The month of July has been busy. With a capital B. It's been hard to find time to catch up with my thoughts, let alone digest them well enough to put them down for you to read.
Work is very busy in summer. Last week, we had the big high school football camp in town, followed by the firemen's tournament late in the week. That was a blast. Lots of fun. Article and photos to come soon, I hope.
I still am trying to find time to do an article and pictures about a visit to a museum in Rhinelander, particularly a one-room schoolhouse. Found some interesting stuff there, especially to those of you who are in the education field.
But that has to wait. Next week, my wife and I will be going on a trip to central Wisconsin, and we really need to work out a plan very soon. I'm hoping we can get together and plot everything out tonight. This is mostly a trip for her, places that she wants to visit. We're going to the Wausau area first and then to Oshkosh to visit S and her husband.
More things going on ...
--As you may know, we are trying to sell my mom's house. We have moved nearly everything out of it, but my wife wants a few of the remaining items for us--bedroom furniture, the kitchen table, an old sewing machine table. So we need to find a couple guys and a truck to haul it from one place to another. Along with that, I am tracking down various bits of information regarding the house for the real estate agent who is trying to sell it.
The house is costing me a lot of money--property taxes, insurance, upkeep, utility bills. All this money is coming out of my wallet, and the so0ner I sell the house, the happier I will be.
--My friend B, whom you read about recently, is going on a trip. She is flying from Alaska to a major West Coast city (You'd recognize the name in a instant.), where she will meet a friend of hers. This time the friend is not me. She told me about it about a week ago.
The news came soon after she had to call off a get-together we were talking about in mid-August. I have one weekend off in August, and she was planning a flight to the Midwest so we could renew acquaintances. But someone in her office is getting married, and she has to cover for her during the honeymoon that week. (Her weekend with this other guy is the weekend before.)
It wasn't happy news, certainly, and B was worried how I would take it. But look at it this way:
1. B and I did meet just a few weeks ago. Not a long time but long enough to know that we enjoyed each other's company very much. It was a wonderful time--one of the best of my life.
2. B and her other friend are both parts of polyamorous couples. They have been writing each other for about a year. It's time they met, I think.
I'm not sad they are meeting and spending a weekend together. What makes me sad is that the door is rapidly closing on our chances for another visit for quite a while--fall and football are just around the corner, you know. And right after that: winter.
I am angry. Not at her. Not at him. Not at myself. But I have been muttering "this damn job" to myself a lot more than I ever have. Work increasingly is getting in the way of personal happiness. Think about it: The one August weekend I could get away is the one weekend she can't. I told B that I feel we are both tied down to our respective offices by invisible ropes we just can't break.
Anyway, B and I had a long phone chat last weekend, and we agree that we will be seeing other people because our next visit may not come for a long while. Maybe not until 2010. Maybe not until next summer.
Maybe somehow, deep inside, we knew that when we got together over the Fourth. Because we packed an awful lot of living into those four days and three nights.
--The last bit of news is about my wife. She may be going on an Adventure! With a capital A. Believe it or not.
She is considering taking a bus tour to Branson, Mo., for a week-long series of concerts and shows. This would take place the week before Labor Day. I would drive her to the bus station and pick her up again a week later. In between, the kitties and I would fend for ourselves.
She hasn't committed yet--no check has been sent. She seems to be leaning that way, though, and I am urging her to go for it and have an Adventure. I don't want her to get cold feet--I want her to get out and do something fun and different, maybe even a little selfish, for once in her life. It won't bother me that I'm back home--for me, frankly, a little country music goes a long way.
(She would like to go on long trips with me, too, but then I would lose much of my vacation time, which I want to keep for other opportunities. This damn job.)
How different would this be for her? It would be the farthest she has ever been from home. For that matter, it's also farther than I have ever been from home. And our time apart will be our longest separation since we started going together--just after the first footprints on the moon's surface. That's a long time.
But I think it would be a really good thing for her, and we are moving ahead. Maybe we'll invest in her own cell phone so she can keep in touch with me--cheaper than using motel phones, certainly.
