A long day in the basement

OK, readers, if you are searching for a never-to-be-forgotten experience, you should have been with us on Tuesday as we returned yet again to my mom's house. This time, it felt like a day and a half.

Remember the well we are replacing? I got a call at home on Monday night, confirming that they would be bringing in a backhoe Tuesday morning to dig a trench between the new well and the house, along with putting in the pump. We usually leave home about 9 a.m. or 9:30, and it's an one-hour drive. No, they said. They need us here right away--at 8 or 8:30--so they can get inside and see the layout of the basement, to decide the exact path for the trench.

So we psyched ourselves up for the experience. Somehow, we both were in the car by 7:20 a.m. and on our way. We arrived at the house, unlocked the door and let the crew get to work. Then, off to McDonald's for our own breakfast.

By the time we returned, the trench had been dug, and the guys were busy ...




Then we started our own work. Yes, we couldn't put it off forever. We went downstairs to work on the basement for the first time.

What a day!

Let me tell you, it was easily the most difficult part of the project so far. It's fair to say that my mom sort of lost it for several years, going into a deep depression after my brother's death in 1985, and she did little work down there. My dad did some stuff down there, but after he died about 12 years ago, she hardly did a thing down there except wash clothes and get things from the freezer.

Consequently, the basement hadn't been cared for years and contained lots of dust and dead ladybugs. (There was a population explosion of ladybugs the year she had her accident.)

There are some old cabinets there. In one of them, she had some stuff saved (apparently) for recycling. Empty glass jars and containers, along with plastic peanut butter and juice containers, washed and placed on the shelves. She also had some home-canning jars in there. Those were full. When you grab a jar and the label on the lid reads "Apples 1996," that's all you really need to know. Some bottles and lids were in good shape. Others were rusted. We found some cat food and cat treats. They wound up in the trash, too; we don't want to be accused of cruelty to animals.

Nearby was another old cabinet, which served as an auxiliary pantry (though she had plenty of storage space in the kitchen). This apparently was from earlier, to judge by the stuff there. Old food. Some of it very old. Things like canned soup, spaghetti sauce, cereals, cake mixes. We found several cans of pie filling that were leaking around the base. We found a box of Cream of Wheat cereal--which you prepare by mixing with hot water. The Cream of Wheat had gotten so hard and solid, you could have driven nails with it.

The soup cans were the worst. A few of the cans were leaking, and there was lots of dirt and rust on the outside. "Extremely poor" doesn't begin to describe the condition of some of them. We said "Yuck" many times as we worked, quickly filling boxes and garbage bags.

Here's how it looked at the start, when we weren't really aware how yucky a job it would be ...


Once we got into the work, I didn't touch the camera again. Not with all the junk that had gotten on my fingers.

One other thing about the basement--it gets very damp. Sort of like a medieval dungeon. My mom had a dehumidifier working down there, but it had been off for a long time, and the humidity down there takes its toll. We swept up lots of dust, lots of dead ladybugs and threw away lots of damp bags.

The ultimate experience came during the afternoon: a wooden pallet that had bags of fertilizer and lawn food on it. But the basement was so damp and the bags were so old that all of them had rotted through. Very gingerly, I lifted two of the bags into a big trash bag. But on the last one, I didn't support the weight on the bottom well enough, and it split apart as if made of newspaper. So we did a lot of sweeping for a while.

We got between 1/3 and 1/2 of the basement done--including most of the worst part. There are other areas remaining that will take time and patience, but we had run out of both by mid afternoon.

Meanwhile, the backhoe dug a trench, the guys connected the water line and the power line to the well, put in a storage tank in a corner of the basement and connected everything. A bulldozer came around to smooth down and compact the dirt ...


The crew left at about 4 p.m. I turned the green handle on the tank--and the house had water again. Both the pressure and the rate of flow are better than I had ever seen at that house. The well diggers are sending in water samples to the health department--once the labs give us the green light, we'll officially have water again.

