Pheasant Branch and Street Fest V

 

This morning Travalon and I met Jilly Moose and OK Cap for coffee at Prairie Cafe, and we gave Jilly Moose her birthday present, only almost two months after the fact. (She was at a family wedding on her actual birthday weekend.) She wore a hoodie that matched her gift. Check it out.

See? They both say "Lake Superior." Here's a closeup of the moose, which she named Jameson.

And here's the moose we brought back from Alaska for her some years ago, which she named Americano:

Despite the rainy, windy weather, I talked Travalon and Jilly Moose into a hike at Pheasant Branch. When we went down to look at the bubbly springs, Jilly Moose spotted a doe across the way, just staring at us. This is a photo from my phone.

Jilly Moose's phone could zoom in much closer.

Of course Travalon regretted not having his good camera, because not only did we see the deer, we also saw a bunch of sandhill cranes flying overhead, and then they landed in a marshy area. I did take a photo of Pheasant Branch with my phone. It's this creek coming from the springs.

And Jilly Moose took this photo of the springs.

I have even posted a video of them on this blog before, where you can hear the cute burbly sound they make, but it was hard to hear it today over the wind.

Travalon wanted to go to a new antiques mall called Atomic Antiques, so we went down there, but I really had trouble finding any rosaries. I did finally find a few cheap ones, so I got one. No lovely crystal rosaries - they said the vendor from the now closed Odana Antiques who sold them didn't come over to them. 

We thought the perfect thing to do on a windy, rainy day would be Street Fest inside, so we headed to the Sheraton Hotel on John Nolen Drive and had warm drinks at their bar there, called the Hub. Lots of people were there celebrating the Badgers' victory over Maryland. We split a chicken quesadilla and an order of cheese curds, and both were incredibly tasty. Then Jilly Moose and I did the Extraterrestrial Dance: "Toe! Knee! Togo Togo Togo! Toe! Knee! Togo Togo Togo!" That got the attention of some of the other people at the bar, so we explained how we are fighting Adultitis. Why, just last night the Widow of Denni said how youthful I am, and I said, "I believe the word you're looking for is 'immature.'" 

Our next stop was on Monona Drive, because who ever said Street Fest has to be in geographical order? Not me, and I created it! We went to the Muskellounge in the strip mall where Crema Cafe and Fired Up are, and as you might have guessed from the name, the interior had a fishing decor. We got a really delicious soft pretzel to split. The Irish Coffee at the last stop had been enough for me, until I saw a bartender really shaking the heck out of a drink, which made me curious if he could make a ramos gin fizz. Alas, he could not, so I stuck with water.

By then we had had enough to eat and drink for a while, so our stop on Atwood Avenue was A Room of One's Own Bookstore, where I got a book about what makes people like different sorts of music, and a stuffed unicorn seahorse. (Sorry, no picture yet. Soon.) Then we drove to Willy Street and went to St. Vinny's, where everything is between like a dollar and four dollars, so I got all sorts of random things like a beach towel, a bag, some stuffies - you get the idea. For those keeping track at home, this was Street Fest  V; they aren't annual or anything, just whenever we feel like it. As my readers may remember, it is based on my poem that was published on the side of a bus:

    Curving around the loveliest of lakes,

    Call it John Nolen, Willy Street, Atwood, Monona:

    Full of colors and music and delicious flavors,

    It's the most wonderful street in the world.

Hence the name "Street Fest," because you can't name it after the street when the street itself has four names. We may have another festival to plan, because one day when Travalon was taking me to work, we saw a tent outside of the union, and the sign just said, "Today," so Travalon said, "It's Today Fest." I said it was up to him to decide what Today Fest entailed, so he would like to do something all over Monroe Street and Regent Street, of course including Leopold's. Please let us know if you would like to be involved in Today Fest, and we will plan it soon.

The secret club I'm in had a mission for October to decorate a pumpkin with a face and give it a backstory. As my regular readers are aware, the pumpkin I grew in my garden plot rotted, and I didn't feel like buying another one, so meet Tony Zamboni the spaghetti squash posing as a pumpkin.

"Hey, you got a problem with that? Do you want to be sleeping with the pumpkin in the compost heap?"

Famous Hat