me a black Alaska T-shirt with a multi-colored moose on it.

I only took a few pictures, and there was just one of the two of us together. We stopped at a gas station near the motel on that final morning and saw a big orange moose on the motel grounds nearby. A woman saw me taking a picture of B and took a picture of the two of us together ...

Then, back in the car. A few hours later we were back at the Mall of America. A visit to Taco Bell, an ice cream at Dairy Queen, and then back into the light rail train, heading back to the airport. She got her boarding pass. The security checkpoint lines nearby were very long--but one of the officers told us to walk down to the other end of the terminal, where the lines were a lot shorter. Indeed they were--B just had one person in front of her. Within minutes she was through, and we waved good-bye for the final time.

The next morning, I got an e-mail from her, saying she was back in Alaska, safe and sound, ready to go to bed and dream of ticks.

****
Now ... I bet you're wondering what my wife was doing while I was gone.

She was having a great time with her sisters. All three of them live in the same area, and I drove her to one of their homes that first day (leaving for the Twin Cities by myself the next morning). On her first solo day, she and the sister drove up to Duluth, took in two Imax movies, visited a big flower display at a local park and ate dinner at a revolving restaurant, 18 stories above the ground. That's pretty big for Duluth. When they told me about it, I was impressed.

On day two, she stayed in town with the family, they had a big cookout and went to the circus that night, seeing fireworks afterward. On day three, she and the sister went down to Eau Claire to visit some parks, a mini-zoo, visit some nephews and have a nice supper. I guess they had a good time--they got home an hour after I got back from the Twin Cities. We stayed there that night and left for home the next morning.

While she and I were separated, we kept in touch the best we could--but she doesn't have her own cell phone (not interested), and I didn't have the sister's cell number, so I kept calling her house. They weren't home that much, but I did talk to her a few times from the road (or the tent or restaurant or motel).

It all worked out, and I'm very happy with how everything went. B and I knew we didn't have a lot of time, and many things we had talked about doing fell by the wayside. Even so, we did a lot, we had very busy days, and I don't think we could have packed much more into our time together. She loved the gathering and wants to go back next year.

Meanwhile, my wife said she really enjoyed having a long holiday weekend with her sisters, so this whole story could very well be repeated next summer. Why not? It sounds like it worked for everybody.

****

B and I talked for the first time since the trip (besides e-mails) on Saturday night. It went well, and my wife was part of it too--I put my cell phone on speaker. Since we said good-bye two weeks earlier, both of us have been trying to catch up on our sleep--she, especially, was fatigued when the visit was over. She also had to deal with a few health problems (nothing major), exacerbated by an unusual Alaskan heat wave that sent temperatures shooting up into the 80s and low 90s, along with wildfires and smoke.

All that is past now. We had hoped to meet again in August, but those plans didn't work out. So our next time will be ... whenever. When the time is right. As it was two weeks ago.

I just got back from a very enjoyable adventure on the road. But before I report on that, I still need to fill you in on our recent trip to Canada.

One city in Canada, really: Sault Ste. Marie, the closest Canadian city if you live in the U.P.

We made our trip in the first weeks after new passport laws went into effect--since we had applied for and received the new passport cards, we were all set. We showed them to the Canadian customs officer, answered the standard questions and were off--off to the Ontario tourism office, where we changed our money into the more colorful Canadian currency. You don't think it's colorful? Take a look ...

There are no $1 bills because Canada hasn't used them for years. Instead, they use a $1 coin (the loonie) and a $2 coin (the twonie). Canada wanted people to use the loonie, so they did a very clever thing U.S. officials haven't figured out yet--they stopped printing dollar bills. People were soon using loonies.

We also bulked up on tourism brochures and then did a little shopping, got our motel and settled down early: We had a very early wake-up the next day. The Agawa Canyon Tour Train pulls out of the station at 7 a.m. (Central Time; 8 a.m. local time), and we had better be at the station in time ...

The Algoma Central Railroad was owned by Wisconsin Central for a time and now is owned by Canadian National. Why they were using a Denver and Rio Grande train, I have no idea.

The Agawa Canyon trip is a favorite adventure that we hadn't done since about 2002. The train takes us 116 miles north of Sault Ste. Marie through the Canadian wilderness--known locally as Algoma Country--to the Agawa Canyon. Long-time readers know that I love trains and train rides. I was born too late for that to be a part of my life.

It's not totally unpopulated. We passed many beautiful lakes with a few little fishing cottages, and the train is the only way people get there. Deep, dense woods lined the tracks, which also frequently passed through rocky walls--must have taken a lot of manpower and dynamite to blast a train for the trains that.

