Over the winter, she learned about a Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at the Milwaukee Public Museum, and she wanted to see it. But she thought it would be there during the summer. Suddenly, a month or so ago, she learned the exhibit would close in early June. We had to move up our travel plans.
We moved them up to a week ago. We left on Thursday and went by way of Iron Mountain so we could visit my mom. We were there for about an hour and a half.
Then, it was all driving until we reached Oshkosh, where we visited S and her girlfriend. We took them to the Golden Corral and treated them to dinner, buffet style. All of us ate well. In between, S told me about the situation with her husband over the last months and years--they are separated now. I'm not going to go into it, but she told me things I wasn't aware of before (but had suspected).
She and the GF are now living in the top floor of the house and paying half the household expenses--otherwise, she said, he would not be able to afford to keep it (he lost his job). I hope to visit them from time to time, but the next trip won't be until June, after the spring sports seasons end. I got a picture of them outside the restaurant, which I gave the Photoshop Elements treatment ...
After about two hours, we were back on the road, heading south to Milwaukee's northwest side. Along the way, we passed a windfarm near Fond du Lac. Try to count all the turbines. It was late in the day, with daylight fading, but you can see many of them turning in the wind ...
We found a motel for the night, and Friday morning we headed off to downtown Milwaukee and the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at the museum. Since I used to live in Milwaukee, I was somewhat familiar with how to get from here to there. But that was many years ago, so I planned ahead. I printed out Google Maps that showed which exit to take, which street to turn on and where to park. I was all ready. I put the maps in a safe place on my desk in the computer room at home.
That's where they were ... on my computer desk, while we were in a motel room about 200 miles away. Luckily, I had brought my laptop along and reviewed the route in the motel room before we left.
I live in a tiny, little town now, and it's been a while since I last drove on freeways when it's raining and trucks are kicking up spray into your windshield. Besides being rainy, it was also foggy. Still, I found my exit and the parking garage. I wanted a picture of the museum, so I walked across the street despite all the rain ...
We visited some of the museum's exhibits, especially those we didn't have time to see the last time we were there (Arctic, Asia). I took a number of photos. Unfortunately, they wouldn't let us take pictures inside the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit. Just because, I guess.
The exhibit first told about normal life in biblical times and the story of the scrolls, when they were written and how they were hidden and then rediscovered starting in the late 1940s. They showed some parts of the scrolls (facsimiles). It was a very large exhibit with much to read and study and absorb.
Outside the exhibit, they had souvenir Dead Sea Scroll books, souvenir DSS coffee cups, souvenir DSS T-shirts and souvenir DSS tiny urns, like the ones in which the actual scrolls were discovered. I suppose there is no tasteful way to merchandise the Dead Sea Scrolls. We were in that exhibit between two and three hours.
Those? They are DSS scarves, at $69.95 apiece.
Our feet finally told us it was time to move on. We got back into the car, paid the $11 fee at the parking garage. The rain had stopped, but with the fog, it looked like alien spacecraft had landed in downtown Milwaukee ...
We got back on the freeway, had lunch at about 2:30 near a suburban mall, then continued to Madison, where we found a nice motel for the night and had supper. Then I left my wife at the motel and drove off to a polyamory meeting.
I have been a member of the Madison-area polyamory Yahoo group for several years, but due to the distances I have never actually been to a meeting. They hold a PolyOut meeting each month, where they discuss various polyamory-related topics, and this was the day. I found myself at a mini-mall near downtown Madison, at the local GLBT outreach office (mainly a large room with bookcases along the walls and sofas and chairs in the middle, for a reading and meeting room).
The topic of this month's meeting was "Being poly in a monogamous world." They started with issues like not being able to get "couples" specials at restaurants (when three people are going out) and went on to more serious topics like advance directives and power of attorney. The same basic issue: If someone has two partners, whether married or not and supposedly equal, how can just one of them be designated to make the critical decisions? That's the way it has to be according to law.
These are issues I don't deal with because I have a wife who is clearly my primary partner, and I have other friends I only visit from time to time. But other poly couples or triads are living together under the same room, raising kids together and trying to make it work. I later told B about it, and she said both of us are lucky our kids are grown and gone, and we don't have to play the balancing act or deal with laws that presume everyone is monogamous.
My contribution to the meeting was talking about being poly in a small town with narrow minds and how deeply I feel I need to keep myself in the closet. That led others to talk about similar experiences when they lived elsewhere. Madison is a real haven to people who live non-standard lifestyles. "The San Francisco of the Midwest" is how one person described it.
Anyway, the meeting went on for about 90 minutes, and I was glad I went. All the people there were friendly, and it was a relaxed atmosphere. I hope to be back someday. Maybe in another year or so. Gotta be realistic.
I got a nice shot of the Wisconsin state capitol on the way back to the motel ...
On each leg of the trip to the meeting, I passed a place that advertised "burlesque" on a big banner out front. Oh, how I wanted to see that! An old-time burlesque show sounds like so much fun! But it was getting late, I was at the end of a long day, and I had another long one ahead of me. Besides that, I was by myself ... and I don't tend to enjoy things like that by myself.
The next morning, we were on the road to Beloit and the Angel Museum. Once again, I only needed a few looks at the state map to find my destination. (Of course, Beloit is somewhat smaller than Milwaukee.) I even came across a very large jack o' lantern along the way ...
The Angel Museum is a former Catholic church that closed, and now it's full of showcases filled with angel figures. Hundreds. Thousands. Tens of thousands of them. Some are pure kitsch, but others were really beautiful and profoundly spiritual. Angels of all sizes, all colors, all media that people create things with ...
I was really impressed with the artwork in the former altar area ...
According to its website, "The Angel Museum has become one of Beloit’s most sought after visitor attractions. Over 11,000 angels and angel artifacts are on exhibit for all to enjoy ranging in size from 1/8 inch to life size made of over 100 different materials from fine porcelain to macaroni. Artifacts have been created by artisans and crafters from over 60 different countries including Italy, Germany, Japan, India and Russia. The majority of the Berg Angel Collection was purchased on the second-hand market including antique shops, flea markets, estate sales and auctions."
This woman, Mrs. Berg, started the collection in 1976 and later donated it to show in the museum. Sometimes she leads groups at the museum ... when she wears a white radiant dress complete with wings! I kid you not!!! I didn't see her on this day, but there were several pictures of her at the museum, complete with wings on her shoulders.
At one point Oprah Winfrey said on her TV show that she could not find any black angels. Before long, she was inundated with them. Hundreds of them. What to do with them all? They went to the Angel Museum and are on display in several cases--some black angels are in other cases as well.
Like the other angels, some can best be described as "cute." Others are really powerful figures. This is "The Guardian" ...
That was another long stop, though not as much walking. Finally, we headed back to our car and pointed it north. Six hours later, we were seeing snow along the road. Back home, a late season snow had given the Northwoods two inches of snow overnight. Most of it had melted by the time we got there, except in shaded areas.
Including pit stops and a break for gas and dinner, it took us 7 1/2 hours to get from Wisconsin's south border to the bridge back into the Upper Peninsula.
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