Category Archives: Traveling

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Where in the World Were You?

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Well, our journey to “Metaphorical Maine” has come to a close, I think.  We had set aside 3 weeks and actually came back in 10 days.  We added a day trip after two days of rest, but I think we’re home-based again.  Steve has re-activated his online bookselling business, so that means we’ll be no more than 2 days away from home now.  Did we actually go to Maine?  No.  The weather report for the northeast was predicting “rainy and cold” for the entire first week.  We figured that might dampen our spirits, so we headed south.  We ended up staying the first night in exactly the same spot where we stayed on our first trip together 4 years ago…in the car, pulled into a picnic area in the Shawnee National Forest in southern Illinois.  We slept in the car from 3 a.m. until dawn, then found a proper campsite at the Pound Lake Hollow area.  We enjoyed hiking on Beaver Trail 006 in the forest and the Rim Rock Trail.  There was no moon; the stars were bright enough to guide us on a night hike (no flashlight) the second day down to the lake where we startled a beaver.  At least I think it was a beaver.  We never actually saw him, but either he was pounding the surface of the lake at intervals from different spots with his powerful tail, or someone was throwing bricks into the still, dark water from somewhere very well hidden!  Here’s a little gallery of shots from the Shawnee National Forest.

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Home Decor

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We took a walk in the rain yesterday, then got in the car and drove around Cudahy, WI for a bit.  Suddenly, I see this house on a corner, and we have to pull over so I can take photos.

Steve has a lot of kitsch in the house; I’m just glad none of it is THIS BIG!

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Where Am I?

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Ever go walking in your own neighborhood and take a new turn that you’ve never taken and find yourself wondering what world you’ve stepped into?  In my town of Wauwatosa, I discovered that there’s a 420 million year old limestone reef tucked away behind an industrial site…used to be a quarry.  I wandered down there after a rainstorm last week.  I saw stuff I didn’t expect to see…

…even though there’s no access to the reef just yet.   We can all be travelers, even within a 5-mile radius.

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Adventure!

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The season for Old World Wisconsin ends in October.  Steve and I are gearing up for a 2-3 week road trip.  We have about 9 possible itineraries, National Forests and Parks mostly.  We’ve come to call this “our trip to metaphorical Maine” because although Maine is one of the top contenders, it is really just serving as the title of an unknown eventual destination.  This is how Steve prefers to travel, and he is teaching me to appreciate the spirit of living in the moment rather than planning for safety and control.  Not that Steve is an “extreme” kind of guy, a risk-taker for the sake of it, or anything like that.  It’s really more a Zen kind of thing of being aware of conditions as they arise and dancing with them rather than putting on blinders and sticking to a railroad track. 

We recently borrowed the DVD of “The Sheltering Sky” starring Debra Winger and John Malkovich.  I’m sure the book was better, but the film has some terrific cinematic landscapes and brings up a lot of interesting questions.  Like, “What is the difference between a tourist and a traveler?”  A tourist wants the comforts of home.  A traveler seeks adventure.  I recently had a conversation with a co-worker who talked about a visit to France and only mentioned that there were no bugs or birds and that French waiters substitute Sprite for lemonade.  This guy never thought he’d leave the country in his lifetime.  Maybe he shouldn’t have!

I feel like I have been working on my personal demons (neuroses, grief, all that baggage) and have gained some courage and self-confidence since our last big trip.  I did have one memorable meltdown in a rest stop off the highway in the pouring rain from about 2-4 in the a.m.  That was April of 2011, and we were on the road for 4 weeks.  Here’s a shot taken somewhere near the Colorado River in Utah that illustrates one of the many decision discussions we had.  Do you want to take this road or not?  Why? 

There’s no “right answer” and there’s no judgement, Steve told me.  “I just want to know what you think about when you make decisions.”  What are we here for?  What do we call “living”?  Is it “to be safe and have children and grandchildren”?  Is it “to learn to praise God and serve Him”?  There are a million ways to answer that question.  Steve describes his answer to me every time we have a conversation.  He wants to meet life with awareness, engage in nuance and complexity, question and think critically, try to discover delusion, respond in the moment to what is before him, and participate in the adventure of living, as holistically as he can.  Yesterday, I read a short science fiction story by E.M. Forster called “The Machine Stops”.   It describes a futuristic world where the human race is run by Machine and never ventures to the surface of the earth.  It’s eerie how much that could be the life of modern individuals plugged into the Internet with no experience of the physical phenomenons of Earth.   What kind of life do I really want to live?  What kind of courage do I have to face the adventure of living?  Do I prefer comfort to challenge?  These are good questions to take out for a road test.   I’m looking forward to it! 

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Pointing Your Canoe

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Who do you want to be?  How do you want to live?  What do you want to do with your life?  Where do you want to point your canoe? 

Doesn’t matter where your canoe came from…Steve found this one at a garage sale

Strap it down and get ready to roll…

Set a course for your adventure and enjoy the ride!

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Happy Birthday, Dad!

