Circle Tour - Day 2

Gary set up a beautiful camp for us at Laura Lake, with many conveniences.  We had chairs and footstools.  We had tables and lamps beside our campbed in the tent. There was plenty of food in the pantry with an ice chest for perishables.  And on and on.  Yes, it was comfortable.

It should be because yesterday, it took him hours to set it all up.  Then today, we had to leave because I have to tell stories in Duluth on Sunday.  He had to take everything down.  It took him three hours as the temperatures rose. 

Me, I took a hike to the bog in the fresh morning air then came back and made myself comfortable as he worked.  I wasn't the one who brought all that stuff!

After all that work, we still had to drive to our next camping spot here at Lake Wanoka west of Ashland, Wisconsin.  I helped him set up the tent here  but by then we were suffering from high heat and humidity.  

We had to get our core temperatures down, so we hit the lake and swam out until we got to the cool area. 

 After paddling around, we're back at our campsite.  Gary announced we didn't have to put out all our gear since we are leaving in the morning for Duluth.   He won't do the full treatment again until we stay at  Pukaskwa Nationl Park in Ontario for two or three days a week from now. 

I stayed at Lake Wanoka over a year ago on the first day of my western tour.  There were only two campsites filled then and the same is true today and on a weekend,too.  It doesn't seem to be a popular campsite.  That may have something to do with the bear warnings.  Tonight we'll lock our food in the van, which will be facing the tent. Should we hear alarming noises, or something is snuffling around the tent, Gary will grab his key ring and hit the van's alarm system.  Lights will flash and a siren wail. The engine will start.  That should scare away any but the most intrepid bruins. 

Writing on the Road

We finally got started this morning on our two week trip around Lake Superior,.  Our first night we are sleeping in our tent at Laura Lake.  The rain is coming down in what promises to be a deluge with possible high winds.  No problem, we are used to it.

A bigger problem was getting my story done at Black Coffee Fiction http://blackcoffeefiction.blogspot.com

With all the preparations, I kept putting off writing the short story, which had to be posted at 4:00 p.m. today.  I had every intention about writing another "Love in the Decades" story, but it wasn't coming together. I set the alarm for 5:00 a.m. to get up and work on it, but then found I couldn't sleep.  I was obsessing about the story yet nothing was getting resolved.  I had no ending to it.  I got up at 1:00 a.m., worked on it for two hours and made no progress.  Finally, back in bed, I made the decision to abandon that story and instead work on one of three rough drafts I had in a folder.  With that, I slept well.

We packed up the last few things, said good-bye to Rascal Cat, and we were off. This computer was on my lap.  I chose a story that had a great beginning but had never had an end.  I talked it through with Gary.  We decided that what the story required was a dog.

With that, I began to type.  I worked on it through the entire two and a half hour drive to Laura Lake and for another hour and a half at the picnic table at the campsite.  By 1:00 p.m. I had the story.  I put it aside to let it gel in my mind, took a nap and at 3:00 was back to the story for the final re-write.  I posted it at 4:00 p.m. precisely.

I have proved to myself that I can write on any trip in the worst situations, as I finish up this blog's post in a rain storm.

Next week's short story will be written by Bettyann Moore and the one after that by Wade Peterson, so from here on, our trip is free of any writing except for this blog.

Connection!

Today's mail brought a letter from Helen Singh, a friend I met when I went to college at the University of South Dakota.  We had kept in touch for decades later, often only with yearly Christmas cards, and then it all came to an end.  The Christmas card I sent came back from Las Vegas, where she had been living, and I never found out what happened.

Meanwhile, she was trying to send me letters that I never got.  Today I found out that she had my street number wrong, but this time, the carrier was someone who knew me and now Helen and I have once again connected.  

Helen came to South Dakota  from Calcutta in the early 70's with her husband who had been accepted as a graduate student in the law department.   It was a strange new world for Helen who came from the Brahmin caste in India.  She had been raised in a privileged family but now she was in a small town in a rented house.  She had to learn how to cook and told me she always ended the meals she served her son and her husband with Pepto Bismol.