Occasionally, I noted to her, her sisters take trips to Vegas, and that may be something she wants to think about--to go along with them. Time will tell.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Monday, July 20, 2009
1,076 miles later ...
That distance (1,732 kilometers for those of you who are into metrics) is how far I drove during my extended Fourth of July weekend trip. If you plot it out on a map, my course looks sort of like a backwards "7," as I drove mostly west to Minneapolis-St. Paul, then southeast to the neopagan gathering ... and then retraced my tire tracks a couple days later. My wife and I left home on Wednesday around noon and got back home the following Monday at about mid-afternoon.
I did this so I could have my first visit with B, my friend from Alaska. We met at the MSP Airport on Thursday just after noon and parted on Sunday, late in the afternoon. That gave us most of four days and three nights together. Without getting into a lot of words, we both had a great time, and the days passed very quickly. Way too quickly. We had packed a lot of activities into those four days, so we were very busy, and we both slept well each night--even I, who often wake up in the middle of the night and can't settle down again.
Thanks to our cell phones and texting, we kept in touch with each other as we neared our rendezvous (the baggage pickup area at the MSP airport). I had parked at the nearby Mall of America and took the light rail train to the terminal. She texted me when her plane landed. By the time she phoned me a little later after exiting the plane, she had already spotted me. It was a 10-second phone call. Happy hugs and kisses ensued.
We rode back to the mall, where we did some shopping, got lunch (Arby's), then hit the road for the three-hour drive to our motel. Supper was at Pizza Hut. The next morning, we finished the drive to the gathering, passing through some very scenic, hilly country that thrilled her, including a brief drive up narrow roads to a top-of-the-mountain park. Lovely place, but we didn't stay there long; we had places to go.
We got to the gathering site, where she started meeting some of my friends. All went very well there--she said she had a great time at the events we went to, meeting many new friends along the way. She had never been to an event like that, and it was exotic, to put it mildly.
We missed many of the events--B wanted to see sarong-tying workshop, and I wanted the drumming and dancing circle; we arrived a day late for that. But we made it to a discussion of the group, a potluck dinner and a "henna play party," with people decorating each other with henna. B really wanted to see that, and she did. We took part--I drew a little butterfly on her ...
And she drew a moon with some stars on me ...
They only exist in these photos now; the henna has already almost totally faded away.
A symposium was held in the evening, and I hoped for a starry night, because you can really see the stars and Milky Way from this hilltop location--no light pollution at all. But it was mostly cloudy. We went back to my tent and slept well. I just brought one sleeping bag for the two of us. When it got cool overnight, we put the thermal blanket under us on the air mattress and the sleeping bag over us. Problem solved.
The next day, we stumbled through a "mirror dance," then enjoyed the sensual pleasures of taste at a "naked lunch," where a poem of that name was read. "Clothing is definitely optional," said the program, and so it was. One important rule: When someone feeds you something by hand, you have to happily moan with pleasure. Strawberries (a few with chocolate on top), grapes, melon, date bars. Mmmmmmmmmmm!!!
After that, we took part in a very serious discussion of polyamory that went two hours and could have gone for two more. The people there are very committed to the lifestyle they lead and their lovers--all of them. After it ended, B and I went back to our campsite, took down the tent and moved things back to the car. We stayed long enough to take part in the main ritual was that evening, and we left right after that, with more hugs for the people there.
We drove back north, and she was delighted to come upon a big fireworks show in one of the towns. B has lived in Alaska for years, and they don't have fireworks that far north on the Fourth of July. Just after the start of summer, the sun is up 22 hours a day, and the sky never gets dark. They have fireworks for New Year's, but people have to bundle up for subzero weather to see it.
We got to our motel at 11:30 p.m. and were pleased to find the hot tub and whirlpool still open. We relaxed and let the rushing warm water sooth away our tense muscles from the drive before going to bed. During our final morning, as we were getting ready, I remembered that we still had to do a tick check on each other. Lucky that I remembered--I spotted one on B's tummy. We had to get out her tweezers to carefully pull the little bugger out. She said I was tick-free.
