Tiffy's Mom's Funeral

 

We had a relaxed morning after a very sound sleep last night, then we got coffee at the Copper Cup in Ironwood and hit the road, driving through the Bad River Reservation on our way to Washburn for Tiffy's mom's funeral. We stopped in Bayview Park in Ashland on the way.

We got to the waterside restaurant in Washburn just before the scheduled start time, but people were just milling around, so we talked to Tiffy and some of her relatives. The service began half an hour later: a minister talked about Tiffy's mom, then her niece did, and then her brother and his kids did. That part was pretty funny. There was lunch afterwards, and I tried to behave. I was eying the vegan cheesecake, but to my surprise it had disappeared before I went back for dessert, so that saved me from eating dessert. After lunch we went on a walk with Tiffy down by the harbor, and then to my surprise her Millennial relatives like nieces and cousins remembered me fondly from when they were small children, and they all wanted to talk to me. I enjoyed that a lot. Here are some photos of the harbor.

I love the lupines in these next few photos.

We had thought there was Mass in town at four, so we went to the church... and Mass was tomorrow morning. There was one at four, but it was in Bayfield, so we wouldn't have gotten there in time. Instead, we went to Ashland and walked on the campus of Northland College, where Tiffy's parents met and fell in love. It may close soon because it's running out of money. Here are some photos.

Is this deer matriculating at the college?

After that we went to South Shore Brewery, where Travalon had a beer and I had a prickly pear seltzer. That may have been an unwise choice, because between the booze and all the water I drank along with it, I had to pee several times during Mass. We went at six in Ashland, and the church had an impressive reredos. It also had an organ, but this was a guitar Mass, which isn't my favorite thing. Here are photos of the church.

After Mass we saw the sun with beams shooting through the clouds. It was like a painting.

After that we had a real adventure. We went to a tiny town called Moquah which is really just a few houses and a bar they call the Plywood Palace. It is nasty. There were lots of ATVs and motorcycles parked in front of it, and inside it had lots of Trump banners. Unfortunately I had to use the "bathroom," which was a pathetic outhouse, not even as nice as a typical Port-a-Potty, and when I asked if anyone had hand sanitizer, they laughed and called me a "city person." Yeah, I guess so. We did see a lovely rainbow as we were leaving. Travalon pointed out that we had gone to establishments that were the two political extremes, which makes me wonder why they say "dirty leftists" when it was the MAGAts that were filthy. Here are some photos to show you what I mean. Travalon took these with his phone.

Here are a couple of photos of the rainbow, from my phone and from Travalon's good camera.

We had dinner at a Mexican restaurant overlooking the water. Here was our view at dinner.

After dinner we saw the rainbow again, and then we saw a glorious sunset. Here are a couple of photos of it from my phone. We viewed it from three different places.

Here are photos from Travalon's good camera.

When we came back to the hotel, we went swimming, and the pool seemed marginally warmer than yesterday in that if I moved around, I wasn't too cold. Today the hot tub was working, so we warmed up there instead of the sauna. Maybe we'll sleep just as soundly tonight after another round of late-night swimming in a chilly pool.

Famous Hat