Lake Life

Mike and I have known each other since we were 18-year-old freshmen at UW-Madison.  At Spring Break, we drove my old VW Bug to Daytona with the plan to trade transportation for space on someone's hotel room carpet.  It worked for the most part, except for a night or two on the beach, which I learned wasn't as comfortable as I imagined.  

Mike's favorite story from that trip is when the car keys fell out of my pocket during one of those overnights on the sand.  We didn't really have a Plan B so we started kicking up sand from around where I slept.  Somehow, I managed to kick up the car keys to our mutual surprise.  Luck sometimes comes to the young and foolish.

I lost touch with many of my college friends over the years.  Mike and I reconnected through a Lodi friend who was someone that Mike worked and socialized with.  Mike and his wife Kathy lived in Madison, but sold that house and built a retirement log cabin on a northern Wisconsin lake where the winter is long, and summer is brief.

 

We had a great time, hanging out and telling stories of the old days.  Mike took us out on his pontoon boat where we slowly cruised for several hours.

Mike, me, and Brad

 

Fran, Kathy, and Julia

 

That night, Mike grilled up a big slab of flank steak and later made (from scratch) strawberry shortcake with whipped cream.

 

With Brad, Fran, Mike, Kathy, and Mike's son Robb staying in the cabin, we elected to bring the Scamp along.  We found an RV park about a mile from Mike's place.   We had some concerns about what it might be like.  There were no pictures or reviews on the internet, and the campground manager said that she had plenty of space on what would normally be a busy summer weekend with great weather. 

When we pulled up, we saw a trailer park on one side and tiny crowded cabins on the other side.  Our hearts sank, "Oh, no."  But a hand-painted sign directed us to the campground at the rear of the property on a deeply rutted gravel driveway.  Much to our surprise, it was kinda nice.  It took awhile to get level, but there was lots of space, and only a few seasonal campers, the nearest of which was more than a baseball throw away.  And it was quiet.

From the Scamp's back window

Reconnecting

During the last couple of weeks, Julia and I reconnected with college friends who we haven't seen in many years.  

We missed the wedding of Brad and Fran's daughter when Julia and I were sick with covid.  To make up for it, we decided to go for a hike at New Glarus Woods State Park.

Brad is more of a golfer than a hiker.  I'm not sure we convinced him that hiking was very similar to golf, except no waiting, crowds, clubs, or balls.  After hiking on a hot and buggy day, we found something that we all could enjoy at Bailey's Run Vineyard. 

Later, we played games at Brad and Fran's house in Verona.  It was there that their big dog, Harper, apparently decided that she did not like Callie's fragrance on my leg, so she bit me in the thigh--without breaking the skin.  Brad's theory was that Harper didn't like men in hats.  Okay, hats off for me.

It was the weirdest thing.  I haven't been bit by a dog in fifty years.  Julia calls me the Dog Whisperer.  Harper didn't stay mad long, coming over under the dining room table and laying her head at my feet.  Maybe it was the hat.

Brad and Fran were getting together the following weekend with another couple that we've known for decades and suggested that we all get together at Mike and Kathy's retirement home on a northern lake.    We've had a standing invitation to visit them, so we got the okay to tag along.  We would bring the Scamp to stay in.    That trip will be the subject of the next post. 

I Gotta Move Out of This Dorm

 

Julia and I planned to head up north for a few weeks.  A friend's son was getting married tomorrow in Ashland, Wisconsin.  The plan was to stay at a small campground on Lake Superior for a week after the wedding and then head up into Michigan without a plan for another two weeks. 

Covid struck the wedding party, and before you know it, the wedding was cancelled on very short notice.   Then Justin called.  It seems that he misunderstood his summer dorm move-out day and needed to be moved today instead of the end of August.  He appealed to his housing authorities for an extension, but there was no joy.  Justin got to move out of his dorm now.  

The thing about complete disability is that you collect more and more stuff, especially of the heavy, expensive medical kind.  And let me remind you that Justin is not able to participate in this process.  It was a bear of a day, and Justin's motorized hospital bed did its best to kill Julia and I today in the struggle to move it a few hundred yards across the road and up an elevator to a different dorm room, which was down a long and winding hallway.  

With any luck, this will not be Justin's last move this year. He is ready to take a break from college and move to the Madison area.  Justin found a roommate and a new apartment that he can afford.  The caregiver piece of the puzzle is also looking promising.   The building won't be completed until October 1st.  Lots of balls up in the air to juggle, including some governmental red tape, but there is blue sky emerging amongst the clouds for Justin and for us.  We would love to have him closer to home and still living his best life as an independent adult. 

Intermission

That brings us to the end of our Bisbee trip last February.  

 

Bisbee exceeded our expectations and jumped into our top places to live someday in retirement.  Las Cruces fell off that list.  Much to our surprise, on the way home, we stopped at a different New Mexico city on the way home that we liked a lot.  We didn't spend enough time there to check it out fully, so we plan to fix that sometime in the next couple of years with a much longer visit.

I'm going to take a short blogging break before writing the post about the mystery city.  We have some family business to work on; Justin is making some life changes, which will require new housing, new caregivers, and a new city.  And we need to take time to enjoy Wisconsin's brief northern summer.  

Hasta Luego!

 

Bisbee Side Trip: Chiricahua National Monument

 From February 2022

This is another place that I've wanted to visit for a long time but never had.  Chiricahua National Monument is about a 90 minute drive northeast from Bisbee.  We started with the trails at the bottom near the entrance.  Most people seemed to be crowded around the visitors' center; the crowd quickly thinned out on the trails.

Immigrants arrived here in the late 1870's establishing ranches in this dry, unforgiving landscape.

 

Faraway Ranch

After hiking up to the Visitor's Center, where hordes of tourists milled about, we hiked back to the car and drove up to the top of the mountain.  These views were what the tourists had come to see, and it was impressive.

 

Getting up to the top of the mountain during the 1800's would not have been a trivial thing.  I wonder how many times the original settlers made it there.

Downtown Bisbee: Good coffee, Fine Food.

Downtown Bisbee has two coffee roasters, and the familiar fragrance of roasted coffee (burnt toast) was often in the air.  We were usually smelling Old Bisbee Coffee Roasters.  Their storefront was not open, appearing to only sell their coffee wholesale.  In the retail outlets, I wasn't able to figure out the roasting date, so their coffee wasn't an option for me.  Bisbee Coffee Company was open for business and stamped its roasted coffee with a roast date.

Since I rant out of my home roasted coffee in Bisbee.  I was grateful to buy a pound of one-day fresh roasted whole bean from the Bisbee Coffee Company, and it was very good.

We had two great meals in downtown Bisbee. The first was at Thuy's Noodle Shop. What a find!  Excellent pho and squash curry--something we were not expecting to find in a small town like Bisbee.  It may have not have been fine dining, but it was excellent food at reasonable prices.

 

Our second terrific meal was at a fine dining restaurant called Cafe Roka.  Only open on the weekends, the food was amazing.  We had the night's special:   clams with french bread to soak up the white wine and garlic sauce.  Some people were dressed up in suits.  But I also saw a cowboy in boots come in with a ten inch knife, flopping on his hip.