Hooray! We have a running toilet! No more need to walk outside behind the garage when the need arises or make a fast trip into town. And we can wash our hands and faces at the house now! We don't have to make a beeline to the bathroom at the first place we visit, to wash away the grime of our project. Until now, all we could use at the house were moist towelettes.

It also means that--for the first time since the house project started--we will be able to stay there overnight instead of driving back home every night. We won't be cooking--my mom's cookware has all been put away--and there's no TV. But there are cards, and we can play card games over a drink or two. (Strip Uno?) Or we can step outside, look up at the stars, listen to the night birds or frogs and maybe lie down together on a blanket (if the bugs permit that kind of thing).

It also means that whoever buys the house will have a good supply of water.

****
While having lunch at Subway on Tuesday, we further developed plans for our mini-vacation in eastern Wisconsin. That's taking place in two weeks. It's time. Summer is running out. We need to see something different and go somewhere else before I'm tied down with high school sports.

The plan is to visit Green Bay and Oshkosh, where we plan to visit the National Railroad Museum and the Oshkosh Museum.

If David were coming along, he would want to go to the Green Bay Packers training camp. But he isn't coming, so he doesn't get a vote.

Guess who we will visit down there? My dear friend S, who lives in that area and whom I haven't seen since December 2005--20 months ago.

This visit will be a lot different from past ones. The biggest difference is that I won't be sleeping next to her This time, my wife shares my bed. S has given me an idea or two about places to visit in that area, and I hope she can come along as our guest.

My wife, of course, has known all about S from the beginning, and she seems to accept it. In point of fact, it was she who made the suggestion that we visit her. After that, I told her about some of the physical problems S has been dealing with lately, involving sciatica and some bleeding plus disagreements with her husband--she has been talking about returning to Ontario and a guy she met during her earlier trip there.

But (she says) her husband has given her the green light to see me in a non-sexual setting, and that's fine with me.

S is a dear, close friend, first and foremost. Quite possibly, we will never sleep with each other again. Strangely enough, that doesn't bother me. The sex helped us become close friends--but that bond of love is still as strong as it could be. I can not imagine it being stronger.

So I'm really looking forward to that. We both are. All three of us, in fact. Less than two weeks from now.

****
The parades at the firemen's tournament are tonight--at 7 and 11 p.m. The late one is the shirttail parade, with the bizarre entries and "Firemen Gone Wild." The official theme is "Firefighters are Superheroes." So, as I speculated in print, you may see some Spandex tights stretched like never before. (Of course I'll be there, camera in hand.)

Then, Friday morning and lasting all day, the races.

A cold front is supposed to bang through here sometime tonight, and I hope the rain and the parades don't coincide. It should be wild enough that we don't need wild weather to boot.

Hot riders and hot times

(Yes, this is mostly photos, but at the end we suddenly hit the Wayback Machine. Set the dial for 1920, Sherman!)

OK, gang, it's about time we had some visual excitement around here. (Not to mention working on the graphics here, but I'll be getting to that fairly soon.)

I'm talking photos. This past Saturday I got some good ones at some motocross races on the other side of the county.

I had been taking pictures at races there in the past, but this was my first chance to try it with my new camera. David came along. Here's what I saw through the lens ...







With all our dry weather, it didn't take long before the bikes were kicking up big clouds of dust. But some water trucks were on hand to settle down the dirt ...


Action was pretty intense among these racers near the finish line ...


Most of the racers were young, and some were kids. They had the most rabid cheering sections of all ...


I didn't watch the racers all the time. Like when I saw this butterfly ...


That was the only wildlife we saw ... until the trip home, when we saw some sandhill cranes looking for goodies by the side of the road ...


Earlier on Saturday, my wife and I went to a parade in town. This was held to commemorate a local event from early 1920, when federal agents came to town to enforce the brand new Volstead Act--the bill that gave teeth to the 18th Amendment and effectively started the Prohibition Era in the U.S.

