Door County Day Trip - Part II

Our first destination in Door County was Peninsula State Park, to see our friends, but as soon as we got to the park we had to stop to reminisce at a special spot. Years ago, I bought tickets to take Gary to see Judy Collins, whom he had loved since the 1960s. It was a Christmas concert.  When we arrived we found out that they had oversold the concert, so would we mind sitting in the extra seats?  Mind?  The seats were right next to the stage, where he could bask in Judy's glory. 

Afterwards, we drove through the park in the darkness.  No one else was there. It was too late in the year for campers and too early for the snowmobilers.  We found a parking place.  With all the lights off, and no moon, we could only listen to the waves.  The white crescents topped each wave and floated into the shore. They didn't seem to be connected to the water or indeed the planet. Neither were we for that brief time.

Now we were parked at the same roadside parking space this autumn day when we noticed two more white blots out in the bay.  We whipped out binoculars to see two tundra swans, who should have been southward bound already.

We visited Jim and Mary, admired their camper, discussed the differences with ours, and said goodbye so they could get on with their own adventures.

We continued on to the Eagle Bluff Lighthouse. It's no longer operational, but volunteers keep a little museum going there.

I settled in to admire the view from the bluff.

Then Gary called out for me to take my photos so we could get out of there!  A tour bus had just arrived. Dozens of senior citizens emerged and we left before our car was blocked.

At Ellison Bay, we ate at one of the more reasonably priced restaurants, the Viking.  Gary asked for a cup of chili and I ordered the bowl.  When the waitress plunked them down, we told her she had made a mistake, but no, she hadn't.  The bowl of chili was the cup and the big cup was the bowl.  The cup held much more chili than the bowl.  Confusing, but we took her word for it.

On we went to Gill's Rock to look at the ferry to Washington Island, but it wasn't there, just cars waiting for their turn.  Here we saw scaup and at one point along the way, dozens of coots who should be heading south by now.

At Northport State Park, we walked on the beach.  Now we were on the less protected Lake Michigan side of the peninsula. The colorful leaves were still clinging to the trees on the Green Bay side, but here the colors were giving way to the green of the conifers.

We didn't last long, the wind was picking up with storm clouds in the distance. 

With rain fall, there was only one more stop, for ice cream. Then it was time to say good-bye to Door County until the next time.

Door County Day Trip - Part I

When Gary found out that friends Mary and Jim had purchased a camper similar to ours, he had to see it.  When they took it out for a test run at Peninsula Park in Door County, that settled that.  We were on our way.

Foreign readers now outnumber the Americans, so a little explanation is necessary.

Door County is Wisconsin's "thumb", the peninsula that sticks into Lake Michigan. Lake Michigan is enormous.  When Margaret Copland of New Zealand saw it for the first time, she exclaimed," It's an ocean." She couldn't believe it was a lake until she waded in it and was convinced it wasn't salty.  It is one of the five Great Lakes that provide the greatest source of fresh water in the world. "Don't ever let them take it away," she said.  Every so often Texans want to run a pipeline of that fresh water down to their state but the states and the Canadian provinces bordering the lakes have formed a consortium to defend them.

Door County, which juts into that lake, is a scenic wonder, with five state parks as well as some county parks on rocky shores that were settled by Scandinavian immigrants.  (When the Swedes and Norwegians saw those bluffs, they must have immediately thought of the shores of home and settled in.)

The windy peninsula of Door County is perfect for orchards.  In the spring, visitors stream into this part of Wisconsin to see the cherry trees bloom.  From early summer on, the Door is full of markets selling local produce.  This weekend it was pumpkins, squash and the last apples of the year, especially the favorite apple of everyone in Wisconsin, the honey crisp. The wineries have another use for the fruit.

The little villages along the shores have drawn artists for generations. There are painters, potters, and fabric artists displaying their wares in galleries all over the county.  The villages prosper in the summer when the tourists come from all over the Midwest and beyond to enjoy the cool breezes from Lake Michigan.  They bike, hike and fish, then go into the villages to shop and dine out at the supper clubs or do pub crawls.

Above all, they love the shore, the lake and many islands.  Exploration is part of the Door County experience.

More tomorrow.

More Soup

There's been snow in north central Wisconsin, but here, the tomatoes are still ripening on the vine, so yesterday, I made my special vegetable soup again. It is a spicy soup, perfect for a cold evening.  But more than that, I know when I am eating it, I am getting most of the nutrients I need for the day.

The base for the soup is a can of chili (chili with beans, chunky chili, turkey chili, or vegetarian chili). Whichever, a bowl of soup provides about 10 grams of protein, as well as some Vitamin B6.  I add a sandwich to bring my daily protein up to the required 46 grams.

The tomatoes provide Vitamin C.  I get beta carotene from the carrots, potatoes, and squash.

Beans, peas, cabbage and spinach have folic acid. Broccoli is a source for Vitamin K.

B12 comes from the Parmesan cheese I sprinkle on top.

Each bowl is only about 250 calories. It's a heart healthy meal and delicious, too.  

Inventory - My Office

Today I inventoried my office, photographing everything in it.

I am very fond of this room and spend most of my day here. It is here I write my novels and short stories and work on storytelling tours. The lighting is exactly right. The chair is comfortable. There's a window that looks out on my garden in the summer and bird feeders in the winter.  My books and CDs are right where I can reach them. There are photos of friends and family.

