Saturday, October 3, 2020

Return to Marytown

 

Today Travalon and I headed to Marytown because he had never been there and I thought that was where I saw a Sacred Heart chaplet that I didn't get at the time but now can't stop thinking about. We hit the road and stopped for a short hike on the South Kettle Moraine section of the Ice Age Trail, where we discovered that this month, if you hike 40 miles (for the 40th anniversary of the trail), you get a special patch. So I signed us up (we're a team, and I'm the captain), and to my delight the miles are cumulative, so we each really only have to hike 20 miles on the Ice Age Trail. Today is the actual anniversary, and I'm glad we discovered this so early in the month - it would have been a lot harder to accomplish if I had learned about it on the 28th. Here are a couple of photos.



Then we stopped in Richmond, Illinois for lunch at Dog N Suds, a drive-in Travalon remembered from his childhood. He remembered that there used to be a number of antiques stores in town, but we only found one that was open, and I got a couple of rosaries, a pair of earrings, and a yellow quartz crystal. Then we continued on to Marytown, and the gift shop was set up slightly differently than I remembered, so the place where I had seen the Sacred Heart chaplet was gone. Or did I see it somewhere else? I did find two beautiful Franciscan seven-decade rosaries, and as I was debating which one to get, I noticed they were 60% off so getting both of them was cheaper than I had expected one to be. Travalon got a Lego set of the Last Supper. Then we went into the church, where they have perpetual eucharistic adoration.



This side chapel full of candles is beautiful too.


Then we went to the display on St. Maximilian Kolbe and the Holocaust. I cried the first time I saw it, so I thought I'd be immune this time, but nope - it made me cry again. Here is a map with the number of murders listed for each country.


Here are a couple of pieces from Auschwitz: a brick and some barbed wire.



The parts that made me cry were the pictures of the children being led to the gas chamber, and the story about the guy St. Maximilian Kolbe traded places with. He lived to be 95 after being spared, and he didn't waste all those extra years - he spent them telling everyone about the saint. 

Here is a photo of the outside of Marytown.


We drove back north, to Bristol, Wisconsin, and stopped at Lake George.




In Bristol there are twin antiques shops right next to each other, and they seem to be affiliated. I went to the first one and found two rosaries just as they were about to close at five, and then they called over to the other one, and they stayed open as I ran over there and found five more rosaries. 

Our next stop was Lake Geneva, where we took a walk on the lakeshore path.
 





There are beautiful houses in Lake Geneva. Some look very English.




We drove through Delavan but didn't stop to take a picture of their eponymous lake. As we were driving past Janesville, we saw a silo on fire! Travalon said, "It looks like a volcano!" I asked if I should call 911, but he said they probably already knew. We got to where we could take a picture, but this is the best of the sorry lot. You can't really see the five shoots of water the firefighters were aiming at the blaze. The row of lights is a cow barn, or at least some sort of barn, so I was praying like crazy that the fire wouldn't reach the animals in it. Can you imagine how scared they must have been?


Other than the scary fire, it was a wonderful day. And that is despite the constant drizzle all day.

Famous Hat


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