Rain and Drought in Wisconsin

 Greetings from where we are to where you are!

We have done so much and been so many places since I last wrote to you that I won't be able to fit it all in one post. I figure you don't need to know it all, but this blog is my memory.  The pictures are my memory.  So buckle up or skim, whatever you prefer.  This is about out time in Wisconsin this year.

I won't tell you where we are right now, or the big news I am excited to tell you about just yet.  I will save that for my next post... which I hope will also be this week.  

We are stationary this week.  After this week we will be on the move as we dash back to Steve's house in NY to park the camper and then head to the airport to fly to Croatia with our friends Mark and Christy.  We are excited and reviewing our packing lists.

This picture below was taken on a hike we took with my sister in Rhinelander, WI.  More about our great visit with her, later.  We found that central Wisconsin has been getting an abundance of rain this year, but up by Rhinelander, the plants are thirsty, the grass is brown.

Last year we only visited a few folks as we traveled Northeast to Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland.  This year we are making up for it.

Our first stop in Wisconsin was Madison where we got to see our Florida biking friends Mark and Julie and my Wisconsin biking friend, Kathi, and of course, my son.  

Our first day in Madison we met up with Julie and Mark in downtown Madison for a walk around and then dinner.  Madison is a cool town, lots of bicycle paths, art, parks, two lakes and a university.

Our first full day in Madison we went on a ride around one of the lakes with Julie and Mark.

Afterward we ended up at their house and had some refreshments in the company of their chickens.

The weather was great.  We were able to find outdoor music for an evening out on the town.

Julie and Mark had recommended I try their massage lady in Madison to see if she can help me with the sciatic pain and foot buzzing I have been experiencing this year.

I went.  I liked her.  She seemed confident that if I do the exercises she gave me I would get better.  She had a chart with the areas of pain and discomfort I am feeling at times highlighted in bright red.  All those places.  Fortunately the pain comes and goes.  I am not in pain 24/7.  And it doesn't hurt when I bike.  

I had high hopes for relief.  It is inconvenient to do some of the exercises because they are against a wall which we don't have in the trailer.  I do the wall exercises when I am at the gym.  I am not at the gym very often this trip.   I don't have any good excuse for the other exercises except that the exercises have not provided any relief after a couple weeks.  After admitting this, I will try again to do them every day. The PT stretches and exercises that I had before this have stopped helping.

This year we wanted to be sure to go to the National Mustard Museum near Madison.  It was a hoot and didn't take long.  We watched a movie, probably made in the 50's in the Mustard Piece Theater.  Most of our mustard is grown in Canada.  Thank you Canada!

We got to try different mustards. Hot mustards and BBQ mustards and one that was like a marinara.  We bought four different kinds for ourselves and Steve got Christmas presents.  

We are still working on our first jar.  I even put some on my salads.  Steve says that they are crazy about mustard in Wisconsin.  We dip pretzels in it and dip cheese in it.

We got to also meet up with my long-time friend, Kathi S.  She seemed to be doing great and was planning a trip to the UK by herself!  She would join up with a tour there.  In August I got to see her enjoying the trip as she posted pictures on Facebook.  Great going, Kathi!

One day we drove down to Janesville to meet up with my son and his wife at the farmers market.  I was impressed by the size and scope of the Janesville Farmers market.  

We then went to a really good breakfast restaurant.

After Madison we camped at a park in Mukwonago, WI.  The site I had reserved had broken power.  I was able to get up online and book a different site.  But the site I picked was slanted in two directions.  It was the most difficult site we have parked in on our travels together.  We tried moving the camper this way, over there, angled this way. We were constrained by the length of our electric cord.

My friend Jeri and her husband Gary came to our campsite and we made dinner.  It was a great visit.  Gary gave us a calendar for 2027 with pictures he had taken of birds in Costa Rica.  We love it!  Then we got to see them another day and because I was so curious about where they went in Costa Rica (I hope to go there one day), he brought us a map with the places where they went highlighted.  It was very thoughtful of him!  I am now am growing a stash of papers and brochures of places we want to visit in future years of travel.  

There is always something more to learn, something more to see.

We went to the Wisconsin State Fair!  Sandy and John were going to hear a band that they like.  We met them there (thank goodness for cell phones!)  John was diagnosed with progressive dementia a few years ago.  Sandy is at the stage where she needs respite.  I hope she gets some relief.  So many of us are dealing with loved ones with Alzheimer-like symptoms.

Steve's kids texted to Steve that he had to try the cheese cake.  He found cheese cake on a stick.

We got to see Herman's Hermits perform a couple songs before we left the fair.

A big reason to take Steve to Waukesha, where I lived for over 20+ years, was to see friends and to visit the Les Paul museum.

My friends Mark and Jane joined us for lunch and then went with us to the museum.  

I knew Les Paul invented the electric guitar, and I knew his music with Mary Ford, but there was so much more to his life than that. He started as a kid, very curious about how things were made, taking things apart and putting them back together.  His mother was very supportive of his curiosity, "but please don't take apart the player piano."   He didn't take it apart, but taped over some of the holes and added holes at the end of the scroll.

I was very glad we went.

Because of Les Paul's connection to Waukesha, Waukesha has designated itself the Guitar Town.

They then took us to where Les Paul was buried.  The cemetery had signs up leading us to the grave site.  He is buried by his mother.

Can you believe it?  One of our biking friends from Florida, used to visit Mukwonago all the time as a child.  She was visiting a friend there and came to see us at our campsite and biked with us.  Holly rides with the Withlacoochee Bicycle Riders and also does a lot of traveling in the summers.

We biked into Milwaukee with her.  The trail was very bumpy in New Berlin!  We went to dinner with her and her friend, then she showed us her friends home with lovely gardens.