Unfortunately, our seats were on the right side of the train--most of the lakes and other neat views were on the left. So we had to make sure to switch to the other side for the trip home.

Here are some of the sights we saw ...

At a number of places, the train passed wilderness scenes located on the other side of large mirrors ...

Of course, this long-time train lover savored the rocking of the cars and the clickety-clack of the rails. There were many camera-worthy sights along the way, and the shutters were clicking when we crossed the curved trestle over the Montreal River ...

We finally got to the canyon, passing several waterfalls that flowed down tall granite walls. This one is Bridal Veil Falls. Because it looks like bridal veil. Don't know why they named another Big Beaver Falls. I was afraid to ask ...

I had set myself a goal for this trip. There is an observation/lookout tower near the tracks that is open to the public ... if you don't mind climbing a few steps. This time, I decided, I would make the climb. So up the steps I started climbing. A few flights of steps, then a short path to more steps. I stopped and looked up ...

Gulp!

That's a lot of steps. A lot of stair-climbing was required if I wanted to reach the top. I sighed ... and started on my way. Up, up, up.

Lots of steps. Luckily, I didn't need to count them because somebody did that for me already; there are little signs next to every 50th step. So up I kept climbing. 50. 100. 150. It was steep. Occasionally I stopped for breath at a landing before pushing on. It wasn't easy, but I was persistent. Bull-headed, in other words ...

I had never climbed up to the observation tower before. Even when we were kids and my brother made the climb. I kept going. Past 200. Past 250. Up more. We're getting close. Here is the 300 sign. Just a little more. And then there were no more steps to climb.

They didn't have a sign, but it was 320 steps top to bottom. Twenty steps past the 300 sign, anyway. Yes, I took my camera along, and yes, I took pictures of the view ...

See down there, that pink dot under the closest building? That was my wife, looking up at me. If I zoom in ...

She had her camera along, too, and zoomed in to get a photo of me as I was climbing the final steps, holding the railing with both hands ...

Fortunately, the trip back down the steps was a lot easier than the way up.

After that, we walked and looked around--they had some nice daffodils in the park. The stop at the canyon would have been much more pleasant if we had remembered to take along bug spray--I did bring it, but it was back at the motel. They had some no-see-ums, which didn't seem to be biting but were everywhere. Meanwhile, the dinner bell had rung for the mosquitoes. It was a 1 1/2 hour layover at the canyon, and nearly everyone was back on the train in plenty of time.

We got back to the Soo at about 6 and had supper at an Italian restaurant--meat raviolis with two enormous meatballs. After that, we went around looking for a garden we had heard about--drove around and around, finally found it and discovered it was a arboreal garden. My wife wasn't interested in looking at trees.

The next day, we tried to find some garden north of the city, but it was just a nature reserve--no flowers there, either. We did find a place with some beautiful scenery--I got some pictures but the no-see-ums (or were they blackflies?) were there, and they were biting, and we had to beat a retreat. My wife did get a picture of me looking at the landscape. The bugs wanted to get in the picture, and so ...

From there, we went to a bookstore, then saw some old, old buildings by the Canadian locks. Then it was time to cash in our Canadian money and head for the bridge. We were both ready to go home.

But we sure had a great time and wished we could have stayed longer. It is, as I said before, a favorite trip.

****
The story of my latest adventure comes soon.

On our recent trip to Canada (the Canada part of the story is still to come), I got to fulfill a pledge I had made a long time ago, on some dead or dying blog or another: I saw Christmas in June.

It's about a five-hour drive from our home to Sault Ste. Marie and the International Bridge. We went via Marquette, and less than an hour past the Upper Peninsula's largest city (population almost 20,000) we entered Christmas. How could you miss it? ...

There are various places around the country that try to capitalize on holiday-inspired names. Christmas. Santa Claus. St. Nicholas. North Pole. They do so with varying amounts of success, especially in this more cynical era. But it's tourism, you know, and souvenir shops. A few dollars change hands. There are certain places where it's Christmas 365 days a year, and this is one of them.

We first came upon a motel that didn't look very busy, regardless of what the sign in front says. Note the bow on the gift-shaped sign ...

The unmown lawn and the gravel in the driveway both indicate that it's been pretty quiet at the Christmas Motel for a while.

A little later, we came upon the Christmas Mall. Alas, it also looked like it has seen better days. For example, how did Mrs. Claus lose her head? ...

