Happy 250th, USA!

 

Check out this photo Tiffy sent from Washington, DC:

Almost makes me wish I were there, but it's like a thousand degrees there. 

Here in the Midwest, it was hot and stormy. We met my aunt for brunch, then we went back to the spot in West Chicago with the diamond, but nothing was happening so we walked to a coffee place to get chocolate chip monkeys, or mochas with banana flavor. When we came back, a Canadian Pacific train was heading north, and then we saw a Metra train. I'll compile Travalon's videos at some point. My graffiti pics from yesterday evening in West Chicago finally downloaded.

I will try to make screen shots from some of Travalon's videos. We thought at first that he had missed the prettiest graffiti today, but when I watched his video just now, he did get it. 

Then we drove through another storm (not as bad as yesterday) to the Rochelle Railroad Park, where I took so many photos of the graffiti that I don't have time to post them, since of course it got late again. Then we drove to Blue Mound State Park to see the Daughter of Denni's band play. Because the weather was so bad, they played inside this time, but they were just as good. I loved when they said, "It's Saturday, we're in the park, and it's the Fourth of July. If only there were a song about that..." and then they played the song by Chicago. They also did a lot of Beatles stuff, and some really good original tunes, and a bluesy song about a deep blue well, and a Yes song. They are so versatile!

After that, Travalon and I drove to the top of the mound to take a walk, but we saw the sun was setting so we rushed to the west tower to try to see it. We were too late, but the other Daughter of Denni and her husband and two daughters joined us up there. The husband is the classical guitarist we have often seen perform, and after I offered to take a family photo of them, he took some of Travalon and me. These are the two best.

Here are some sort-of photos of the sunset that I took.

Travalon had his good camera with him. The rolling hills and the mist made it look like Scotland.

On the ride back we saw lots of amateur fireworks going off, sometimes right over us. We pulled over to watch Waunakee's display, and Travalon took some photos.

When we got home, I desperately needed some exercise, so I took a walk in the neighborhood, and Travalon joined me after a little bit. We saw some more fireworks in the distance.

Soon to come: more photos of graffiti and videos of trains and fireworks. Stay tuned!

Famous Hat

Old Warsaw and Railfanning in West Chicago

 

At work we got a floating holiday since the legal holiday is on a Saturday, so I used it today, and Travalon and I headed to Chicago. We hit some really bad weather, so it wasn't a fun drive. There were a lot of scary sights in the sky, like a cloud in the distance that looked like it had a waterfall underneath it. Because the interstate was moving so slowly in the deluge, it took us forever to get to my aunt's house. We talked a while, then we drove to Old Warsaw and met another aunt and uncle for dinner. This restaurant is a Polish buffet, and I was happy that there were plenty of things to eat that were either fish, seafood, or vegetarian on a Friday night. The pierogis were especially tasty. 

The aunt who joined us there is really into genealogy, so we talked about that a lot. At one point she said she took her family tree off the internet. "I'm incognito," she said, and my uncle said, "I'm in Oak Park." Badoom-ching. He and Travalon didn't say much; it was mostly us three women chatting, and at one point we were talking about fermented foods and what is the best brand of sauerkraut. (I don't have a strong opinion on this topic; I don't hate sauerkraut, but I much prefer pickled red cabbage.) I keep reading that we should be eating more fermented foods. My one aunt was saying how easy it is to make your own yogurt, and I've heard other people say that too, but you know what's even easier? Buying it at the store.

We got done with dinner early, so Travalon and I went to a spot in West Chicago which is renowned in the rail fan community because several tracks cross each other, and there's an old signal tower still in use. Literally as soon as we had parked and walked up to the tracks, a very long Union Pacific freight train with excellent graffiti passed by. Travalon made a video, and I took some photos. Unfortunately, my photos have not yet downloaded to my computer, and the video needs editing, so here are some photos Travalon took of the signal tower and the crossing train tracks.

While it was passing by, a Metra train went by in the other direction. We saw a couple more Metra trains, then we took a walk to find a restroom and ended up at a bar so busy that we couldn't order anything to justify using their bathroom, so we just left. We were starting to head to our hotel when a Canadian National came on the north/south track, so we parked and watched it. When we got back to the car, Travalon tried to remember which direction we'd been heading to get to our hotel, and I said, "We got derailed by the train," so he said I had to blog about that. The weather was fine then, but just about the time we got to our hotel, another storm blew up, so we decided not to go into the outdoor pool while there was lightning. Plus my former neighbor called just to chat, so it got late, and then it got later while I was trying to figure out how to access either the hotel WiFi or my phone's hotspot, and I ended up having to contact Richard Bonomo for technical support. He found a way to get my computer to recognize my phone, and so I can blog. Hopefully I can soon post photos of train graffiti...

Famous Hat

Lola's and Jamming and a Family Heirloom

 

Monday Travalon and I took my aunt and uncle to the wood duck ponds, and we saw wood ducks, a blue heron, and a sandhill crane. They seemed most taken with the crane. Here are some photos.