Here are pictures of the pictures on the calendar that Gary made and gave to us.

I remembered I had one more person I hoped to see while visiting Waukesha.  Elizabeth and I met for several years as she tried to learn English. She came to this country from Mexico and I met her when her daughter was one year old. She didn't know any English when we met.  I had volunteered with Waukesha Literacy which provided some books and support for us as I struggled to teach and explain our crazy language. 

Elizabeth was a very good student.  She speaks English well.  Being bilingual has helped her advance in her career.  She now has her own business building and repairing medical monitors.  She divorced her husband when her last child was just an infant.  She raised three children and put them through college.  on her own, working two jobs. Her daughter now has two children of her own and works in a law office. 

She just bought a new house.   I am so proud of her.  What hard work and struggles she has endured.

Our next stop in Wisconsin, we visited Steve's Florida neighbors, Kim and Larry.  We had super fun.  Christy and Mark and Jim O. are also Florida neighbors and drove over from New York for the gathering.

Kim and Larry took us to their favorite breweries in the area.

Our first evening when the snacks came out, we pulled out the Hazy IPA mustard we got at the Mustard museum.  It was a hit.

It was cloudy at times.  This area of Wisconsin had received a lot of rain this summer.  Larry and Kim took us out on their pontoon.

Steven's Point, WI has a trail called "The Green Circle".  It goes around the city.  We all biked it, starting and ending at Point Brewery. 

The trail took us through a sculpture park.  It was a lot of fun.

We didn't realize until we shared this picture with each other, we were all in blue!  The Blue Group.

Another boat ride to a brewery with corn hole.   We fit a lot into the three days we spent there.  Thanks Kim and Larry for a super fun visit!

On to Rhinelander to visit my sister, Mary.  She has available to her through the VA, 30 days of respite.  So she arranged to have Dave visit a nursing home for a few days so she would be free to work and play with us during our visit.

The first thing, after giving my sister a big hug, I wanted to see was what she did with the room at the back of the garage.  Last year, Steve and I helped her clear out this room.  It was wall to wall packed with stuff her husband had collected over the years.

Wow, the room looks fantastic.  The back wall was rotted, so she had it rebuilt with new windows.  How she imagines these things and does them is beyond me.  I so admire her artistic ability.

Since last year she had a new roof and new siding put on the garage.  She hopes to continue to live in the home after Dave passes or is in a nursing home.  It is getting more and more demanding to care for him.  

I was fortunate with George.  He didn't talk much at all.  He was very quiet when he progressed with dementia.  Dave carries on a conversation that loops.  He no longer knows he is home so keeps telling Mary that when his wife gets back she will take him home.  He will say, 

"What's your name again?"

"Where do you live?"

"What do you do for a living?"

"Where is my wife?"

That is difficult to deal with.  He has also forgetting where the toilet is, or not recognizing the right place to go.  It is getting close to time when she will not be able to care for him.

Yet, Mary managed to organize lots of fun activities and gatherings for us.

Her friend Ellen and Ellen's husband picked us up and took us on a ride on their pontoon boat.  We stopped at a place on the lake for dinner.

We went kayaking one day.  Our poor kayaks are getting hauled all over the country and not getting used much.

Mary and I got to go to Qigong in the park together.  I love it and have gotten to know some of the women among the regulars.  She invited them over to her place for refreshments after Qigong.  That was very nice.  One of the women had just been to Ontonagon, MI, Township Campground.  It was on our agenda!  She told me you gotta call the morning of your arrival between seven and eight.  They don't take reservations and the place is popular.  But if you call they will put a cone out for you.

On Mary's last day of respite we went to a Supper Club for dinner.  Then I rode with her while she went to pick up Dave at the Nursing home.   Both he and the staff were in good spirits.  It was good to see that Dave adjusted to the home just fine.

But his first morning home was a disaster for Mary, having to clean up a urine soaked rug in the bedroom.  She has a tough decision.  The cost of Nursing Care can be 8,000 to 9,000 a month.  That eats into a life-time of savings fast.  Then he will have to rely on Medicaid.  And Mary will have to live on what the program allows her to keep as the spouse.

I hope she gets relief and freedom soon.  And then, oh the things that she will do, the places she will go!  Yes, she will grieve, it will be difficult at times. 

We left too soon and headed for Ashland, WI.

One of Mary's friends told us that there is "nothing in Ashland".  Steve and I agreed, if they have a coffee shop, a brewery, and a gym, they are a fun place.

Our camping spot in Ashland was right on Lake Superior!

I investigated if there was a show at Big Top Chautauqua nearby.  There was!  The venue uses a winter ski hill area for the summer months.  What a great use of the space during down time.  The show was great, about the history of Bay Field, WI.  With music and stories.

We took a ferry to Madeline Island on our bikes.  We were told the ride around the island was great.  When we arrived on the island we were hungry.  So we stopped in a coffee shop.  They were serving Ratatouille!  OMG, it was good.  And we realized we had never made it. I don't think I ever had it before.  I looked up the recipe and decided to make it later in our travels this summer.

 

On the island is the burial place of Chief Buffalo of the Ojibwe Tribe.  He traveled to Washington, DC to plead with the president not to relocate his tribe to Oklahoma.  He succeeded and two reservations were set up in Northern Wisconsin.

The cemetery isn't open to the public, but all along the fence around it are tributes still being left by native Americans.  The Chief died at 96 years old in the late 1880's.

Steve and I both enjoyed biking around Ashland.  There is a trail and lots of fantastic murals.

That, my friends, is the last place we visited in Wisconsin.  On to Michigan and beyond... next time.

Until then, be well.