She had gifts, both for me and my wife. She gave her a book on Alaskan wildflowers, a cutting board and an ulu (an all-purpose cutting knife with a rocking handle, like those used by the Inuit). She gave me a black Alaska T-shirt with a multi-colored moose on it.
I only took a few pictures, and there was just one of the two of us together. We stopped at a gas station near the motel on that final morning and saw a big orange moose on the motel grounds nearby. A woman saw me taking a picture of B and took a picture of the two of us together ...
Then, back in the car. A few hours later we were back at the Mall of America. A visit to Taco Bell, an ice cream at Dairy Queen, and then back into the light rail train, heading back to the airport. She got her boarding pass. The security checkpoint lines nearby were very long--but one of the officers told us to walk down to the other end of the terminal, where the lines were a lot shorter. Indeed they were--B just had one person in front of her. Within minutes she was through, and we waved good-bye for the final time.
The next morning, I got an e-mail from her, saying she was back in Alaska, safe and sound, ready to go to bed and dream of ticks.
****
Now ... I bet you're wondering what my wife was doing while I was gone.
She was having a great time with her sisters. All three of them live in the same area, and I drove her to one of their homes that first day (leaving for the Twin Cities by myself the next morning). On her first solo day, she and the sister drove up to Duluth, took in two Imax movies, visited a big flower display at a local park and ate dinner at a revolving restaurant, 18 stories above the ground. That's pretty big for Duluth. When they told me about it, I was impressed.
On day two, she stayed in town with the family, they had a big cookout and went to the circus that night, seeing fireworks afterward. On day three, she and the sister went down to Chippewa Falls to visit some parks, a mini-zoo, visit some nephews and have a nice supper. I guess they had a good time--they got home an hour after I got back from the Twin Cities. We stayed there that night and left for home the next morning.
While she and I were separated, we kept in touch the best we could--but she doesn't have her own cell phone (not interested), and I didn't have the sister's cell number, so I kept calling her house. They weren't home that much, but I did talk to her a few times from the road (or the tent or restaurant or motel).
It all worked out, and I'm very happy with how everything went. B and I knew we didn't have a lot of time, and many things we had talked about doing fell by the wayside. Even so, we did a lot, we had very busy days, and I don't think we could have packed much more into our time together. She loved the gathering and wants to go back next year.
Meanwhile, my wife said she really enjoyed having a long holiday weekend with her sisters, so this whole story could very well be repeated next summer. Why not? It sounds like it worked for everybody.
****
B and I talked for the first time since the trip (besides e-mails) on Saturday night. It went well, and my wife was part of it too--I put my cell phone on speaker. Since we said good-bye two weeks earlier, both of us have been trying to catch up on our sleep--she, especially, was fatigued when the visit was over. She also had to deal with a few health problems (nothing major), exacerbated by an unusual Alaskan heat wave that sent temperatures shooting up into the 80s and low 90s, along with wildfires and smoke.
All that is past now. We had hoped to meet again in August, but those plans didn't work out. So our next time will be ... whenever. When the time is right. As it was two weeks ago.
I did this so I could have my first visit with B, my friend from Alaska. We met at the MSP Airport on Thursday just after noon and parted on Sunday, late in the afternoon. That gave us most of four days and three nights together. Without getting into a lot of words, we both had a great time, and the days passed very quickly. Way too quickly. We had packed a lot of activities into those four days, so we were very busy, and we both slept well each night--even I, who often wake up in the middle of the night and can't settle down again.
Thanks to our cell phones and texting, we kept in touch with each other as we neared our rendezvous (the baggage pickup area at the MSP airport). I had parked at the nearby Mall of America and took the light rail train to the terminal. She texted me when her plane landed. By the time she phoned me a little later after exiting the plane, she had already spotted me. It was a 10-second phone call. Happy hugs and kisses ensued.