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My father was born on July 10, 1933.  He died in 2010.  He had a group of work colleagues who were also born in July, and they used to call themselves the SRA Cancer Society.  My father did have prostate cancer at one time, but surgery eliminated it completely.  He died of Alzheimer’s.  He was never one to celebrate his birthday in any obvious way, but he did enjoy fine dining.  Fortunately for him, he had the wherewithal to enjoy the very finest.  I benefited from the “trickle down effect” of that boon, meaning that I have dined well on his generosity myself.  On the occasion of his 70th birthday, we stayed at The Benbow Inn near Garberville, CA.  Located on a river in the redwoods, this beautiful resort was established in 1926.  My father counted it as one of his favorite places.  The first time I went there was on the way north to Oregon for my sister’s wedding.  My 9-month old daughter Susan was with me.  Ordinarily, children are not allowed in the dining room after 8pm, but the management made an exception for my father, who promised that the baby would be beautifully behaved…and she was.  Later that evening, I realized she had a bit of a fever and digestive distress, but that only mellowed her out.  The next time I visited the Inn was my father’s 70th birthday.  I had begun to notice signs of memory loss and confusion during that trip, but he was completely in his comfort zone at the restaurant. My mother and brother look a bit skeptical in this photo:

I remember the delight he showed in settling in at the bar and sampling from their extensive selection of Scotch before dinner.  I compare it to my absolute thrill at finding a decanter of sherry in my room.  So nice of them!  The next day, we had them pack us a picnic to eat while out hiking.  It was elegant and tasty, but a far cry from the granola bars and such that my father usually took on his woodland walks.  

I think I set the camera on a tree stump and used the self-timer on this one…

My father would be participating in the heavenly banquet of eternity right now, and I can imagine him enjoying himself immensely in that setting.  I’m off to get myself a little supper, probably just some hummus and a glass of Shiraz, but I eat and drink to his honor in gratitude this evening.  I love you, Dad.  To Life!!

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Spinning Yarns

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I took this picture yesterday at Old World Wisconsin.  This is Rachel, one of my colleagues, at the spinning wheel in the Kvaale house.  Rachel is over 6 feet tall, and it’s a wonder she hasn’t given herself a concussion every day as she passes from this room into the kitchen.  The doorway is probably only 5 and a half feet tall. 

The Norwegian immigrants knew how to stay warm – a very useful skill in Wisconsin winters, too.

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VIP Tour

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Late in the afternoon yesterday, some VIPs came to tour Old World Wisconsin.  Unfortunately, they arrived only an hour before closing and didn’t have ample opportunity to view the 575 acres and 50 buildings that comprise this living history museum.  So today, my day off, I took them back to the site and gave them a personal tour.  I also secured for them a copy of the historical gardening book that our expert, Marcia Carmichael, published last year.  Putting Down Roots: Gardening Insights from Wisconsin’s Early Settler’s includes historical references, tools and plot layouts, produce recipes from each ethnic area, and a lot of other wonderful information and sumptuous photographs of the meticulously researched and maintained gardens.  I know this couple is beginning to practice organic gardening, and they are eager to learn all they can.  In addition to that, the young man is a carpenter, and was thrilled to see the craftsmanship on the original structures.  They were able to get some behind-the-scenes photos and detailed descriptions of the building methods of the 19th century.  Each of the interpreters in the various houses were in fine form, communicating information and interest  in a very friendly and professional manner.  The weather was perfect for our visit, and we skipped the tram rides and walked the entire circuit of trails through the site.  It was an altogether delightful tour, and I enjoyed seeing parts of the museum that hadn’t been included in my training schedule.  I consider it a privilege to have been invited to host this marvelous young couple.  Who were they?  My daughter, Rebecca, and her boyfriend Joe. 

In the sauna at the Finnish Ketola farm

One of the friendly faces on the tour

 

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New Digs (well, actually, really old digs)

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I am now working the summer schedule for Old World Wisconsin.  I am still at St. Peter’s Church playing the pump organ and singing to the rafters on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.  I am also working at the Hafford house on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.  Mary Hafford was an Irish immigrant who came to the U.S. with her husband and son, living first in New Jersey and then settling in Wisconsin where she had family members who had also moved there.  She had two more children here, and then, at the age of 36, she was widowed.  Her husband had worked on the railroad and owned no land or property.  She could neither read nor write.  Somehow, she had assets (possibly from a railroad company’s pension plan?) amounting to $500, twice the average for the village where she lived.  She spent $150 to buy two lots in a rural village where she had been renting lodgings.  Presumably, there was a dwelling on that lot, a worker’s cottage.  She took in laundry and did the washing, ironing, and mending from her home so that she could look after her children.  By the time she was 53, in the year 1885, she was able to hire carpenters to upgrade her house to a more respectable cottage.  This home is the one that is now on Old World Wisconsin property, right next to St. Peter’s Church.  It has one large room (combination kitchen, dining room, living room) with a small bedroom and a pantry on the ground floor and two bedrooms upstairs.  It has a kitchen garden in which is growing lavender, sage, rosemary, alpine strawberries, thyme, and other fragrant herbs.  The wash tubs and clothesline are set up outside so that visitors (kids, mostly) can try their hand at washing without electricity or plumbing.  The laundering process in the 19th century could take up 3 days of the week.  For Mrs. Hafford, it would probably be 6 days a week.  Soaking, boiling, spot treating with lye soap, scrubbing on the washboard and rinsing would require multiple trips to the pump with two large buckets.  One article estimated that women carried 400 lbs. of water in a week for laundry.  After the clothes were dry, she would heat the irons on her wood stove and press them.  One of the irons we have weighs 6 lbs, though it’s only about 5 inches long.   I get the feeling this woman had no need for a gym membership.   She pumped iron, literally, at home often enough!  So this is the story I interpret for visitors.  When there are no guests to chat with, I sit in the rocker and crochet rag rugs.  I just learned this skill last week.  I pass the time wondering what it would be like to be unable to read and write.  Yesterday was my first day in this position.  Sorry I didn’t post a blog entry, friends, I was just too tired and hungry and out of time by the end of my day!  Here are some photos to whet your appetite.  More to come!