Why did the feds step in? Because the local prosecutor refused to enforce the Volstead Act. The feds felt compelled to come here and throw their weight around.

This local celebration was held on the weekend occupied by the rodeo until this year, when it moved to early June. The search immediately began for a new event to take its place. Thoughts turned to the "Rum Rebellion" of 1920 and the effort to enforce Prohibition on the local area.

Here are a few pictures from the parade. We saw a still or two ...


Some wine-making ...


One float depicted a speakeasy, also called a "blind pig" ...


Other floats depicted proper ladies from the local temperance league, armed with pitchers of lemonade, who declared ... well, you can read it for yourself ...


And, of course, there were adorable moppets in "1920s" costumes ...


To sum it up, it was a romanticized version of the 1920s. It was all about doing the Charleston and wearing fringed dresses and headbands with feathers stuck in them.

I thought it ironic that they had a display of American flags at the start of the parade, with many units prominently featuring American flags. It's ironic because it was the feds who felt compelled to come into the area and lay down the law on local citizens.

History tells us that Prohibition was an absolute fiasco, with plenty of unforeseen consequences. The Volstead Act had been vetoed by President Woodrow Wilson, but the Senate overrode his veto, and it became law. So instead of legitimate businesses distributing beer and liquor in the U.S., that industry was handed over to gangsters and organized crime.

Those people became very prosperous as a result, able and willing to bribe and blackmail local officials. Make no mistake, there was still plenty of beer and liquor around during Prohibition--you just had to know the right people.

Prohibition's parallels in today's "War on Drugs" and anti-marijuana laws should be obvious.

Why did U.S. elected leaders decide to go down the primrose path of Prohibition? I think you can look at religion-inspired groups, who had the very best of moral intentions (the same thing that paves the path to hell); various anti-vice groups, who wielded big political power at the time; and the remnants of the Victorian era attitudes, with their double-standards and paternalistic way of looking at life. The bottom line is that their moral beliefs were imposed on everyone, for better or worse. Sound familiar?

Ironically, all this happened just after World War I ended, as the soldiers came back from "over there" after getting a taste of life in Europe. Life changed quickly in the U.S. Fashions--especially for women--changed a lot. The flappers got out of their corsets and into short, fringed dresses, which they wore over figure-flattening undies. They also wore make-up. Lots of make-up. Ordinary women never did such things before!

Here are some other things the flappers did that their moms didn't: They wore rolled stockings (sometimes with a little flask tucked inside), cloche hats, big strings of pearls and chains and short "bobbed" hair. They smoked. They drank. They dated. They danced. They petted. With enthusiasm. They did everything they weren't supposed to do with enthusiasm. The ultimate sexual liberation was denied them, however; reliable birth control was still a few decades in the future.

From what I have read, the Roaring Twenties must have been an incredible time. An explosion of creativity in art, in music, in design. The Jazz Age. Women starting to take chances in life. Wild times. Wild women. Dancing to hot bands. Riding in cars that had removable seats. People exploring a new era, exploring territory that never been mapped, that had never even been imagined by many. Terra incognita.

It must have been amazing.

Another damn update

I really wish I had entertaining or thought-provoking stuff to write about. Instead, another update. Much of the last week or so (since the last time I wrote) was spent working at my mom's place. We were there on Tuesday and today (Friday), doing the usual.

I'm really bored with writing about that. Folks, it hasn't been a fun summer for us--one when we can go out and do fun things. The Minnesota trip was fine, but that was the exception. We have had no other trips, not even one-day trips to local places or long drives. All our one-day trips have been to the house. Finally, in early August, we will take a trip (two or three days) south into eastern Wisconsin. Call it a mental health break. Then, back to work.

The big news is about the well. I think I told you earlier that we need to put in a new well at the house. The well guys worked at the site this week.

Earlier they told me they may have to go down as deep as 300 feet to find water, and the whole project could cost about $12,000. A pretty penny, but what could I do? You can't sell the house if it doesn't have water service. And I figured I'd recover the expense eventually when the house is sold.

