What Is a Ghost Town?

I hope that my readers had a good weekend. Travalon and I were kind of tired on Friday evening, so we just went to the Cherokee Country Club for fish. Saturday we slept in, then we went to a new coffee place called Finca on Rimrock Road. It has very cute Salvadoran décor and delicious South American treats on the menu. We drove out to Sauk, where we saw two eagles sitting in the tree on the island, and we took a long walk on the riverside path. We drove back to Merrimac to check out the view of Lake Wisconsin from that park again, and I took a bunch of photos. There were a surprising number of boats out – I mean, it was a relatively nice day, but kind of cold if you didn’t keep moving. Then we drove up Highway U, checking out some gorgeous views of the lake and the river, ending up at a remote spot where we could see a large island out in the river called Lib Cross. Then we took the ferry back across the river, since this may be our last chance this year – it stops a week from today. We had been listening to the Badger game in the car, and right when we passed Okee it was halftime, so we stopped into Fitz’s and watched the second half there with some very friendly regulars. No random tourists (other than the two of us) this time of year! The Badgers won! We had dinner there after the game was over and then headed home. What a wonderful day!

Yesterday after Mass, Travalon, Richard Bonomo, the other bass from our choir, another guy from our parish, and I tried to go to brunch at Rockhound. Unbeknownst to us, they had just decided to stop doing Sunday brunch that week due to staffing issues, so we ended up at Lakeside Café. It was crazy there, but we did find a big enough table downstairs, where we had interesting conversations. Travalon and the other bass are both big fans of prog rock, which is not my favorite genre, but I do like some of it, like Jethro Tull. Travalon and I went for an invigorating hike at Blue Mounds State Park, which was icy but not too cold. (For once, the weekend was nicer than Monday – it is so cold today!) We tried to find another ghost town too, but there is literally nothing left of it, so we weren’t sure which cornfield it was under. It was called Pokerville, and there are some things named after it in the area, and after the founder, a guy named Brigham. The thing is, when I think of ghost towns, I picture those places out west with empty buildings and not a soul around. There are plenty of people living in what used to be Pokerville, it’s just they are on farms and not gathered into a town, unless you count Blue Mounds, which is a little to the east. I just think I have a fundamental disagreement with what this book is calling a “ghost town,” and who’s to say which of us is right? When we got back to town, we had dinner at Amber Indian Restaurant, and then we went home to watch the Packers game we had taped. We had been careful not to find out the score, but as soon as we turned on the TV to watch the recording, it was set on the NFL channel, and a banner ran across the bottom of the screen giving the final score of the game. So we already knew the Packers won, but much to Travalon’s amusement, I still kept yelling at the players: “Move! You’ll get sacked! Tackle him! Are you even clear on your job here?” Of course Joe Buck was announcing the game, and he hates the Packers so he wasn’t even the least bit neutral, so I was badmouthing him and also Jimmy Graham “the slow white man,” who is generally a useless player, although he did have a good play yesterday. I guess to me half the fun of watching football is keeping up a running commentary, which makes it really embarrassing to watch it in public. I kept catching myself yelling at the screen at Fitz’s too – well, maybe the Badgers need my advice as much as the Packers do!

Famous Hat

Ghost Town Weekend

I hope my readers had a good weekend. Did everyone have a good Halloween? It seems like it has been a long time since we’ve been to a Halloween party. Travalon and I just went to Mass for All Saints’ Day on Thursday evening, since we didn’t have time on Friday. That night we went to see ZZ Top, who were excellent, at the Sylvee, which is not. You have to stand, which is a problem if you are short like I am, and they made everyone wait out in the cold in a long line to get through security. I thought maybe ZZ Top weren’t going to do “LaGrange,” my favorite song of theirs, but they did it for the encore. The lead singer said, “Same three guys, same three chords,” which is true – they have had no personnel changes, and all their songs are in the same key. Hey, if you find a winning formula, why mess with it?

Saturday Travalon and I were ecstatic to realize we had nothing planned, so we slept really late and then drove out to Sauk in hopes of seeing eagles. We did see one by the dam, and it was being harassed by seagulls. It was a cold day, so we weren’t too motivated to hike outside. We drove by Lake Wisconsin and found a beautiful view of the lake from the park in Merrimac, then we had some crab dip at a bar we had been curious about for a while. Travalon has gotten a new book about ghost towns in our state, so we went to find one called La Rue, and then we ended up passing by Natural Bridge State Park, so we did end up going for a hike there as the light was dying. We came back to town, and on the radio they said there was a fundraiser called “Funk Out Cancer” at the Orpheum, so we ended up going to that. It featured the funk bands Smokin’ with Superman, Mama Digdown’s Brass Band (our favorite, they do New Orleans-style street jazz), and Phat Phunction. There was a silent auction, and I bid on pizza for a year but got outbid. Travalon bid on a Mallards game and won. All the money goes to the lab of a doctor on campus who is studying colon cancer.

Yesterday after Mass, Rich, the Single B-Boy, and another bass from our choir joined Travalon and me in checking out the new brunch at Tutto Pasta, and we all approved. Then Rich and our neighbor helped us get the boat out of the water; Rich and Travalon had high boots in order to wade, so they took the boat, while the neighbor and I drove Travalon’s SUV and boat trailer to the launch. The neighbor was unbelievably good at maneuvering the trailer around in a tight space, since there were tons of boats and trucks around the launch. After that Travalon and I went to find a hill you can see from Highway 19, and there was a place to hike by it, so we took a very short hike. Then we went to the other side of the hill and took another short hike. No path goes up the hill, but that would be a steep hike anyway. We went to another “ghost town” called Keyeser, but there is a functional Lutheran church there, and a very old general store. We went into it, but they only take cash so we couldn’t buy anything. The guy behind the counter was so nice! He gave us a calendar, date book, and pen. We had taped the Packers game in order to take advantage of the relatively good weather, but I saw on social media that people were saying how terribly it was going, so we tuned in for the last quarter. That one wasn’t so bad, but by then they were so far behind that there was no salvaging the game. What happened there? Did they underestimate the Chargers the way that the Badgers underestimated the Illini? We don’t really have any interest in watching the three previous quarters we had taped to find out. Surprisingly, I wasn’t really bummed out about it, maybe because I hadn’t seen how bad the first three quarters were. Or maybe I am still flying high from the Nationals winning the World Series – not that I am a huge fan of theirs, but what a great story! What’s one football game compared to that?

Famous Hat