She had worked as a secretary in India and now got a job as the receptionist in the psychology department. I had friends there, plus the little trailer house I lived in was next to the Singhs' house. We became great friends, though she was a bit older than I was.

She was 45 and past child rearing age so her husband felt she was of no interest.  That is, until male students began to swarm around the desk of this beautiful and exotic woman with her big dark eyes and black hair.  One day, she had a red dot on her forehead.  "Oh, N.N. (no one could announce his real name) wanted everyone to know I was married."  These days, of course, the bindi has multiple meanings and it is sometimes simply worn for decoration.  It made no difference, none of the students understood anything about the bindi so it had no effect whatsoever on them except to make her more interesting.


Helen bloomed in the United States, becoming more and more liberated.  It didn't help having me around because I was up for anything.  For instance, I took Helen to her first porn movie.  It wasn't much because this was South Dakota and the film was so heavily censored it was only half an hour long, but she loved being daring. 


She gave me two saris that I still have and showed me how to wear them. She explained that in mixed company both shoulders were often covered, though not the right shoulder in cosmopolitan areas. Married women covered their heads with the end of the sari.  I wore one of the saris when we attended a foreign students' party at the student union.  There were foods, decorations, and music from around the world. Some Indian students were there from the University at Brookings, South Dakota and they were all whispering and pointing at me.  I thought they were admiring my beautiful sari but Helen hurried over to tell me these were boys from a country province and my bare right shoulder was upsetting them. 


There were girls wearing hot pants, which were short shorts, but my bare shoulder embarrassed them! 


There were so many good times with Helen.  I'm glad we're friends again. 


  

Changing plans

The plan was to get up early tomorrow morning and head out on the Circle Tour which would take us around Lake Superior for two weeks.   It still is the plan but we may have to start a day later.  Gary came down with some kind of ague which left him dizzy and warm.  He slept most of the day.

He feels fine now, but the living room is still filled with gadgets as he tries to figure out what he can leave behind.

It isn't easy.  This photo shows only half of what was in the living room yesterday.

Meanwhile, in the kitchen there are boxes of food that he bought yesterday, mostly canned goods that we can take into Canada.  I reminded him to take a can opener.  (I once forgot a can opener and was stuck in a camp banging away at cans with a knife.)

The passenger side of the van has a nice deep well where I can put folders and books. My little computer slides under the seat.  I fully expect to write my blogs as we go.  This should work out.

I've done my laundry and now am packing my clothes in three plastic drawers Gary installed on the side of the van. I must take shorts and tank tops for warm weather, but it can get cool in Canada, so there are jackets and jeans, too.  Then I must find a place for three performance costumes.  Where to put shoes?  The autoharp? My swimming gear?  

It looks like we start early on Friday morning.

Farmers Market

It's been a busy day of running errands, cleaning and generally getting ready for the tour.  It was 5:00 p.m. when I remembered Seymour's farmers market.  I drove over and was surprised to see so many vendors, at least 18, which is a nice turnout indeed.

The vendors set up their tents along the frontage road on Highway 54.  In previous years, the market took place downtown in a park, but the vendors thought they would have better luck along the highway and it turns out they were right.  Not only do they get city customers, they are attracting tourists passing through.

I immediately went to the Breadsmith to see about getting apricot scones, but they were already gone.  I took time to visit with old friends from the days when as a member of the city council I helped to get the market started.

There was produce a-plenty, but Gary and I are soon going to be heading off to Canada, and we won't be allowed to bring fruits and vegetables across the border, so I settled on a fresh tomato from the Keune farm to make BLTs tomorrow.  One of the Hmong vendors had the greenest, freshest bundles of basil at $1 a bunch.  I will put them in our dehydrator tomorrow morning. There should be enough dried basil to use in soups and sauces for the next year and beyond.

Four Hmong vendors were selling their bouquets of lilies and other flowers.  My friend Betty wants to have flowers for her daughter's wedding, so I queried them to see if they would be at other markets later in the week.  One was going to a market tomorrow in Kaukauna, which is too early for the Saturday wedding. Two of the vendors sell in Green Bay but on Sunday, which of course is late.  As for the fourth vendor, I have no idea, because she didn't speak English.

