Day in Port Washington

 

The garden mystery has been solved, because another woman emailed the garden organizer to complain that someone seemed to be gardening in her plot, but she is new and didn't realize she was in the wrong plot. So hopefully that's the end of crazy things happening in my plot...

Today Travalon's boss let him have the day off, so I asked to have the day off too. I woke up at my usual time and walked with my neighbor, and another neighbor has the most beautiful roses. She says she puts "bloom stimulator" on them in the spring, and then they bloom like this all season.

Then Travalon and I drove to Port Washington. Our first stop was Lion's Den Gorge Nature Preserve, where we hiked along the trail and marveled at how turquoise Lake Michigan appeared below us. It even looked like it had coral reefs from up above!

We crossed this bridge. You can barely see me in the shadows in this photo.

We hiked on a loop, and then took a short, scary loop that was right by the edge of the gorge. Then we took the steps down to the beach. Look how clear the water is!

There were lots of gulls flying around.

And in the distance we saw a loon!

Look how this tree is growing at such a crazy angle from the cliff!

And this photo makes me laugh - the gull looks so angry!

Here are more photos of the turquoise water from above, as we hiked back.

And we saw this beautiful black swallowtail butterfly.

I attempted to take a selfie of us with the water in the background. This is the best of three.

Then we drove to Port Washington and were stunned to find that the restaurant we planned to eat at was not only closed but torn down, and they were building high-rise condos on the spot! Instead, we went to the brewery we once met my aunt and uncle at, because they know the owner. We had pistachio cream ales, and I had fish tacos, while Travalon had the fish fry. It was a very good Plan B. After that, we walked along the marina.

I'm not sure what kind of duck this is, but it's definitely not a mallard.

I believe these are black ducks. They made a beeline for me, so I can only guess that someone who feeds them also wears a big straw hat.

We also saw hundreds of alewives, these little fish, swimming alongside the pier.

Here is a very brief video I made of them. Travalon made a longer one that I may edit and post at some point.

This is a shot of the town hall from the pier.

Here is the lighthouse with a sailboat sailing in front of it. We walked partway out to it, but the last part of the walk is closed and under construction, although that didn't stop a number of people.

This boat must be owned by someone who loves the Beatles as much as Travalon does.

We drove to a park on the cliff, and Travalon took this photo of the lighthouse from above.

And I'm pretty sure this is the Catholic church in town.

We took some backroads to get home and ended up driving through Germantown, where all the commercial buildings look like something from a European village. It's so cute! Why can't they do that everywhere, instead of always building ugly commercial buildings? We stopped at the petting zoo/gas station in Concord, and we saw goats, chickens, an alpaca, little donkeys, and two pigs. Here one of the goats is on some high thing in his enclosure, looking down at us.

The chickens came up to me, just like the ducks in Port Washington. People do feed the animals in the petting zoo, so they must have been expecting a handout.

The donkeys came to check us out too.

But the one who seemed happiest to see me was this adorable little pig.

We didn't get food for them at the gas station, because the sky had clouded over and we could hear a lot of thunder in the distance. Like, nonstop thunder. Sure enough, as we drove west, we ran into a storm. I had been praying to St. Jude to ask God to send us rain (and of course begging God directly), so I was hopeful that the storm had hit Madison. Sure enough, when we got home, everything was soaked. Praise God!! Plus, that meant I didn't have to go water my garden plot tonight. The weather has cooled down so much, it's actually cooler than Port Washington was, and we are sitting out on our porch once again.

Famous Hat