So what happened? How far down did they have to go? Only 48 feet. That's where they came across water, and it seems like a good supply. While we worked at the house Friday, the water was running merrily out of a hose connected to the new well--they will put in a new pump and bury the new water line to the house next Tuesday. The guy I talked to sounded surprised and pleased--other wells in the area, he said, are a lot deeper.

As for the cost: I had sent them a $4,500 down payment. The guy I talked to on the phone said I may even get some of it back. No question about it: very good news.

We continue to boxes of stuff out--either to St. Vinnie's (St. Vincent de Paul, the local thrift store) or back home. Today we took a few things to the local historical society and my mom's church (except they closed early on Friday so it's all still in my car's trunk).

We found more interesting stuff. I'm taking pictures of many of the stranger or more unusual things, and eventually you will see some of them. Today, the big find was knitting needles and crochet hooks. Dozens and dozens of them. I also took pictures of some baby clothes found in a box in a cubbyhole. Guess whose baby clothes?

Other stuff I did this week:

I covered a women's golf tournament on Thursday, for the U.P. championship. Covered the championship match, walking all 18 holes with my camera and notebook. That was about 3.5 miles or 6 kilometers. A woman from our area was going for her fourth consecutive U.P. title, but she lost. By strange coincidence, this was the first women's title match I have covered in person. You don't suppose ... ?

I also covered the local high school football camp, with 175 players from a wide area. It was fun; gets the engines revved up for the new season. Football is the high school sport I enjoy covering the most.

On Saturday, I'm going to a parade in town and then will be off to some motocross races on the other side of the county. Did a feature about two of the racers for this week's paper. So on Saturday--picture after picture of racers getting big air coming off the big jump near the start-finish line.

In early August, practice starts for high school sports. Their seasons start near the end of August, and that's my own target date to be finished with the work at the house--finally!

It's hard doing all this work a day at a time, but once the water is running in the house, my wife and I will be able to stay there overnight instead of driving back and forth (50 miles each way). Who knows? Maybe we can have some fun in the back yard after dark. ;)

That would be fun. The back yard here at our house is right in town, very small and not shielded by anything. As I wrote last year, sometimes when it's hot at night, I switch off the motion-sensor light and sit naked on the back steps to feel any cool breezes blowing around. It's cooler out there than inside. (Though we did get a room air-conditioner for the bedroom a few years ago.)

The weather was coolish this week, but some hot stuff is supposed to be around next week. Just in time for the U.P. firemen's tournament late next week. Remember from last year?

You can bet that my camera and I will be pretty busy during those days and nights.

Back again

No, I didn't get abducted by aliens. Money-hungry extortionists didn't kidnap me and demand $10,000 in ransom. We didn't go off to vacation in Vegas or France of Australia. Floods haven't swept me away, nor have wildfires burned the town down. And the snapping turtles haven't formed an posse and taken me prisoner.

No, the only reason I haven't written for a while is that I've been feeling mightily lazy about things. That's sort of true and sort of not true. (Herewith, the update begins. But it was a more clever intro than usual, right?)

First, the work on my mom's house continues. We went there in both Friday and Saturday this week to work there. Didn't get away as early as I wanted either day, but we got some good work done anyway. We worked mostly in the kitchen, going through the final drawers and cabinets and boxing up the dishes and pots and pans. Most of the stuff is going to the local St. Vincent de Paul store (known locally as St. Vinnie's), and the older, more used-up stuff is being thrown out.

As has become the norm, we found oodles of various odd things. Twist ties. Anybody want some slightly used twist ties? We found hundreds of them in a drawer, along with plenty of unused ones. (I asked my mom about that when we visited her on Saturday. Well, she said, when they first came out, they were hard to find. I guess old habits die hard.)