And as you see on the right, you can get your eggnog or whatever you fancy in Christmas.

I felt sorry for Mrs. Claus, so I took a picture from the other direction, where you can see a faint smile. Note that the Christmas Mall, which has a fudge shop, an ice cream shop, a liquor store and a gift shop, also houses the post office. When you get mail postmarked Christmas, Mich., this is where it comes from ...

Despite the state of her sign, they still have a street names for Mrs. Claus. And they have a Santa Lane. And a St. Nicholas Avenue. And the main drag through town is Christmas Avenue.

Then we hit paydirt: Santa's Workshop. It says so right there. In case you have any doubts whether this is a viable place, just look at the left of this photo. That ought to erase all doubts ...

Of course, right outside is a huge Santa, standing right next to the North Pole. I mean, how could it not be the North Pole? It says so right on it.

The business of Christmas may be Christmas, but they have other businesses, too.  On the way out of town, we came upon the place where Santa gets his sled tuned up ...

When Santa has visitors in town--maybe some elves brought in for short-term seasonal work--they probably stay here ...

Soon we were out of town and on our way to the Soo. About three hours later, we were on the International Bridge. The two flags mark the international border ...

and the end of this part of the story ..

"Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam / Where the deer and the antelope play. / Where seldom is heard a discouraging word / And the skies are not cloudy all day ... "

We sure have deer up here. No antelope. More than our share of grouches and cloudy days.

But we do have buffalo. Near our home, within 50 miles, there are at least two ranches where bison are raised and bred. The one closer to us has been holding a Baby Bison Fest every June for the last few years, but we had never been to one because of other events taking place--either stuff I have to cover for the paper or our vacations.

This year we made a note of the date, and we adjusted the dates of the Canada trip (a story not yet written) to make sure we were home in time to take it in. So, on a recent Saturday, we got in the car and made the journey as a side trip during a normal visit to Iron Mountain.

The place keeps 50 head of bison, and the website explains that they are 100% grass-fed and pharm-free. "No drugs, pesticides or herbicides involved ... ever. Our buffalo are raised in an open, natural setting in an effort to keep them as stress-free as possible. They are never feed-lotted."

In case you didn't see the website, they tell you that several times while you're there.

We first visited a large metal storage building where they were selling buffalo-based items. (More on that later.) They also had littler, cuddlier bison for the littler, cuddlier people ...

They also had a petting zoo, a car show and a number of vendors for a number of things. But the stars of the show were grazing in the field a short distance away ...
They had a tractor pulling farm wagons into the field, where you could get up close and personal (but not too close or too personal) to the bison. Of course, we joined the line ...
When we finally got our turn, I found out we would be riding in the royal carriage. Two of the county's "Fairest of the Fair" were in our wagon, along with the reigning Wisconsin "Fairest of the Fair," who was crowned at the Wisconsin State Fair in West Allis last summer ...
All three were wearing their tiaras, and they were taking pictures of the bison like everyone else ...

We heard once more how naturally the bison are being raised. It's hard to tell a happy bison from an unhappy one, but these looked reasonably content--at least until the wagon got too close. Then they moved off--both the big ones and the little ones ...


It was low-cost entertainment. You could park on the grounds in exchange for a $3 donation to the local high school's forensics team. The ride into the field to look at the bison close-up was $1 a head, which went to the local county fair.

Make no mistake, they raise the bison for harvest. They had bison burgers and bison brats for sale inside the metal building (also a benefit for the fair), and we each bought one. Yum! So good that my wife bought another five pounds of them. Last Saturday, we each had a home-cooked bison burger for lunch.

That's the ultimate fate of the bison at ranches today, like the beef cattle we see in the fields.  But there were 50 bison at the ranch we visited recently, and there sure were a lot of baby bison to look at. The population is no danger. It's a short life but a happy one.

****

I have spent most of the last week watching with increasing disgust what is happening in Iran. It is a very important story, and the media finally started paying attention. Not that there is a lot we can do to influence things one way or another.

Weatherwise, we got pretty warm Sunday. I covered the local Father's Day car show and other events Sunday afternoon, and luckily I remembered to put on the sunscreen--it was mostly sunny and very warm. When I got back home, I found it had gotten up to 88F (31C), though the humidity was not too high. I had wanted to mow the lawn, but I delayed that until after supper, when it was a little cooler.

On Tuesday, the temperature rose into the low 90s (about 33 C), and it got close to 90 today (Wednesday). It is supposed to cool off over the weekend.

