On the road again

I love motels with wireless internet.

We are out of town, on a short (three-day, two-night) vacation. Hey, it's what I can afford, and we're packing a lot of stuff into that time.

We left home Thursday morning and drove down to Green Bay (where we got a motel room) and then north to Sturgeon Bay and a nautical museum. They had a lot of the history of the Great Lakes and the ships that helped "settle" the region.

(I put "settle" in quotation marks, because the Indian people who lived here had a very viable civilization going here when the Europeans horned in. It may not have included permanent dwellings, but ... Anyway, once again, I digress.)

We saw about the different kinds of ships--the large sailing schooners that got people from here to there on the Great Lakes and then the steamboats that replaced them. And we saw a lot about the shipping disasters and the tragedies on the Great Lakes, of which there were many.

We also saw a lot about the shipbuilding firms in the Sturgeon Bay area. And lighthouses. I love lighthouses, but they're all automated now, and ships have amazing computerized navigation systems today. It's almost as if you can run the ship from a keyboard at home. Maybe I exaggerate a little, but not much.

My great-uncle operated a fishing boat on Green Bay and Lake Michigan, and I got to see boats like the ones in the old photos.

Anyway, back to Green Bay and a night in a king-size bed. That's what they had n the motel room, and it was the first time either of us had been in one. It was like when I was on one side of the bed and she was on the other side, we were in different zip codes. But of course we were much closer to that. In fact, we both got a good night's sleep. ;)

She's taking a shower now, and I've got to shave. Today, we're going to a huge craft store in Green Bay (it was closing when we got there at 8 p.m. last night), then down to Appleton and a pioneer house (reproduction of the first house that had electricity in Appleton), then a mineral museum, an arboretum/garden and then, at night, a Timber Rattlers game, with fireworks at the end. That last one was my suggestion, in case you can't guess.

OK, she's done with the shower, so it's time to find my razor. Bye for now.