Sailing on Lake Michigan

I hope that my readers had a good weekend. Mine was four days long! Friday I took the day off of work for the Daughter of Denni’s annual bike ride to various pubs, but this year I didn’t ride – instead, Tiffy and I walked. We started in the usual way, in the backyard of the Daughter of Denni with her two Boston terriers and the one she is dogsitting. Then everyone else biked to the Laurel Tavern, but Tiffy and I went next door to Infusion Chocolate to have Mayan drinking chocolate. One person had brought her school-aged son along, and he came with us to the chocolate shop, but he did not really like the strong chocolate. Then Tiffy and I walked to Rockhound to join the others there for lunch. We all went to another person’s backyard for Jell-O shots, and then the itinerary said they were going to O’so, but they decided to skip it for Giant Jones. Tiffy and I went to O’so anyway, since they have delicious sour beers, and then we went to the Dane Dance on the rooftop of the Monona Terrace and danced the night away to disco songs played by V05, a local cover band. What a great day off!

Saturday Tiffy, Travalon, and I had coffee, then we went to the Farmers’ Market, had lunch at a new restaurant on State Street, got bubble tea, and drove to Crystal Lake in Lodi. They have the loveliest beach there, and they have inflatable climbing toys again this year, but totally different than the climbing toys they had last year. Travalon and I tried to climb onto one, but to no avail. The kids had no problems getting on them, of course. After that we went to Fitz’s, a supper club on Lake Wisconsin, for dinner. Because it had started to rain, we couldn’t sit out on their patio overlooking the lake, but the food was still good, and I had the best key lime pie martini ever there.

Sunday Travalon went to visit his mother and brothers, so after Mass Tiffy and I went to Crema Café, then we were going to go to Olbrich Gardens, but there wasn’t a single parking space available so we just got bubble tea again. When Travalon got back to town, we had to run some errands, then we went out to Devil’s Lake to swim at the beach there. We brought along the tiny beach ball we had gotten at the Jimmy Buffett concert and tossed that around, then we inflated our new rafts and floated on them. They matched the beach ball perfectly, with stripes in the same shades of blue, green, and purple. Then we took the Merrimac Ferry and went back to Fitz’s, where we could sit on the patio and watch the glorious sunset while eating dinner.

Yesterday I took the day off of work and gardened in the morning, then Travalon and I drove to Milwaukee and met Tiffy and another college friend of mine to go sailing on Lake Michigan. That was so amazing! Our captain was really cool too – he is the principal violist in the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra! We weren’t sure if the weather was going to hold out, but it was glorious and a bit windy, so we really flew along in the harbor. Our captain didn’t take us out beyond the breakwater, maybe because the day was so wild. We had beautiful views of the city skyline. Then we had dinner at the Ale House, sitting on the balcony overlooking the river. It was a wonderful day, except for our drive back to Madison – we got caught in quite a squall! But at least it didn’t happen while we were on the sailboat.

Famous Hat