Finally, I stopped at the kettle corn vendor who had fresh squeezed lemonade.  On a hot day, it was perfect.

Funny how memories come.  With my first sip of that tart beverage, I was back in North Osborn Elementary School, the one room school I attended for eight years.   Each year, on the last day of school, there was a potluck picnic attended by the students and their parents.  Each family was to bring lemons, probably one lemon per child.  The lemons were cut up and put with water and sugar into a large ceramic cooler for lemonade.  One family, the Culbertsons, always brought oranges instead of lemons and that gave it a flavor I've never seen duplicated.  I told the vendor about it and she told me she would try it and have some for me next time I came.  

That will be three weeks from now.  I'm drooling already.  

The Seymour Farmers Market is held every Tuesday from mid-June to mid-October at the Frontage Road off Highway 54.

Iowa

Wade takes care of the design end of our short story blog, Black Coffee Fiction http://blackcoffeefiction.blogspot.com and I take care of the publicity.  We printed out bookmarks that we leave at libraries we visit.  (I'll take some with me when I am performing in Canada.)

Since the beginning of our blog, I've sent e-mails to librarians, suggesting that they use our short stories in their book clubs.   In July 2011, while on  my western tour as a storyteller for the summer reading program, I met the librarian at Augusta, Montana, population 284. Because her patrons were too busy and too few to have a book club, she started a short story club. The readers came to the club prepared because while they didn't have time to read a book each month, they could read a short story. 


My suggestion is that they use our short stories.  I send ten e-mails every evening.  So far I've covered the libraries in Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and Minnesota.

Most of the time, this requires me to go into the library websites to find an e-mail contact.  Those websites are the entry to the library for upcoming generations.  Some are brilliantly designed, some barely function.  Sometimes, I am appalled at how few libraries a state has and how difficult its internet systems are to navigate.  


The Iowa Library Association has a directory that is the best I've seen.   I've sent 400 e-mails to Iowa libraries so far, and I'm only a little over half done.  It seems every small village there has a library.  Iowa students always score high in educational tests, and I can see why.  It can't be the politicians who show up in the state early in the presidential election year, they certainly don't do anything to raise the intelligence level of their audiences.  I give credit to the Iowa library and school systems.  

I won't have any idea of how successful my work is until September when the book clubs meet to select the books they want to read and discuss. After several thousand e-mails, surely some of the libraries will consider our offer.

What may prove to be a problem is that I offered to Skype with the book clubs to answer questions and do readings live.  If too many contact me, what will I do?  My evenings would no longer be my own!

Eeeeewwwww!

Yesterday, I pulled out all the pea vines which are no longer producing.  Underneath them I found more tomato plants, probably from seeds from old tomatoes that I missed last fall.  I have no idea what they would be but they could be Big Boy, Roma or cherry.  All told, I now have eighteen tomato plants that should be starting to produce by the end of July.   

This morning, I decided to pick the last romaine.  We'll be leaving on our Canadian trip on Thursday, so we should eat the lettuce before we go.  I pulled it out by the roots and took it on the lawn to cut off the roots and use the hose to rinse off the dirt in a colander.   That done, I took it into the kitchen to finish washing it.

I turned on the water, started rinsing and suddenly there were earwigs everywhere, crawling around the sink and on me.  EEEEEWWWW!   I squished some of the earwigs, then took the colander back outside to rinse off the rest of the bugs with a hose.

Up until three or four years ago, we never saw earwigs in Wisconsin.  Gary says he never even saw them in Illinois.  They were a southern bug, but they seem to be moving north.  They feed on vegetables, which is what they were doing in my vegetable garden.  I think they've been working on morning glories and sunflowers, too.  

Earwigs are one of the uglier bugs around.  I hate them.  It's irrational really, because they don't harm humans in any way. (No, they don't crawl into human ears and feast on brains.)  Unlike other insects, they tend to their young, feeding them. They usually live outdoors, but they can come inside and that's where we have a problem.

Earlier this week, I reached for my toothbush and a big earwig was sitting on it.

Enough is enough, we are working on eradicating them.