Came for the Swans, Stayed for the Eagles

 

Today Travalon and I really overslept, so once again we went to the later Mass. To our surprise, when we got back home The Beautiful Game was still going on, because France had tied things up with Argentina, and they had gone into extra periods with neither team pulling ahead. We watched the shootout, and the French goalie missed everything, so that was it - Argentina won.

It was so cold out that we didn't want to go for a walk outside, so we walked around the track at the health club and then shot hoops for a few minutes until some people came into the gym and started throwing a football around. As we were leaving, Travalon got into a boxing match with this giant snowman.

Travalon suggested we go to Picnic Point to see if the tundra swans were still around. As we got out of the car, a bald eagle flew by. Then we saw another one sitting in a tree, and Travalon said, "This is even better than Sauk!"

We walked along Lakeshore Path, and we could see two pairs of swans in the bay.

There were a lot more swans right along Picnic Point, so we walked there to see them.

I love how this one looks like it's laughing!

We took some videos too, so I'll try to edit those and post them at some point. Travalon's video is better, but his audio isn't as good. My phone can't zoom in as much, but it must have a better microphone, because it really picked up the sound of all those loud swans.

After that we went to Leopold's for a warm drink, then Travalon headed to Oconomowoc to visit his mother while I met Mamastep for dinner at Bellitalia. We hadn't seen each other in a long time, so we talked for over two and a half hours. She's really active in Steampunk stuff, and they have social groups they call "airships." I guess my airship is the Rosary Ladies. Or maybe it's the Night Prayer gang. Of course, there is a lot of overlap between those two groups. Sometimes I feel like I'm in a little hot air balloon with just Travalon, and that's okay too. We always seem to want to go the same direction.

Famous Hat