How about coffee filters? We've got tons of them, too, and we don't drink coffee; one of her habits I didn't pick up. Cheap plastic containers, such as you get at the store when you buy a cake or a sub sandwich--she kept all those, too. And Styrofoam trays from when she bought meat. The list goes on.

Old spices. Old condiments. Boxes of Jell-O from the '60s or '70s, I guess. Old Brer Rabbit molasses. Old Karo corn syrup. Petrified popcorn. And in the back of one of the drawers we found some old cake. The cake is probably older than David, and he turns 25 later this year.

So as you might guess, we filled plenty of garbage page with the garbage and plenty of boxes for St. Vinnie's. Mainly, on Saturday, we worked on sorting things out in the kitchen, and we did lots of sorting. On Friday, we finally climbed up into the attic. Rather, I did. Just some old coats and jackets, a cache of five-gallon plastic ice cream buckets and some old-old suitcases. Sure, I saw the ones they used to pack for trips when I saw young. I also saw one that (from the label) belonged to my grandmother's sister. And it looks every bit that old.

I'm planning to take pictures of some of the odd stuff we have come across during our work at my mom's house. There's a lot of it there. Guess I don't have to tell you that we came across a big batch of 78 rpm records, too--some from back in the '20s and '30s.

It's been a lot of work over there. And there is still lots of it to go. I'm hoping we can get there three days this coming week, but that may be optimistic. In any case, it's got to get done. And we're more than halfway through summer.

We went to the house on back-to-back days because we had workers at our own house earlier last week, working on the bathroom. What they did was take out the old (white) cast-iron tub and shower surround and replace it with new stuff. We especially wanted to get rid of the sliding glass doors on the tub. Now, it's a shower curtain, and it's looking a lot better, too. I had my doubts for a while, but ... the shower is sure a lot nicer than it was.

The next step? My wife is contemplating which colors she wants to paint the bathroom. I'm leaving that up to her--it's her project.

I was going to write more, but I'm getting tired, and the guy doing the bathroom work is coming back tomorrow for some finish-up work. He gets here at 7 a.m., so we've got to get up with the chickens.

Geez, that's only seven hours away. Good night!

The MN trip: Day 4 and more

The final day of the Minnesota trip started with nice weather and a return to a problem we had on Day 1: closed highways and detours.

It was all over the news: The state highway department planned to close two big segments of the interstate system around Minneapolis and St. Paul over the weekend--and we were driving out on Saturday morning.

No getting around it. We could have taken the interstate east into Wisconsin, but we had one more stop to make on the north side of the metro area: the grave of my aunt and uncle. David wanted to see where my aunt Irene, who died in January, was buried. That meant I needed more patience to deal with the detour and traffic congestion and a long, long line of cars bunched up for the off-ramp where the detour started.

It was a slow go, but I had studied the maps and found a way to get where we had to go. The roads were right where the maps said they were, and pretty soon we were looking at my aunt's house--still standing. I thought it would be history by now. Here is how it looked in January ...


A short distance away, the small cemetery where the burial took place. The headstone now had the final date on it ...


From there, it was back on the highway north to U.S. 8 and then east into Wisconsin. About two hours later, we were at my father-in-law's place.

Don't know if I have been updating you on him. He's back home. The doctors at a major medical center had been talking about open heart surgery, but they decided he's just not strong enough for it. So they sent him home and told him to enjoy life and take care of his affairs. He could have weeks. He could have years. Who knows?

He was walking around--a lot slower than ever before, but he had his big smile. We visited him and one of her sisters for about two hours, and I took his picture with my wife and son ...


Then, we got in the car and headed back east. We got home about 8:30 p.m. that night, and our cats let us know how mistreated they were about our absence. So they wanted to come along then?

Anyway, it was a nice vacation. It went better than I had anticipated. And, after Day 1, I had not made a wrong turn.

Since we got home ...

My FIL is still home, but he's breathing from an oxygen tank now. The doctors did tests and didn't like the level of O2 in his blood.