We rode back to the mall, where we did some shopping, got lunch (Arby's), then hit the road for the three-hour drive to our motel. Supper was at Pizza Hut. The next morning, we finished the drive to the gathering, passing through some very scenic, hilly country that thrilled her, including a brief drive up narrow roads to a top-of-the-mountain park. Lovely place, but we didn't stay there long; we had places to go.
We got to the gathering site, where she started meeting some of my friends. All went very well there--she said she had a great time at the events we went to, meeting many new friends along the way. She had never been to an event like that, and it was exotic, to put it mildly.
We missed many of the events--B wanted to see sarong-tying workshop, and I wanted the drumming and dancing circle; we arrived a day late for that. But we made it to a discussion of the group, a potluck dinner and a "henna play party," with people decorating each other with henna. B really wanted to see that, and she did. We took part--I drew a little butterfly on her ...
And she drew a moon with some stars on me ...
They only exist in these photos now; the henna has already almost totally faded away.
A symposium was held in the evening, and I hoped for a starry night, because you can really see the stars and Milky Way from this hilltop location--no light pollution at all. But it was mostly cloudy. We went back to my tent and slept well. I just brought one sleeping bag for the two of us. When it got cool overnight, we put the thermal blanket under us on the air mattress and the sleeping bag over us. Problem solved.
The next day, we stumbled through a "mirror dance," then enjoyed the sensual pleasures of taste at a "naked lunch," where a poem of that name was read. "Clothing is definitely optional," said the program, and so it was. One important rule: When someone feeds you something by hand, you have to happily moan with pleasure. Strawberries (a few with chocolate on top), grapes, melon, date bars. Mmmmmmmmmmm!!!
After that, we took part in a very serious discussion of polyamory that went two hours and could have gone for two more. The people there are very committed to the lifestyle they lead and their lovers--all of them. After it ended, B and I went back to our campsite, took down the tent and moved things back to the car. We stayed long enough to take part in the main ritual was that evening, and we left right after that, with more hugs for the people there.
We drove back north, and she was delighted to come upon a big fireworks show in one of the towns. B has lived in Alaska for years, and they don't have fireworks that far north on the Fourth of July. Just after the start of summer, the sun is up 22 hours a day, and the sky never gets dark. They have fireworks for New Year's, but people have to bundle up for subzero weather to see it.
We got to our motel at 11:30 p.m. and were pleased to find the hot tub and whirlpool still open. We relaxed and let the rushing warm water sooth away our tense muscles from the drive before going to bed. During our final morning, as we were getting ready, I remembered that we still had to do a tick check on each other. Lucky that I remembered--I spotted one on B's tummy. We had to get out her tweezers to carefully pull the little bugger out. She said I was tick-free.
She had gifts, both for me and my wife. She gave her a book on Alaskan wildflowers, a cutting board and an ulu (an all-purpose cutting knife with a rocking handle, like those used by the Inuit). She gave me a black Alaska T-shirt with a multi-colored moose on it.
I only took a few pictures, and there was just one of the two of us together. We stopped at a gas station near the motel on that final morning and saw a big orange moose on the motel grounds nearby. A woman saw me taking a picture of B and took a picture of the two of us together ...
Then, back in the car. A few hours later we were back at the Mall of America. A visit to Taco Bell, an ice cream at Dairy Queen, and then back into the light rail train, heading back to the airport. She got her boarding pass. The security checkpoint lines nearby were very long--but one of the officers told us to walk down to the other end of the terminal, where the lines were a lot shorter. Indeed they were--B just had one person in front of her. Within minutes she was through, and we waved good-bye for the final time.
The next morning, I got an e-mail from her, saying she was back in Alaska, safe and sound, ready to go to bed and dream of ticks.
****
Now ... I bet you're wondering what my wife was doing while I was gone.