This is a business office, but it is also a sanctuary.

Rascal has a bed to the left of my computer and is often curled up as I work.

As I took my photographs, I began to realize how messy the room has gotten.  It is time to throw out old computer programs, clear the bulletin board, and discard cassette tapes.  Does anyone listen to those any more?

And why do I have that television in here? I probably would get more done in the evenings if I didn't watch it. But then, that's when I send out e-mail queries and those don't require much attention.

One of the great advantages of my office is that it is adjacent to the kitchen.  I can lean back in my chair and see how things on the stove are doing.  

One of the great disadvantages of my office is that it is adjacent to the kitchen.  As I type this, I can smell the banana muffins in the oven and know that once again, I will be eating too much. 

Inventory

This morning, I started taking inventory for insurance purposes.  I do this every five years but now that Gary and I are living together, we need to make a record.

I don't write down ever item, I'm not that obsessive.  It is much simpler using a digital camera to photograph each room and its contents.

I began with an upstairs bedroom.  It's easy enough to pull open a drawer and snap a picture of the sweaters.

This is an old farmhouse that was moved into Seymour at the end of the 1940s. Nothing fancy here but it is well insulated and warm. I've never had enough money to decorate the entire house properly.  I would like to get rid of that awful paneling in this room, put in sheet rock and paint the it a nice shade of ivory. Maybe next year.

Still, it is a comfortable room.  From the bed, I can watch television or look at the family photos.

It is a room that Rascal likes, too.  When I go to bed, he goes with me.  His purr is the last thing I hear at night. 

I'll put all the photos on a CD that goes into the bank vault. The whole process will take only a week. I'll write about the other rooms as I go along.

Who Are You Guys?

Each evening, before I write these posts, I check the statistics to find out who has been looking at the blog. The Blogspot system tells me the nationalities.  Lately, I've had more foreign readers than Americans.  I wonder who they are.

For a while this summer, fifteen German readers at a time would be on line looking at my scribbling.  Gary thought they might be American servicemen, but would they all be reading the blog at the same time?  I thought it more likely a class learning English.

These days, I am getting a block of about twenty readers from the United Kingdom. The UK includes England, Scotland, Wales and Cornwall, so the readers could be from any of them. Tonight, I began to wonder who they could be. I often let my imagination run amok..

My UK readers could somehow be the doing of the Crisps of Burnham-on-Crouch.  Nancy has been my penpal since the days before computers.  Ian has a radio show in Maldon, Essex at http://www.saintfm.org.uk/ at a local school.  Did he talk about my blog on his show?  Or are the students at the school the culprits who are checking in on my adventures?

I watch many British programs on public television, many of them mysteries and crime shows.  I write this blog every evening without fail. I began to think that Interpol or MI-5 might be watching me, thinking I am a terrorist, giving hidden messages as I write about tomatoes, birds, and Rascal the cat.  But that would be letting my imagination run to paranoia.

As my mind wandered even farther as I took my evening walk, I decided that the Royal Family had undertaken to follow the adventures. Perhaps I was discovered by Her Majesty who told all her children and grandchildren to read me each day.   If so, good evening, Your Majesty!  Good evening, Princesses and Princesses, Dukes and Duchesses.

Whoever you are, welcome to my life.

Comments anyone?

It Had to Happen

It had to happen.

I've been directing or singing in the Methodist Choir for years, on and off for over thirty years.  In the beginning we were a twenty voice choir. Back then, my brother Carl directed the choir. (Others took turns directing, too.)  Sharon Block, the pastor's wife, and their three children sang with the choir.  The choir members had sung for years.  There was Ed Werner, who sang until just before his death at the age of 90.  Dolores Holmes, the business teacher at the high school was there.  Doris Barliment.  And so many others.

After a while I began to direct.  Then the Blocks left, and that was four fewer singers.  Then Pastor Ben arrived from the Philippines.  He could sing bass, and his wife sang soprano.  Still as the years passed, our choir diminished.  Each year or two, we lost a singer as we all got older.

Our new pastor and her husband don't sing in the choir. Our choir dwindled down to twelve regular singers. This year, Elaine got married and moved away.  Alice was in a car accident and hurt her feet.  She may be back, but we're not sure. Every choir practice was a juggling act. I had to figure out ways to make a smaller choir sound wonderful.  Sometimes we added bells or a flute.  I found fancy piano arrangements.  We called ourselves the Keystone Choir because we often had to change the music for services at the last minute. And we aged.  Vera celebrated her 75th anniversary of singing in the choir.  Our average age is around 75.

This morning, Big John, our bass, wasn't in church.  Neither was Lavern, our tenor nor his son-in-law Scott.  Only one male singer left and he can't sing without Big John next to him.  Others were missing, too, which left three sopranos and two altos.  We tried the piece I've always pulled out when we were short members, a two part version of "Peace Like a River" but it just wasn't workable.  We didn't have enough voices to pull even that simple song off.  For the first time ever, we didn't have an anthem.

We decided to call a strike.  We took the choir robes and draped them over the pews in the choir loft at the front of the church.  I announced at the beginning of services that unless we got new members, the choir would come to an end.  After church, two people talked to us about joining, but neither of them have ever sung in a choir.

So it stands until next Sunday's practice.  We'll see what happens then.