Trippin' with Susan Straley

Saturday, 10/5/19 On the last post I left off that I had just arrived in Waukesha, Wisconsin and rode, dined and stayed with Mark and Jane. I hope to add to that.  It has been a crazy couple of days.  I lost my wallet! All my cards, my ID, some cash, gone, gone, gone. But that is a long way from Waukesha, friends and family. So I will start where I left off, with my first full day in Waukesha. September 27th, 2019, I attended a wedding!  It was beautiful and fun and more.  That was in the afternoon. In the morning I went for a walk.  I saw that Wisconsin milkweed, though it looks different than Florida milkweed, gets the same bugs.  Mark got a game for Father's Day called Flamme Rouge? It is a bicycle game!  Each player gets a sprinter and a roller.  You utilize drafting behind other riders and being at the front is harder...  like real bike racing.  But it is unlike real life bicycling because I won, and that would never happen on our real bikes.  Both Mark

Today is Thursday, October 3, 2019. I am in a Super 8 Motel in Rochester, Indiana. I was supposed to be in Holland, Michigan.  That was the plan but you know how it goes when you are traveling.  Things happen and then you find yourself on a different road with a different destination. I haven't taken the time to blog because my days were full up with visiting with friends and family.  So I have fallen behind.   It will take a couple posts at least to catch up. The last post I was in Steven's Point where I spent the night at Barbara and Rolf's home in the woods not far from Steven's Point and Amherst, Wisconsin. I got up at six and was out the door by 6:30.  Before I left I brought in a paper copy (one of the few I brought with me) of The Journey Continues .  We shared hugs and I was on my way south toward Waukesha where George and I lived and he ran his business for over 25 years. But first stop was John Deere where our former employee, John Richmond now

Mary didn't have a book about mushrooms, but she brought out a book she had about lichen.  I read the first few pages and learned that lichens are a mixture of fungus and a...   shoot, I forgot the word! Moments like these get scarier and scarier.  Most of my friends are older, and I am seeing some memory loss in a few of them.  Besides that, I watched my Mom and George and friends live and die with dementia.  It is SCARY! Ok, thanks to Google, I am reminded that fungus and algae are in a symbiotic relationship that creates lichen.  " Rather, it is a symbiosis between different organisms - a fungus and an alga or cyanobacterium." When taking pictures of mushrooms I found myself wondering if something was a lichen or a mushroom, or just a mold. I think we saw all three in the woods.   My sister Mary and I had fun going on two more mushroom walks while I was visiting in Rhinelander, WI. I love that I took the picture below and then when

Greetings from Wisconsin I have been having a great time at my sister's in Rhinelander. I went to Anytime Fitness to join Mary in an exercise class. When I pulled my trike up next to the building to lock it, I saw a wide variety of moths. There is a light on that side of the building that must have been on all night. And in the morning, the cool fog descended and the moths found a place to park on the side of the building. There were big ones and little ones and tubular looking ones.  There were ones that looked like leaves and ones that blended in with the brick.  I loved it! Mary had invited her friend Bettina over for lunch one day. This woman drove herself over to Mary's home, climbed the stairs to Mary's back door, and after lunch walked around the yard admiring Mary's wildflower plantings. Bettina has traveled to Boston and California this year. She turned 100 years old this year.  She attends Learning In Retirement classes and Silve