She was having a great time with her sisters. All three of them live in the same area, and I drove her to one of their homes that first day (leaving for the Twin Cities by myself the next morning). On her first solo day, she and the sister drove up to Duluth, took in two Imax movies, visited a big flower display at a local park and ate dinner at a revolving restaurant, 18 stories above the ground. That's pretty big for Duluth. When they told me about it, I was impressed.
On day two, she stayed in town with the family, they had a big cookout and went to the circus that night, seeing fireworks afterward. On day three, she and the sister went down to Chippewa Falls to visit some parks, a mini-zoo, visit some nephews and have a nice supper. I guess they had a good time--they got home an hour after I got back from the Twin Cities. We stayed there that night and left for home the next morning.
While she and I were separated, we kept in touch the best we could--but she doesn't have her own cell phone (not interested), and I didn't have the sister's cell number, so I kept calling her house. They weren't home that much, but I did talk to her a few times from the road (or the tent or restaurant or motel).
It all worked out, and I'm very happy with how everything went. B and I knew we didn't have a lot of time, and many things we had talked about doing fell by the wayside. Even so, we did a lot, we had very busy days, and I don't think we could have packed much more into our time together. She loved the gathering and wants to go back next year.
Meanwhile, my wife said she really enjoyed having a long holiday weekend with her sisters, so this whole story could very well be repeated next summer. Why not? It sounds like it worked for everybody.
****
B and I talked for the first time since the trip (besides e-mails) on Saturday night. It went well, and my wife was part of it too--I put my cell phone on speaker. Since we said good-bye two weeks earlier, both of us have been trying to catch up on our sleep--she, especially, was fatigued when the visit was over. She also had to deal with a few health problems (nothing major), exacerbated by an unusual Alaskan heat wave that sent temperatures shooting up into the 80s and low 90s, along with wildfires and smoke.
All that is past now. We had hoped to meet again in August, but those plans didn't work out. So our next time will be ... whenever. When the time is right. As it was two weeks ago.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Trains, bugs and 320 steps to the top
I just got back from a very enjoyable adventure on the road. But before I report on that, I still need to fill you in on our recent trip to Canada.
One city in Canada, really: Sault Ste. Marie, the closest Canadian city if you live in the U.P.
We made our trip in the first weeks after new passport laws went into effect--since we had applied for and received the new passport cards, we were all set. We showed them to the Canadian customs officer, answered the standard questions and were off--off to the Ontario tourism office, where we changed our money into the more colorful Canadian currency. You don't think it's colorful? Take a look ...
There are no $1 bills because Canada hasn't used them for years. Instead, they use a $1 coin (the loonie) and a $2 coin (the twonie). Canada wanted people to use the loonie, so they did a very clever thing U.S. officials haven't figured out yet--they stopped printing dollar bills. People were soon using loonies.
We also bulked up on tourism brochures and then did a little shopping, got our motel and settled down early: We had a very early wake-up the next day. The Agawa Canyon Tour Train pulls out of the station at 7 a.m. (Central Time; 8 a.m. local time), and we had better be at the station in time ...
The Algoma Central Railroad was owned by Wisconsin Central for a time and now is owned by Canadian National. Why they were using a Denver and Rio Grande train, I have no idea.
The Agawa Canyon trip is a favorite adventure that we hadn't done since about 2002. The train takes us 116 miles north of Sault Ste. Marie through the Canadian wilderness--known locally as Algoma Country--to the Agawa Canyon. Long-time readers know that I love trains and train rides. I was born too late for that to be a part of my life.
It's not totally unpopulated. We passed many beautiful lakes with a few little fishing cottages, and the train is the only way people get there. Deep, dense woods lined the tracks, which also frequently passed through rocky walls--must have taken a lot of manpower and dynamite to blast a train for the trains that.
Unfortunately, our seats were on the right side of the train--most of the lakes and other neat views were on the left. So we had to make sure to switch to the other side for the trip home.
Here are some of the sights we saw ...
At a number of places, the train passed wilderness scenes located on the other side of large mirrors ...
