Afternoon at Olbrich

 

Today I got to have a "sick day" from work because I had to take Travalon to a medical procedure. He was supposed to have a "responsible adult" to talk to the doctor and drive him home, but I was the only one available. The procedure went smoothly, and I got some DuoLingo done while it was going on. Duo the Owl thinks I'm faster doing Spanish lessons than he is rollerblading.

Since he hadn't been able to eat before the procedure, Travalon was ravenous, so we went to Silk Road, a Tajikistani restaurant near the hospital. I had this amazing thing that was tubes of grilled eggplant stuffed with lamb, in tomato sauce and some soft cheese like ricotta, so it seemed like Italian food. Travalon had a delectable chicken wing kebab. We also had a tea that was like warm lemonade with ginger and mint in it, which may sound weird but it was delicious, and for dessert we had cheese wrapped in phyllo dough served with pistachio ice cream. I highly recommend all of it.

We took a walk in Olbrich Gardens, which is gearing up for GLEAM, their annual light sculpture show, so the Thai Pavilion was not accessible. We saw these silver globes in the Sunken Garden.

We saw three colors of hibiscus, but the pale pink one was too far away to take a photo.

In the gift shop we bought a stuffed toucan.

Then we took a second walk on Governor's Island, and then we came home. It was unseasonably cool today, like a day in autumn, and really good for walking outside.

As promised, here are some photos from Travalon's visit to Horicon Marsh. I may post more tomorrow, but this is a sampling. He saw two of the three white birds: egrets, pelicans, and swans.

As usual, the pelicans were with cormorants.

The swans had teenage offspring.

They also saw pie-billed grebes.

What is this egret looking at?

And there were lots of these sandpipers.

Some of them were hanging out with ducks.

Then they saw a beautiful sunset over the lake in Pardeeville.

I may post more photos from his trip tomorrow.

Famous Hat