I may have failed to mention that Travalon has been on an Iran kick for the last fortnight, watching documentaries about Iran and Iranian movies, and reading books about Iran. He googled "Iranian restaurants near me" and found an Azerbaijani restaurant called the Caspian Grill, which is as close as we can get here in Madtown. Last night we went there for dinner, and I mostly had Russian food: carrot salad and pelmeni, which are Russian dumplings. Travalon had amazing chicken wings and pita bread and a Russian soda that was kind of like root beer, but not exactly. It was called "kvass" and said it was made of rye bread. Then we split a piece of honey cake for dessert. There used to be an actual Iranian restaurant in town called the Caspian Cafe, but the couple who ran it retired and moved to Florida fourteen years ago. Travalon realized he had been to it with a friend many years ago, and he agreed that it was delicious food. I think the couple made even more money selling their bread at local grocery stores; I was a regular customer. It was flatbread - so good!
This morning Travalon and I met Jilly Moose and OK Cap for coffee, then we all went to a bookstore, and then Travalon and I went to Okee for lunch at Fitz's. Okee must technically be part of Lodi, because Fitz's is one of the local businesses we can patronize for our Mammoth Challenge. We got to sit outside on a covered porch with heat lamps, and we had their famous fish cakes as sandwiches and "adult" shakes. Here are some photos around the restaurant. You can see there are finally some autumn colors.
From looking at our Ice Age Trail atlas, I could see the Gibralter Rock segment seemed to start right at the south ferry landing. We drove to the wayside there and found the last parking spot, which was weird because it's never that crowded. But everyone else must have been hiking on the trail and realized it started there too. Sure enough, we found the telltale yellow marker. Here are some photos from the wayside, including the railroad bridge and the Merrimac ferry.
We followed the trail along the lake and across the highway and up a bluff. Here are some photos of the lovely autumn foliage and beautiful vistas.
Then we drove to the boat launch on Tipperary Road, where we saw some beautiful autumn colors on the bluffs across the river.
Travalon took more photos from the park on Tipperary Road right across from the cottage where we stayed for our anniversary trip last year.
This is a great blue heron.
On the drive home, we saw a little rainbow in the clouds. I have been told these are called "sun dogs," and that there should be one on the other side of the sun, but we didn't see the twin.
We also saw this really cool cloud. I took both these photos from the moving car.
We found a place to pull over, and Travalon took better photos of the cool cloud and the sun dog.
When I asked Travalon what I should call this blog post, he reminded me that at lunch I told him about Fat Bear Week, when people (including me) vote on which Alaskan brown bear has gained the most weight between July and September. The bear I voted for won; if you want to vote, you will have to wait until next September. Then when we were hiking up the bluff, I looked behind me for Travalon, and he said, "Fat Bear is coming." We had both eaten so much at Fitz's that we felt really fat, which is why I brought up Fat Bear Week - I mean, what could be better than people admiring you for getting fat? And then you get to sleep through the worst months of the year? Where do we sign up?
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