My aunt's estate is still somewhat up in the air. A cousin from the Twin Cities called the other day to give me an update. Evidently there is a fuss over who should get which antiques. Not that there are a lot of antiques or that they have a lot of value. But a couple items are being contested as to whether they are from my uncle's side of the family or my aunt's side.

One item is my grandfather's old chair, which I had seen and sat in many times. My cousin asked me to look through old family pictures from my grandparents' house that may show the chair. If the chair is pictured, it would prove it's from my uncle's side of the family, not my aunt's. (Both my aunt and uncle would be aghast if they knew about all the fuss over the old chair in their living room.)

Anyway, like I told her, I've been doing my best to deal with all the stuff at my mom's place, and the pictures are just part of it. Going through them right away is a fairly low priority to me. But I'll take them home and look through them when I can.

****
Yesterday, on the Fourth of July, I got parade photo duty for the paper. That's OK. They are giving me time off during the week to work on the house, so I don't mind some extra duty during the special events when everybody else is busy or says they are.

After the parade my wife and I were feeling a little warm, so we got a cool drink and went for a drive. The usual road, south into Wisconsin. But this time instead of turning east on Highway 70, we went west--a section we don't see that often.

It was a different part of road, but Highway 70 came through with critters anyway. This time, we spotted another snapping turtle.

But this one wasn't on the shoulder. He was right in the other lane. I stopped and turned around and got out the camera as he neared the yellow line ...


Then he stopped and rested in the middle of the westbound lane, looking for all the world like a creature from Jurassic Park. You bet Jurassic Park ...


I went in front for a face shot. What lovely claws you have ...


I have too healthy respect for those jaws to even think about picking it up. But then I heard a car coming. What to do? I stood in the roadway behind the snapper and waved my arm, sending the car around both of us. Not all drivers are sympathetic to snapping turtles, you know.

After that, I went back to the car, and the turtle put it back in gear. He got to the shoulder of the road ...


He didn't stay there for long. He turned into the weeds and made a wide path as he made his way away from the road and the camera ...


Eventually we got back home, David met us there, and we watched movies during the afternoon.

That night, we went up to the high school parking lot, next to the little airport, where the fireworks show was held. We were right where we wanted to be: at ground zero, watching the fireworks rocketing up nearly overhead and booming over the area ...


An explosive, exciting way to wrap up a rare midweek holiday ...

The MN trip: Day 3

Day 3 (Friday) was our final full day in Minnesota--we would startthe trip home about noon Saturday--so we reserved it for the Minnesota Zoo.

That's a newer zoo, located in the south part of the metro area, in Apple Valley. We had visited the older Como Park Zoo several times before. After looking over the Minnesota Zoo's website while planning the trip, one message became pretty clear: Wear comfortable shoes.

The weather forecast on Thursday night promised the best weather for the trip: just a 20% chance of rain Friday. That's fine. Somehow neither my wife nor I grabbed our jackets as we were leaving on our trip. Standing joke: We ask each other what are we going to forget this time. An hour into the drive, we realized that the jackets were back home. Oh well. Let's hope for the best.

So would I need the sunscreen? No! Friday morning turned out to be cloudy--banks of clouds coming in from the Dakotas. The storms from the last two days seemed to be gone, at least.

First things first, however. We had to find a new motel; the Super 8 where we had stayed didn't have vacancies for Friday night. I found a place with openings in Hastings (about 10-15 miles to the south) and booked rooms. Now we could pack up all our stuff and start the trip to the zoo.

We found it with little trouble, parked and looked at the schedule. They had an IMAX movie that we wanted to see, about Bugs. In 3D, no less. They also had a dolphin show; since I had never seen one, I wanted to take that in. Plus a bird show. I had it all planned out.

First, though, the zoo itself. It was a sprawling place, with the critters in their native habitat (more or less). The first area we saw had some of our favorite wild animals: tigers ...


