Road Trip to Sabula

I hope all my readers had a great Memorial Day weekend. Travalon and I started ours off by having a picnic on our dock Friday night. Saturday he had to work in the morning, so I met up with Richard Bonomo, OK Cap, and another lady for coffee. Rich and I went to a gag store to get presents for Cecil Markovitch’s birthday party, inspired by the moustache drinking glasses Kathbert had given him the week before. Rich got him a moustache-shaped baking pan, and I got him an emergency inflatable chicken because Cecil has a habit of giving various sized rubber chickens to B-Boy and Mo-Girl’s little girl. Then Travalon and I went to the candy store so he could get his own presents for Cecil: Canadian breath spray (“live the fantasy!”), a scorpion in a lollipop, and a jalapeno-flavored gummy pepper because of the time he ate an entire jalapeno pepper at Luxuli’s urging. In the evening we went to B-Boy and Mo-Girl’s house, stopping for a little fishing at beautiful Babcock Park along the way, and we had what Cecil called a “feast.” B-Boy grilled pork chops, and Mo-Girl made potatoes and salad and a delicious pound cake for dessert. The presents were not a disappointment – Cecil LOVED the inflatable chicken and the Canadian breath spray. Oh, we all laughed so hard! He got some other funny stuff too, like ice cube molds shaped like dentures, and some good wine and Cointreau. He shared the Cointreau but not the wine.

Sunday after brunch, Travalon and I hit the road, stopping in Galena to walk around with Rodney the Poodle. We got ice cream and went to an all-pasta store, where we got some spugnole pasta in various vegetable flavors, but it was raining on and off so we hit the road again. We drove to Savannah, Illinois and then over the bridge to Sabula, Iowa, a small town entirely on an island. We checked out their (full) campground, and on the water we saw what at first we thought, through the driving rain, were people on jetskis or something. When we got closer, we saw they were actually white pelicans swimming on the water. They were so beautiful! There was a pizza place and a diner on the island, so we chose the diner for dinner but were underwhelmed. Online reviews wouldn’t have helped, because they gave both places four and a half stars, so maybe we just hit them on a bad day. Then we drove to our hotel in Dubuque, stopping at a lovely campground on the river that was mysteriously empty for a holiday weekend – we saw only one tent. We went swimming at the hotel, but preteen boys throwing a ball around invaded the pool, so we moved to the hot tub, only to find a teenage girl there clipping her nails right into the water. Gross! We tried to go to a sports bar across the street, but they had just closed, so we called it a night.

Monday we went to the National Mississippi Museum in downtown Dubuque and checked out their exhibit of Titanic artifacts. We walked along the river walk and saw two paddleboats, one playing a jaunty tune on the calliope. At the end of the river walk is a winery, so we stopped there and enjoyed a glass while sitting outside. We drove to Potosi and had lunch at the brewery, then we went to Belmont and saw the original state capitol building. We stopped in Mineral Point to walk around and discovered the whole town seemed to be at a graduation party for three high school seniors. We even stopped in Paoli, but the Hop Garden was closed, so Travalon just went to the cheese shop. In the evening Rich had Slow Food Bonomo for us regulars, as well as Travalon and Kathbert. We contributed the pasta we had bought in Galena, and everyone else brought delicious stuff, so it was quite a feast. 

Famous Hat