I hope my readers had a good weekend and got to enjoy the
cooler weather. Friday I took off of work for the Daughter of Denni’s annual
bike pub crawl, but the weather was so cool, wet, and windy that I decided to
just drive from bar to bar with Travalon. We did end up walking from the Olbrich Beer Garden to a woman's house, a lovely two-mile walk along the shores of Lake Monona, so we did
get some exercise. Then we met Cali and OK Cap for the Dane Dance on the Monona
Terrace rooftop for some more exercise. The first band was a salsa band, and
then we were going to leave, but the second band was a really good soul music
group, so we stayed for part of their set too.
Saturday Travalon and I had nowhere to be, so we decided to
attempt our epic canoe trip to the part of the Yahara River where it becomes a
tiny creek. Travalon almost fell out of the canoe as we were getting in, so we
got discouraged for a moment, but the weather was perfect so we soldiered on.
We stopped for a rest and snack break at the School Road pier, then we
continued on, past the island, to the part of the river we had never been on
before. There were a lot of lily pads, and both the white lilies and the tall
yellow lotuses were blooming like crazy. I saw so many types of dragonflies!
When we were way back in the marsh, at the spot where Token Creek comes into
the Yahara, I needed to take care of some personal business, and nobody was
around for miles. But – can you believe this? – a motorboat came up the river,
with two guys and a big brown dog in it. What are the odds?? They went up Token
Creek, so we went up the little creek that is the Yahara at that point. On our
way back, we saw them again, and they were going really fast in the no-wake
zone. Then we stopped at School Road for another break, and two guys drove
their car right up to the pier, took down a canoe, and set off without moving
their car out of the way. Was it just Rude Day that day? When we got back to
our neighborhood, we could hear a really good Jimmy Buffett tribute band at the
Nau-Ti-Gal and an okay cover band at Mariner’s Inn. We sat on our dock for a
while, resting and listening to the okay band, until we got the energy to go to
Banzo for dinner. Natty Nation, a great local reggae band, was playing at the
Union Terrace that night, and it was a beautiful evening, but we were too tired
to do anything after canoeing for eight miles round trip.
Yesterday we had brunch outside at the Crema Café, then we
took a hike in Monona along the bike path I used to ride to work, back when I
lived on Pirate Island and worked in Middleton. Cecil Markovitch called and
asked if we wanted to meet him and the Single B-Boy at Eno Vino, a new rooftop
bar downtown, so we wrapped up our walk and met them a little after three.
However, the bar didn’t open until four, so we went to the Rigby for a quick
drink beforehand. Can I just say that the view from Eno Vino is magnificent? It
looks over Lake Monona. We had a cheese platter there, and I had a drink that
was like a mango meringue pie, if such a thing exists. Then we walked to the
new seafood place near our church, and Rich joined us for dinner. We were
starting to get tired and achy again from our adventure the day before, so we
called it an early night again. Prairie Man wants to go on a long canoe trip
this fall, which we can’t do anyway, but I’m wondering if it would kill us.
Even this morning the alarm woke us up (which is unusual), and we could barely
move to get out of bed. Ah well, it was worth it to achieve my dream of finding
out what is beyond the part of the marsh we can get to in our little boat. Answer: a whole lot of marsh!
Famous Hat
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