These tigers were lying around at first but then got up and walked around. They seemed to be paying special attention to a certain gate in the fence at the back of the compound. Near the gate, though, there seemed to be the carcass of a water buffalo lying on the ground. Some of the people nearly called it a moose ...


In fact, it's a water buffalo made of plastic--with a hole in the stomach cavity where zookeepers put meat and other treats for the tigers to eat. It's in keeping with the "natural habitat" emphasis.

OK, now we had to make a big decision: take the path clockwise or counter-clockwise around the compound. We opted for clockwise. The next critters we saw were meerkats.

Remember that little guy from the "Ice Age" movies? The one was the comic relief as he went with the mastodon and the saber-toothed tiger? That was supposed to be a meerkat, and this guy was doing a pretty good impersonation of him ...


On we went. They had a few bison; these were a lot closer than the ones we saw on that bison ranch just after crossing over from Wisconsin ...


We visited prairie dog city, where the inhabitants are always ready to pose for the camera ...


And camels. Camels in Minnesota? The camera doesn't lie. Give us a kiss, sweetie ...


Musk oxen, which didn't come within 100 yards of the fence. Camera shy?

Caribou lying in the grassy field ...


A moose. They had two, neither with antlers. Bullwinkle, as you may remember, hails from Frostbite Falls, Minn. ...


All the animals were in their own habitats, created for them by the zookeepers--spectators could get so close but no closer.

But we suddenly encountered one of the wild, native inhabitants of Minnesota, and this one was roaming the park on his own.

In the wild.

On the loose.

On the trail right in front of us!

May I introduce ... the native Minnesota chipmunk ...


We saw some Canada geese and turtles (of various sizes) and carp in a pool nearby. But we had to run, because we had to get to the IMAX movie.

It was called "Bugs 3D." They gave you special glasses as you entered, with grayish lenses. When you looked at the screen without the glasses, you got a double image. When I put the glasses on, I got the usual for me. A 2D picture.

Let me explain. I only have vision in my right eye. My left eye can make out light and patterns, but that's about all. It's been that way all my life. Since I only see out of one eye, I have no depth perception. So for me, the movie was "Bugs 2D."

But my wife (sitting next to me) was oohing and aahing at the closeups of the bugs of various types. She's got normal vision, and so does my son. The story focused on a mantis and a caterpillar that grew to become a butterfly--and was eventually eaten by the mantis. Nature's way. The butterfly had already mated and laid her eggs, so the next generation wasn't impacted. It was an interesting film. Even in 2D.

As the movie ended, we had to make tracks for the dolphin theater. That show, we were told, usually is at capacity, so get there early. We hustled our bustles as fast as we could--even though it was now raining outside. And us without our jackets!

We hustled to the lines entering the theater and were the next to go up the steps when word came down that the theater was filled, and nobody else could get in. No dolphin show for us. We sat down by a large aquarium nearby to catch our breath.

As I suspected (due to its location) that was a perfect place to rest--because this was the dolphins' tank. (I chose it on porpoise, of course!) As the show went on, we could watch the dolphins swimming and jumping and chasing balls. We could only see the part below the water; but that's where the dolphins were. So they got their pictures taken, after all ...


And plenty of kids were right with us, also enjoying the show they thought they had missed ...


I kept thinking: "So long, and thanks for all the fish!"

After the show, we went to another tank nearby, where tropical fishes swam. Including some big, menacing sharks ...


It was an interesting display, and I wasn't the only one who felt that way ...


Then it was time for the bird show, so we walked to that area despite the rain. No luck, though. No show, due to the weather. We walked to our car and left.

By now it was mid afternoon, and despite the rain, we decided to check out a Minneapolis park and garden my wife had discovered while websurfing. The central feature was a peace garden and a 17-part course on how to make an origami peace crane ...


It had fountains ...


... and gardens of roses, fresh from the rain ...


It also had a nature trail that we started down--partly in hopes of finding a bathroom. We walked and walked and walked, following the path through the woods as it twisted and turned. Eventually my wife dropped behind for a minute or two, and the bathroom was no longer needed.