Of course, this long-time train lover savored the rocking of the cars and the clickety-clack of the rails. There were many camera-worthy sights along the way, and the shutters were clicking when we crossed the curved trestle over the Montreal River ...
We finally got to the canyon, passing several waterfalls that flowed down tall granite walls. This one is Bridal Veil Falls. Because it looks like bridal veil. Don't know why they named another Big Beaver Falls. I was afraid to ask ...
I had set myself a goal for this trip. There is an observation/lookout tower near the tracks that is open to the public ... if you don't mind climbing a few steps. This time, I decided, I would make the climb. So up the steps I started climbing. A few flights of steps, then a short path to more steps. I stopped and looked up ...
Gulp!
That's a lot of steps. A lot of stair-climbing was required if I wanted to reach the top. I sighed ... and started on my way. Up, up, up.
Lots of steps. Luckily, I didn't need to count them because somebody did that for me already; there are little signs next to every 50th step. So up I kept climbing. 50. 100. 150. It was steep. Occasionally I stopped for breath at a landing before pushing on. It wasn't easy, but I was persistent. Bull-headed, in other words ...
I had never climbed up to the observation tower before. Even when we were kids and my brother made the climb. I kept going. Past 200. Past 250. Up more. We're getting close. Here is the 300 sign. Just a little more. And then there were no more steps to climb.
They didn't have a sign, but it was 320 steps top to bottom. Twenty steps past the 300 sign, anyway. Yes, I took my camera along, and yes, I took pictures of the view ...
See down there, that pink dot under the closest building? That was my wife, looking up at me. If I zoom in ...
She had her camera along, too, and zoomed in to get a photo of me as I was climbing the final steps, holding the railing with both hands ...
Fortunately, the trip back down the steps was a lot easier than the way up.
After that, we walked and looked around--they had some nice daffodils in the park. The stop at the canyon would have been much more pleasant if we had remembered to take along bug spray--I did bring it, but it was back at the motel. They had some no-see-ums, which didn't seem to be biting but were everywhere. Meanwhile, the dinner bell had rung for the mosquitoes. It was a 1 1/2 hour layover at the canyon, and nearly everyone was back on the train in plenty of time.
We got back to the Soo at about 6 and had supper at an Italian restaurant--meat raviolis with two enormous meatballs. After that, we went around looking for a garden we had heard about--drove around and around, finally found it and discovered it was a arboreal garden. My wife wasn't interested in looking at trees.
The next day, we tried to find some garden north of the city, but it was just a nature reserve--no flowers there, either. We did find a place with some beautiful scenery--I got some pictures but the no-see-ums (or were they blackflies?) were there, and they were biting, and we had to beat a retreat. My wife did get a picture of me looking at the landscape. The bugs wanted to get in the picture, and so ...
From there, we went to a bookstore, then saw some old, old buildings by the Canadian locks. Then it was time to cash in our Canadian money and head for the bridge. We were both ready to go home.
But we sure had a great time and wished we could have stayed longer. It is, as I said before, a favorite trip.
****
The story of my latest adventure comes soon.
One city in Canada, really: Sault Ste. Marie, the closest Canadian city if you live in the U.P.
We made our trip in the first weeks after new passport laws went into effect--since we had applied for and received the new passport cards, we were all set. We showed them to the Canadian customs officer, answered the standard questions and were off--off to the Ontario tourism office, where we changed our money into the more colorful Canadian currency. You don't think it's colorful? Take a look ...
There are no $1 bills because Canada hasn't used them for years. Instead, they use a $1 coin (the loonie) and a $2 coin (the twonie). Canada wanted people to use the loonie, so they did a very clever thing U.S. officials haven't figured out yet--they stopped printing dollar bills. People were soon using loonies.
We also bulked up on tourism brochures and then did a little shopping, got our motel and settled down early: We had a very early wake-up the next day. The Agawa Canyon Tour Train pulls out of the station at 7 a.m. (Central Time; 8 a.m. local time), and we had better be at the station in time ...