This started out as a very cool June, but that changed about two weeks ago. Now it's summer here, too. Unlike other parts of the Midwest, though, we haven't had a lot of rain. We could use a little more.

If you happen to bump into the weather man, tell him that for me.

(Not the red stuff that you pour all over your fries. Just “ketch(ing) up” with things.)

Life has been moving on swiftly for me, much too swiftly for me to write blog posts when I get some quiet time. Last week, my wife and I made that brief trip to Canada. Last weekend, we went to a Baby Bison Fest. And in two weeks, I will be at the airport in the Twin Cities to pick up B, at the start of our adventure.

I will post about the Canada trip and the Bison Fest when I find the time. We also recently went to a logging museum that had an old-time one-room school that I liked, plus I got some interesting handouts. I’ll also put that on the “to do … eventually” list.

Long-time readers know that for the last few years, I have been documenting the life of the robins that have nested on our front porch. In case you were wondering, there have been no nests so far this summer. We cleaned out those corners of the porch and put out the welcome mat, but no tenants yet. I don’t require them to sign a lease, either. I’m quite a nice landlord. Even if I am a bit intrusive with the camera.

Another occasional topic for me is my adventures with wildlife–especially bears. Early this week, I found out about a wandering bruin near a city park, so I went over with my camera to watch the fun.

It was at a far corner of the park, in a mostly wooded area but still close to city streets and residential homes and little kids playing. Mr. Bear was about halfway up a tall tree, and the authorities were on the scene, trying to persuade him to climb back down. Mr. Bear said no, I like it right where I am …

By the way, he was not a large bear (and there’s no way of knowing if he really was a he). Some people watching the fun said he was a second-year cub–a bear born last year.

Enter the DNR–the Department of Natural Resources–whose biologist came over to try to help. The plan was to tranquilize the bear and give him a ride out of town. But the local DNR biologists don’t have the kind of tranquiilizer gun you see all the time on animal shows on TV. What they use instead is use a long aluminum stick that has a needle in one end. Give him a couple of pokes with the tranquilizer, and pretty soon your target will get very sleepy.

The DNR guy climbed the ladder and got his stick ready. But Mr. Bear climbed higher, out of range. Up, up, up he climbed until he reached the very top of the tree, where he sat and thought bearish thoughts.

The cops were on the scene, too, with the county animal control officer. No ladder was anywhere near tall enough, so a new plan was needed. How about guns? How about making lots of noise with loud guns and shooting at the tree above the bear, to scare him back down? Bang! Bang! Bang! Mr. Bear didn’t seem impressed … or scared. The standoff continued.

But then the heavy artillery was brought in–a city bucket truck. The DNR guy got into the bucket, and up he went, up, up, up until he was nearly at the bear’s altitude. He brought his tranquilizer stick along, too, and took aim …

Mr. Bear got the message and started climbing down. Down, down, down. He paused about 12 feet above the ground then climbed down some more–maybe about 4 feet from terra firma. But then he noticed another DNR guy standing by the base of the tree. It must have been a scary sight–the bear reversed course and started climbing up, up, up again. Within moments, he was about 2/3rds of the way up.

But the guy in the bucket soon was close by, and he took aim. Another stick or two, and Mr. Bear started thinking it was time to go beddy-bye. …

Before anybody could sing him a lullaby, he lost his grip on the tree trunk and fell to the ground. The DNR guys brought over an oversize plastic pet carrier, quickly had the bear inside and carried him to their pickup truck. After that, I presume, they gave him a long ride into the deep woods, opened the door and sent him on his way.

****
Bloggy blahs seem to be nearly universal now. I can understand why I am not writing so much–I’m busy with other stuff and never can seem to catch up. But everybody else? They’re under a different standard!

Namely … a double standard.

See this photo?

It’s a pretty picture, but I almost didn’t see it. I did because I did something I haven’t been doing lately–I took time and looked up.

I saw these clouds as I was driving back from a boys high school golf tournament last Thursday morning. I had enjoyed being on the links, zipping around on a golf cart, trying to find some of our local kids. I don’t get out on golf courses too often–never have been a golfer. I enjoyed the sun and breeze and singing birds along the way, but I was too busy to be really aware of them.

Until I turned the corner on my way back to the office, when my eyes fell on these clouds, and I felt compelled to pull over and get out my camera for a photo or two. The squirrel escapes his wheel for a moment.