We were getting tired of walking. But the trail had to loop around back to the beginning, Right? ...


We were not lost. I wasn't, anyway, only because of the never-ending parade of low-flying jets passing directly overhead (from the northwest) on their way to the Twin Cities airport. Ironically, a sign near the entrance told people to turn off their cell phones so everyone could enjoy the sounds of nature. So there were no cell phones drowning out the roar of the jets, which were passing overhead at least once every minute ...


Eventually we gave up on the path and doubled back. Retraced our steps until I came upon a path we hadn't tried before, and it led us right back to the start.

All through that walk, I was thinking to myself, if it starts raining again, we're getting soaked. The clouds were low and there was plenty of moisture in the air, but the rain never came back.

OK, that was enough excitement for one day. We got back in the car, made it back to the freeway, back to the beltway and then down the highway leading to the motel in Hastings. Yes, they had our reservation.

But when I hooked up my laptop, the promised free wireless internet wasn't there. I eventually checked at the office, and they said it was knocked out by the hailstorm a day earlier. But don't worry, they assured me. The guy who takes over the desk at 9 p.m. would get it going again.

So I tried again at 10 p.m. No go. I tried at 11. Nothin' doin'. I went to bed. I'll have internet again tomorrow night--back home.

Most of the vacation trip was over. The major stops had all been made. The only bits of unfinished business were set aside for the trip home: to visit my aunt and uncle's graves (the aunt who died in January) and then at stop at my father-in-law's place.

(we're almost done; just a little bit to go)

Time for a quickie

I'm nearly done with Day 3 of the Minnesota trip, but it's time for a quickie update.

First, the robin situation. The last time we checked in with our little feathered friends, on June 24, they were getting to be big babies ...


Since then, they have kept on growing. Here's what they looked like on June 27 ...


They kept on amusing us by popping up into sight and peeping. It's a small nest, you know. Only so much elbow room ...


Skip ahead to today, July 1. At 1 p.m., just before our lunch, the little ones clearly had become big ones ...


Dad came over for a little talk about life outside the nest. I didn't see any worms ...


So we sat down for our own lunch. Twenty minutes later, I looked--and only saw one little robin ...


This one flapped his wings once in a while and kept preening them, but he stayed in the nest. At 6 p.m. today, I got out the mirror and chair ...


And there he is. I just looked again, and he's still holding the fort by himself.

But tomorrow morning may be a completely different story. This may be the final portrait for this little robin.

***
On to other things. After our vacation the week before, my wife and I were back working at my mom's house last week. We were there on Wednesday and part of Saturday. But the progress was very slow on Saturday. We had gotten to the "spare" room, where she had her desk and writing materials.

That's where we found her creative writing things. Plenty of essays, poems, even an old letter to the editor she wrote (about picking up litter) from before she was married. A book based on her relatives' memories of life in Denmark. A poem she wrote to me (as a baby) and to my oldest son (as a baby) and the anguished poems she wrote after my younger brother's suicide.

It was really hard to look at and harder still to speed through. We also found boxes of old pictures. All that was put aside for another day--they rode home in the back seat on Saturday. Later on, they will be brought out again and studied. But not for a while.

We'll be back there on Tuesday and maybe on Friday this week.

This was also when I had planned to attend that annual neopagan gathering in southern Wisconsin. It's taking place right as I speak. But with the house situation the way it is, it was time off I couldn't afford to take. Not this year. I'm sad about it, but it was my own decision, and I had resigned myself to it some time ago.

That, you may remember, was where I met S two years ago. Ironically, I got a question-raising e-mail from her last week; we've been writing each other all along. Quite brief; she said that lots of things were happening down her way but nothing she wants to put in an e-mail quite now. That's fine, I replied. When the time is right ...

The time is right to send this away and then work on the pictures for Day 3. The writing is nearly done, so once the pictures are done and uploaded, I'll be posting it.