The Algoma Central Railroad was owned by Wisconsin Central for a time and now is owned by Canadian National. Why they were using a Denver and Rio Grande train, I have no idea.
The Agawa Canyon trip is a favorite adventure that we hadn't done since about 2002. The train takes us 116 miles north of Sault Ste. Marie through the Canadian wilderness--known locally as Algoma Country--to the Agawa Canyon. Long-time readers know that I love trains and train rides. I was born too late for that to be a part of my life.
It's not totally unpopulated. We passed many beautiful lakes with a few little fishing cottages, and the train is the only way people get there. Deep, dense woods lined the tracks, which also frequently passed through rocky walls--must have taken a lot of manpower and dynamite to blast a train for the trains that.
Unfortunately, our seats were on the right side of the train--most of the lakes and other neat views were on the left. So we had to make sure to switch to the other side for the trip home.
Here are some of the sights we saw ...
At a number of places, the train passed wilderness scenes located on the other side of large mirrors ...
Of course, this long-time train lover savored the rocking of the cars and the clickety-clack of the rails. There were many camera-worthy sights along the way, and the shutters were clicking when we crossed the curved trestle over the Montreal River ...
We finally got to the canyon, passing several waterfalls that flowed down tall granite walls. This one is Bridal Veil Falls. Because it looks like bridal veil. Don't know why they named another Big Beaver Falls. I was afraid to ask ...
I had set myself a goal for this trip. There is an observation/lookout tower near the tracks that is open to the public ... if you don't mind climbing a few steps. This time, I decided, I would make the climb. So up the steps I started climbing. A few flights of steps, then a short path to more steps. I stopped and looked up ...
Gulp!
That's a lot of steps. A lot of stair-climbing was required if I wanted to reach the top. I sighed ... and started on my way. Up, up, up.
Lots of steps. Luckily, I didn't need to count them because somebody did that for me already; there are little signs next to every 50th step. So up I kept climbing. 50. 100. 150. It was steep. Occasionally I stopped for breath at a landing before pushing on. It wasn't easy, but I was persistent. Bull-headed, in other words ...
I had never climbed up to the observation tower before. Even when we were kids and my brother made the climb. I kept going. Past 200. Past 250. Up more. We're getting close. Here is the 300 sign. Just a little more. And then there were no more steps to climb.
They didn't have a sign, but it was 320 steps top to bottom. Twenty steps past the 300 sign, anyway. Yes, I took my camera along, and yes, I took pictures of the view ...
See down there, that pink dot under the closest building? That was my wife, looking up at me. If I zoom in ...
She had her camera along, too, and zoomed in to get a photo of me as I was climbing the final steps, holding the railing with both hands ...
Fortunately, the trip back down the steps was a lot easier than the way up.
After that, we walked and looked around--they had some nice daffodils in the park. The stop at the canyon would have been much more pleasant if we had remembered to take along bug spray--I did bring it, but it was back at the motel. They had some no-see-ums, which didn't seem to be biting but were everywhere. Meanwhile, the dinner bell had rung for the mosquitoes. It was a 1 1/2 hour layover at the canyon, and nearly everyone was back on the train in plenty of time.
We got back to the Soo at about 6 and had supper at an Italian restaurant--meat raviolis with two enormous meatballs. After that, we went around looking for a garden we had heard about--drove around and around, finally found it and discovered it was a arboreal garden. My wife wasn't interested in looking at trees.
The next day, we tried to find some garden north of the city, but it was just a nature reserve--no flowers there, either. We did find a place with some beautiful scenery--I got some pictures but the no-see-ums (or were they blackflies?) were there, and they were biting, and we had to beat a retreat. My wife did get a picture of me looking at the landscape. The bugs wanted to get in the picture, and so ...
From there, we went to a bookstore, then saw some old, old buildings by the Canadian locks. Then it was time to cash in our Canadian money and head for the bridge. We were both ready to go home.
But we sure had a great time and wished we could have stayed longer. It is, as I said before, a favorite trip.
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The story of my latest adventure comes soon.
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