We took a short trip, leaving Friday evening and returning at nearly the same hour Saturday evening. We like the small towns in central southern Wisconsin. We live in a very flat area so the rolling hills and the small glens tucked between them attract our eyes. This is one third through spring and a very beautiful time in the state. Bright, strong green everywhere with dots of blue lakes and ponds. The rivers are full but not too full and flowers and flowering trees are lovely.
It was only one night so packing was quick. We were finishing up "From Finland with Love" by Ellie Alanko and I read aloud while we drove to Baraboo for dinner and an overnight stay. Lynn is half Finnish and that heritage has always struck me as attractive and magnetic. Even more so when I discovered decades ago that the Finnish epic poem the Kalevala was translated into English by William Kirby. Not me but still my name. What are the odds? I am free to read all sorts of meaning into that fact and I do.
Friday's dinner and Saturday's lunch were both in breweries.
I meant to bring an HDMI cable along to enable us to watch tv in our room that continued our long, steady viewing of the series "Bones" on Netflix but I forgot it. I thought my Paperwhite Kindle had enough charge to last 24 hours but it didn't. I am reading "Don't Just Do Something, Sit There" by Sylvia Boorstein. The book, the equipment I didn't bring and the occasion combined to give me a good hour or two having my own private retreat from electronics, screens and typical activities. Boorstein has made it clear to me that I can do more with meditation than I have. It feels like being a little more serious with my viewing of myself and reactions and feelings.
Lynn always gets a strong and noticeable lift from nature. So, we went to Devil's Lake, a Wisconsin State park nearby and famous for its views and setting. We started on the trail around the lake but stopped when the trail got a little too sketchy and vague. The incredible amounts of lake flies and the teams of college rowers practicing on the lake were distractions, one negative and one positive.
We drove to Mineral Point, a town with a Welsh and Cornish heritage for lunch and a little shopping/wandering. Lynn's pottery camp, where she has taken instruction many times, is in the neighborhood so she has connections to the potteries and galleries. We stopped in Jane Wilcoxson's studio and saw some very nice drawings and pottery.
This is Trivia weekend in our town. It features one of the largest trivia contests in the world and runs continuously from 6 PM Friday until midnight Sunday. Many questions get asked over broadcast media, such as "What was the first movie Frank Sinatra appeared in?" For the first day or so of the following week, there are many trivia players trying to catch up on sleep.
