I forgot to mention in my last post that the Pope had asked everyone to pray the Rosary at 9 pm Rome time, which was 3 pm here, and our parish priest said he would have a livestream of himself praying the Rosary so we could pray along with him. I could not figure out where the livestream was, so Travalon and I just prayed in our living room. I feel a little better because Richard Bonomo could not find the livestream either, and he is far more technologically advanced than I am.
The weather has been crazy. It rained all day Thursday, and out in Colorado my uncle had to deal with this:
Friday Travalon and I inadvertently went to our grocery co-op at the time they have now reserved for the elderly and immunocompromised. How did we manage to choose the one hour we weren't supposed to be there? This was a new policy, so we hadn't been aware of it. The day was sunny but cold, so we went to a park called Blackhawk Lake to hike. Here is a shot of the lake with a gorgeous bluff behind it.
And here is a closeup of the bluff.
There was a beach there, so I took a picture of Travalon and Michaela on it. Our Spring Break!
That evening I talked to Tiffy for a long time. She is used to working from home, since she does it a lot. Still, she is finding this social isolation as hard to do as the rest of us.
Yesterday Travalon, Michaela, and I drove to Wisconsin Dells and stopped at Travalon's favorite gas station, DinoStop:
We walked along the Wisconsin River in the Dells. Here you can see the beautiful rock formations.
Then we followed the river north. We stopped at Adams County Castle Rock Park, and so here is another beach picture, on Castle Rock Lake. (Please excuse my finger in the upper left corner!)
We drove to another park called Petenwell County Park, on the Petenwell Flowage. Here is a shot looking out over the flowage toward a peninsula.
And here are Travalon and Michaela on the beach! What is Spring Break for if not for beach-hopping?
And what would Spring Break be without islands? We stopped at the State Firemen's Memorial Park in Wisconsin Rapids, and looking to the left we could see a large island in the distance.
Looking to the right, we could see this cute little island.
Then we drove to another park in Stevens Point on the south end of another flowage, but I didn't take any pictures of that. We drove back down the west side of the river and found this beautiful park on the west side of the Petenwell Flowage, if you can stand another beach picture.
For some reason there were Christmas trees at random spots on the ice on the Petenwell Flowage. Here is a picture of one. I assume this is something ice fishermen do to make sure the ice is still strong enough to walk on. If the Christmas tree sinks, then don't go that way!
We did stop by Roche-a-Cri on our way home, and here is a shot of it in the twilight.
Today Prairie Man came to collect Michaela, so our partner in adventure is gone. Then Rich came over to help me find the livestream of the Mass our parish priest was saying, and we found it a few minutes in. The audio was terrible, so that our priest sounded like he had a robot voice, especially when he chanted. It was like a demonstration I once heard of what people with cochlear implants hear. I had the toughest time not laughing during the bells of consecration, which sounded even weirder. Then Rich and Travalon made brunch, and Travalon and I were going to go to Horicon Marsh for a hike, but partway there a funny sound in his car returned that he had fixed the day before with four quarts of oil, so we headed home. We took my car and joined Rich for a hike at the Nine Springs E-Way, a nature preserve managed by the sewage department. Maybe not as many birds as at Horicon, but we still saw lots of geese, some gulls, some ducks, and a pair of cranes. They say hiking is a good activity to engage in during this period of social isolation, so that part of life hasn't changed much for Travalon and me.
Famous Hat
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