I forgot that yesterday's blog post was supposed to be titled "Four Forks for Fat Bear" because at the Essen Haus Travalon kept appropriating the serving forks for each dish for himself, until he had at least three, maybe four. Today he mentioned that "Fat Bear and the Four Forks" would be a great band name.
This morning we watched the Wolves, who lost because there were so many penalties on them, which was mystifying to us. It looked like the Bournemouth players were purposely getting in front of them so they could say they'd been tripped. This is why I can't watch soccer - I don't understand it well enough to not find it completely aggravating. Why did that goal get taken away? Why does one team get penalized for something when the other doesn't? It's all a mystery, and half the time I can't understand the British accents of the commentators.
Then we hit the road, stopping in Mineral Point for lunch: Cornish pasties! Now that I know I'm quite a bit Cornish (per the DNA tests), the place is even more meaningful to me. We got to Galena mid-afternoon and immediately started shopping for Small Business Saturday. At the first shop I went to, I got a cuddly globe and two pairs of socks because they were half off. We went to Travalon's favorite shop, Strawberry Lane, where he got a Rolling Stones T-shirt. We went to Beyond the Horizon, where I bought yet another evil eye protector decoration. We popped into some shops where we just looked. At Flashback we got a bunch of T-shirts: Van Halen and Beach Boys for Travalon, and Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead, and an Office T-shirt for me. We went to a sports shop where Travalon got a Minnesota United (Loons) (soccer team) T-shirt. At Poopsies we got a peppermint snail - this is the shop with stuffed everything, but this time they didn't have any avocado-corns. We went to the root beer shop and split a birch beer, which is bright red and tastes a bit like root beer. Then we went to the crystal shop, and I got one light green crystal that says it is garnetulite? Or something like that.
We are in Galena for Small Business Saturday/Travalon's birthday, and we had no idea there would be a Christmas parade. It was decorated jeeps: spangled with Christmas lights, topped by inflatable creatures like a rubber ducky with headphones or Camo Santa, and/or with floodlights underneath (which I believe are illegal in Wisconsin). Here are a few examples.
I took a lot more photos that didn't turn out, and we couldn't even watch until the end of the parade because we had to hurry up the hill to a church built by Father Mazzuchelli. The stained glass windows were shining, and when we entered, the lighting was golden and the air was warm, so it felt welcoming and wonderful. It was decorated for Advent, but not too many people attended, and they were all our age or older. The music was an enthusiastic alto who had a good voice but insisted on singing everything down a few keys, so it was very low for me, accompanied by a guitar. The priest gave a good homily about expecting the end, when we go to meet the Lord: will we be excited like his ten younger siblings on Christmas Day after he and his father had spent all night putting their toys together, or will we be dreading it like how he felt as a kid when his mom said, "Wait till your father gets home!"? An excellent question: I often ask myself if I'm on the right track, and then I get assurance that just by asking that question, I'm on the right track. Perhaps it is the people totally assured of their righteousness who will be surprised, and not in a good way. As we were leaving, I saw a basket with those cheap homemade rosaries, and I was initially attracted to a crimson one with pink Our Father beads, but then I saw an orange one with yellow Our Father beads that looked like it might glow under blacklight, so I couldn't decide. I asked Travalon, and he couldn't decide either, so we decided we could take one of each for each of us, since there were a lot there. I've never found a rosary for sale in Galena, but now I have rosaries from Galena.
Galena seemed like the right place to wear my Third Eye toque, and I did get some compliments, so I wasn't wrong about that.
Once Travalon and I got back to Irish Cottage Inn and Suites, we went to the gift shop, and I bought yet another Celtic design necklace.
And here are photos of some of the other stuff we bought. (Not the T-shirts.)
We had dinner at Frank O'Dowd's Pub, which is part of the complex: we sat in our favorite snug and had our favorite dinner, the snapper with crab meat, spinach, and mashed potatoes, then we split a pot de creme for dessert, and Travalon had a coffee drink. After that we went swimming in the cool (but not too cold) pool and sat in the warm (not too hot) hot tub. We have a hot tub in our room too, and we filled it with hotter water, then I sat in it a bit but couldn't figure out how to turn on the jets. Travalon figured it out, and he spent quite a bit of time sitting in it. Now we are sitting in front of our (fake) fireplace.
What a relaxing evening!
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