Travalon had to go to work, so I took my aunt and uncle to the Norske Nook, since their hotel was up in DeForest. They loved it! We each got pie; my aunt got rhubarb crunch, while my uncle and I got the lingonberry sour cream pie. I like that one because it is so tart. They said they'd love to go to a grocery store, so I took them to the co-op where we always shop, and they loved that. We spent quite a bit of time there, then after we put their food away, we hung out on our dock, which is where Travalon joined us when he got home from work. We went to Lola's for dinner, since on Mondays it isn't so crazy, and my aunt and I got an infused drink. It was Motown Monday, so the music was fabulous, and I had a wonderful time. Pretty sure everyone else did too. My uncle, aunt, and I split an order of potstickers, a salad, and a vegetarian pizza, and our waitress didn't care, since each food item was entree-sized so we each ordered one thing but told her we'd be sharing. That way we got to try it all! Travalon had a burger that he said was really good, and then we had to have the budinos for dessert, and my aunt and uncle agreed that lavender and chocolate are a winning combination. 

Yesterday I took the morning off of work, and Travalon and I met my aunt and uncle at the Norske Nook, where we all got pie to go. Then Travalon brought me to campus, because FART 5 was having a "team-building" activity. There were five teams, including HR people, and several of our team names incorporated the F-word (not fart, the other one) into them, but the winning team name was "Don't Go Breakin' My ART." They won the whole game and got Amazon gift cards. (Seabird was on that team.) Our team (Financial Union of Classless Kids) came in second and had the winning photo. Our quest was to run all over campus taking photos of different things. Some of the best photos didn't have me in them, but I feel weird about posting them without asking the others. Here are some I am in. A "W" in an unexpected place - a bus stop!

Posing with a bronze sculpture - this is a Harley Davidson monument.

Posing with another FART - these are people in FART 3, and they didn't want to be in the photo, so they had their backs to the camera. 

This is what our team won for second place: writing pads and pens with dumpster fires on them.

I'm guessing the dumpster fire is the new system at work, though it could be the whole ART setup. We just got used to it, and they're changing things on us, like Seabird is going to FART 1. It remains to be seen whether this means she will leave her current office space. 

After the contest, some of the FART peeps sat on the Union Terrace drinking beer. I was going to just go right back to my aunt and uncle, but Seabird and I and another colleague decided to get ice cream, so we sat licking waffle cones while the others drank beer. Then I caught the Big Bendy B Bus back to my car, thinking it would be quicker than the shuttle, but this bus had every problem: there was a woman who needed the ramp because of her walker, but the ramp by the door she wanted to use didn't work, and she refused to use one of the other two doors on the bendy bus, both coming on and leaving; someone threw up on the bus; and there was a mechanical issue that made the driver stop the bus and go through it. Finally I got home and grabbed the violin and mandolin, and my uncle and I worked on "Swallowtail" until Travalon got off of work. The four of us went to North and South in DeForest for dinner, where we got creole food, then back at the hotel we had New Glarus Belgian Red beer, and I played the mandolin while my uncle played the flute and Travalon and my aunt sang classic rock songs. We did "Scarborough Fair" and "Ring of Fire" and some others I am blanking on - maybe Travalon can tell us in the comments. On my way home, I couldn't believe some guy took every turn I took, and then the temporary stoplight they installed on our street was green until I approached, and then it turned red. Sigh. Nobody was coming, so I waited a bit and then just went through it.

Here's the coolest thing my aunt and uncle brought from Ma Hat:

These are silver ice tongs, and in the bag is a letter written in 1939 to my grandma from some ancestor of mine (I think her grandma) saying the tongs had been in the family for over two hundred years. Wow, they must date from at least the 1730's! I want to make sure they stay in our family as long as I have any say in the matter. There was more stuff my aunt and uncle brought from Ma Hat, and I'll try to get photos and put them on the blog, maybe tomorrow.

Today I worked on campus and felt very disoriented, like I'd been gone for months. It didn't help that I had meetings all day (or so it felt), so it was hard to get into the rhythm of getting work done. A colleague has been doing my work, so we talked for almost an hour about that, and then we had our big department meeting (last one until fall) in the afternoon. At lunch I walked with Seabird and Hardingfele, and they discovered they'd had kids in the same class. "If only we'd known each other back then!" they said regretfully. We saw some magenta shooting stars.

Oh yeah, I gave my aunt a rose on Mother's Day, and it kept getting bigger. I also gave her a sprig of hydrangea I found on the ground in the parking lot of the grocery store where we recycle the plastic, and that seemed to be getting bigger too. Here's Monday:

Here's yesterday:

Travalon went back to the wood duck ponds today.

They really are the most photogenic ducks around these parts.

Today I took the shuttle home, and it had almost as many issues as the B Bus. The driver blew by one stop, and it looked like someone was waiting. Then he took a really crazy route back to the parking lot, because he was trying to avoid a very long train, but we got stuck behind it anyway. It had some pretty cool graffiti on it, but I thought everyone else would think I was strange if I whipped out my phone and made a video. Then when I got home, another aunt had sent me a booklet my grandma had made of all the Christmas cards I had designed over the years as a kid. There was one I didn't recognize, and it wasn't very good, but then I saw my brother had done that one. It reminds me of when my parents brought me some artwork of mine, and one thing was a French assignment I didn't remember and didn't get a very good grade on, and then I realized it was my brother's French assignment. Why would they give me that? Oh well, it has the best photo of me ever taken in it.

Famous Hat