Otherwise, he has been in the wheel and running very hard for very little that seems meaningful. Work on the summer tourism section is over, and now we are in the crazy May spring sports season. It’s just one month long in the U.P., since spring usually is slow to arrive and everything has to be wrapped up by early June. That means lots of events are crammed into four poor little weeks, along with the graduation runup, special editions, Memorial Day previews, early deadlines and all that. Run, run, run, run, run. In June, we can exhale and get into summertime mode.

Plus the other stuff in my life, away from the job. Driving back and forth to visit my mom. The Stanley Cup playoffs, which I find entertaining but which sure can suck up many space hours. A bunch of other things. B and I have been writing back and forth a lot, and we even tried out Skype a time or two. A face-to-face, so to speak, thanks to the webcam on my laptop. The countdown to our first-ever meeting now stands at less than eight weeks.

Today, of course, is Mother’s Day. My wife and I decided to go out to a nice lunch and then take a nap together. Naps are fun! She got her flowers yesterday, at the same time we got my mom some–we drove down and visited her for a while. Then, on Monday, I go back into my wheel.

I’ve got one other thing in my life right now. It is a very major thing, one that would be great and wonderful news if it comes about. I’m not superstitious by nature, but maybe if I say nothing about it, it may enhance its chances of coming true. That’s how I’m playing it for now. It it comes about, you’ll know about it. Definitely.

****
I can tell you about a major project my wife recently finished. She was in charge of things for her church’s fellowship dinner last Sunday. It involved plenty of time on the phone and, during the week before the dinner, a special mission to ***-mart, where we raided their frozen food chests. Frozen green beans, to be specific. For a dish she wanted to make (100 servings), she calculated she needed 15 pounds of frozen green beans.

They didn’t have large bags of frozen green beans, as we had hoped, but they did have 28-ounce bags of beans. Hmmm, says my wife, let’s see. How many 28-ounce bags of frozen beans equals 15 pounds? She remembered that my phone has a calculator, so I converted 28 ounces to 1 3/4 pounds, then divided 15 by 1 3/4. Turns out we needed 8 4/7 28-ounce bags to get 15 pounds. But ***-mart only had seven bags, so we bought out what they had and got the remaining 2 3/4 pounds from one of our local stores.

We also got mushrooms and tomatoes. A bunch of other stuff. The final thing we got was frozen sherbet. Six half-gallon containers of that. All that stuff was taken to the church basement over several days.

Sunday came. It was a nice day, they had a big turnout and lots of food to feed everyone. The beans were very good, and so were the mushrooms and things other people made–ham, casseroles, salads, desserts, cakes, you name it. They even opened one of those six half-gallon containers of sherbet. But people were sort of stuffed by then and didn’t have much room left over for dessert. Don’t know what became of those five other half-gallons of sherbet (some rainbow, some orange).

This last week, I noticed, my wife was observed relaxing a bit more than usual. Deserved it, don’t you think?

(Now with images included–supposedly.)

This post has had a strange history. I wrote most of it offline last week and was at the point where all I had to do was final proofing and inserting the photos where appropriate.

But I hadn’t inserted photos at Efx3 yet, and it took me a while to learn how. Also, the end of last week got to be very busy. Then … fate took a strange turn.

First, here is the original version …

****
It’s really spring here. We started last week with highs in the low 30s and a cold wind out of the north. But it gradually got better. Late in the week, we reached the mid 40s, and we got to the low 50s over the weekend. This week–more 50s and maybe even the low 60s. Then it’s going to get colder just in time for our trip.

The recent warmth has done a lot to finish off nearly all the final remnants of the former mountains of snow where the plow piled it all up during the winter. Doesn’t look so imposing now …

The forecast for this week calls for a constant run of sunny weather. That’s nice, but notice how brown the grass is. We could really use some rain, and it’s not in the forecast. That leads to more problems than dry vegetation.

In a word: grit. All winter, the city and county trucks have been dumping sand on all the snow and ice and slush on the local roads. Now, with nearly all the snow melted away, the sand and grit is all that’s left of our snowbanks. That stuff doesn’t melt, and there hasn’t been rain to wash it away. This is the sidewalk near our house, looking down the street …

But there’s not as much sand on the sidewalk now. My wife devoted much of Monday afternoon to sweeping it into piles and putting it onto the street by the curb. That way, she explains, when the street sweepers come along, away goes the sand. Besides, the city and county trucks are responsible for most of the stuff, so it is going back where it came from. Return to sender.

She is getting busy with other things, too. Her little kitchen plantation is doing very well. See for yourself …

In time, if everything goes right, this is what we will have near the clotheslines this summmer …

… oodles of morning glories, like these from 2007.

****
But I didn’t get the photo links set up before our trip. It was 74 degrees when we left Oshkosh Saturday afternoon. T-shirt weather. It was 49 by the time we got home that evening. Spring jacket weather.

Sunday, temperatures were in the 40s and getting windy. A cold wind from the north. Around bedtime, it started snowing. Snowing & Blowing, a familiar wintertime combination. Except it was April 20.

Snowing & Blowing kept on doing their thing all day Monday and picked up the pace after dark. On Tuesday morning, here was the view from the back porch …

The lilac bush next door had a heavy coating of white …

I really didn’t want to do it, but I had no choice. I put on the heavy boots, picked up the heavy aluminum shovel and went to work .

And once I finished that, I trudged through the extremely wet snow to work …

We got roughly 10 inches of snow here, and other places in the U.P. got around 20 inches. Heavy, wet, “heart attack” snow. But it won’t stay around long. The sun finally broke through the clouds today, and we reached the low 40s this afternoon. On Thursday, the high is supposed to be 63. On Friday, we’re forecast for 75 degrees, along with rain and thundershowers. Next week, highs back in the 40s.

What can I say? Springtime in the U.P.

Two weeks ago, the county took place in our town, and I covered some of the events held in front of the grandstand.

Look, it's a small, rural fair. Low budget. Low creativity. Low expectations. They have a midway, some rides, 4-H exhibits and the 4-H livestock auction. Food booths. Elephant ears. They had a horse pull this year, but I opted to cover the 4-H kids' horse show first. Later, I drove past and there were no horses in the arena.

Pulling is an important part of the show. The fair has the horse pull, a tractor pull and a truck pull. I like the horses the best, but I had to miss them this year.

The tractor pull involves tractors pulling a weighted sled--there's a moving concrete box on it, and as the box moves, the sled gets harder and harder to pull.

The arena's dirt floor was very dry (with hardly any rain for the last few weeks, that was no surprise), leading to very dusty conditions ...

Eventually I wised up and went on the other side. However, with the tractors pulling into the sun, there was just so much I could do ...

They finally had a fire truck come out and wet down the track where the sled was being pulled ...

Most of the tractors in the competition were really old. Most date from the late 1940s or early 50s. It was ironic because the tractor pulling the weight sled back to the start was nice and new ...

It was a lot like the truck pull, which took place Friday night. Same basic plan, with pickup trucks instead of tractors. The procedure was the same.

First, the truck pulls the weight sled ...

Lovely truck, right?

When the pull is done, some heavy equipment pulls the weight sled back to the start ...

Note the damage made to the track by the truck (or tractor) as it digs into the dirt track, trying to move the sled every last fraction of an inch that it can ...

So to fix up the track, a bulldozer comes out to smooth things down ...

Then the next truck (or tractor) comes out, and here we go again. And again. And again. It amounts to about 15 seconds of watching a truck pull the weight sled, followed by 2 or 3 minutes of pulling the sled back, the dozer coming out and smoothing the track, the next truck getting all set up, etc. It does get rather tedious.

I liked one of the local trucks that was entered. It was a nice-looking Ford that made a good pull ...

But on its next pull, something went very wrong. There was a grinding sound, the truck stopped dead, and something was glowing underneath it. In seconds, people were swarming around ...

The engine had blown. I heard later that the guy had put about $10,000 into the engine, which was tested with a dynamometer and rated at 1,100 horsepower. Either the clutch or flywheel wasn't up to the challenge, and the $10,000 engine blew.

And that wasn't the worst for him. The worst came a few minutes later: His well-loved Ford truck was pulled off the track ... by a Chevy ...

A fate worse than death.

The truck pull also featured some trucks from the Wisconsin-Upper Michigan Pullers Association: known as the WUMPAs or "whump-ass." These trucks are much more expensive than even the blue truck, beautifully painted, with highly tuned engines running on nitro fuel, like dragsters. And they were loud. VERY loud. Earth-shakingly loud. Hear-it-across-the-city loud. If sound could create light, this would be a very bright photo ...

The truck show fills about a third to half of the grandstand. But the show on Saturday night fills all the seats, and then some. It's the demolition derby. There were about 60 cars this year, and a few had beautiful paint jobs ...

While others were grizzled, recycled demo derby warriors ...

And even the cars that came in looking nice came out looking not so nice. At one time, this was an Imperial. I guess it still is, not that you could identify it ...

The demo derby is easily the most popular event of the fair. All the grandstand seats are packed, people are lined up around the fences, and the beer concession is very busy. Big surprise, right?