Necedah Wildlife Refuge and Three Bears Resort

 

Yesterday Tiffy couldn't talk in the evening since she was going to visit her mother, so she called me while she was driving and we talked a while. My neighbor and I walked, and I mentioned that the best chocolate in town is at CocoVaa, so she had me take her there, and we got chocolate. She got one of each flavor! I got some for me and some for Travalon. When Travalon came home, Jilly Moose came over and the three of us went to the Mexican restaurant not far from our house, then we went to Bierock and had small beers. It was surprisingly quiet there for a Friday night. I said we should go blacklight bowling, but nobody else was interested.

Travalon took some photos from the dock. Here the Tuxedo Duck is swimming under our dock with his lady love close behind.

Here is a close-up of the Tux Duck.

And I like this shot of a gull flying.

This morning Travalon saw this woodpecker out the window, so he called me to see it and took a photo of it. Apparently it is called a red-bellied woodpecker, which makes zero sense because its belly is white - as you can see, its head is what is red.

Then we stopped at the dam in Sauk and saw lots of pelicans.

After that we drove to the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge, stopping for lunch at a Chinese buffet in Mauston. The little custard pies were to die for! 

Of course Blogspot loaded these photos in reverse order. These are photos of the Sprague Mather Flowage, where we walked on the causeway.

There was a paved road to get there, but of course I suggested we go through the refuge on what I thought were paved roads on the map, but they were far from it. It was some rough going, but we saw deer and turkeys. We also saw an eagle just as we got to the flowage.

Here I am in front of Harvey Pond.

Before that, we went to the observation tower, where we saw very brown sandhill cranes.

And a swan going bottoms up.

Here is a blue heron and a nesting swan. We were told these are tundra swans.

Here is the blue heron.

The marsh in Necedah is very scenic.

For some reason this swan is labeled 29E. As far as we can tell, the others weren't labeled.

And this thirteen-lined ground squirrel kept trying to avoid us. It was so cute!

This island is cute too.

Here is another nesting swan.

And this swan appears to be talking to two male wood ducks, who are eagerly listening.

We didn't see any whooping cranes, but we did hear them, along with a sora we never saw. The pair who always nest near the entrance have not appeared this spring, so the ranger we talked to thinks something happened to them. We asked him if there were any pileated woodpeckers around, and he told us that between the Suk Cerney Flowage and the Boghaunter Trail there were a lot of dead trees where they can often be found. We headed there and didn't see any pileated woodpeckers; we did see several redheaded woodpeckers, but they were too quick for Travalon to get a photo. We checked out Suk Cerney, but while we were there, a car full of loud teenagers and an even louder school-aged boy arrived, so we left for the observation tower... and then who should come charging up the observation tower as we were looking at birds but the same group. So we left, and they did too, and they were following us, so we pulled over and let them pass. Weird. We were going the wrong direction anyway, since we were trying to get to Harvey Pond. Who knows where they were going?

In the evening we headed to the Three Bears Resort, where we are staying for practically free thanks to Booking.com and all the hotels we booked in Florida. We had to use our points before Memorial Day Weekend, so here we are. We wanted to eat before going to the waterpark, but the sit-down restaurant had a fifteen minute wait (even though most of the tables were empty), so we went to the pizza place inside the water park, but the woman there ignored us, so we went back to the restaurant. After that we went to the water park and enjoyed the Lazy River, which dumps into the wave pool. I wasn't expecting that! We also enjoyed the hot tub that is half outside - we spent our time in that half. The waterpark was allegedly open until nine, so about quarter to I said maybe we should start heading out, but then we saw all the kids were gone from the fun slides, so we went down them. The lifeguards whistled at us and said, "Get out! We're closing!" I said, "Aren't you open until nine?" and they said, "We close fifteen minutes early to clean up." I said that was false advertising, they should really say they're only open until a quarter to nine if that's what they mean. As we were leaving, we saw another hot tub with a small waterfall that we never got to try. But we have to go to Mass tomorrow, and the waterpark is only open from nine to one, so I guess we won't get to try that one. This place is a little odd. Even the drain in the bathtub is weird and automatically closes, so I had to hold it open after taking my shower. On the other hand, the shower head has very cool blue lights on it, so that's something. It's like showering in a disco.

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Playing at the Water Park

Saturday morning Jilly Moose and I got together for coffee, and she gave me a very cool beaded bookmark she had made for my birthday in the colors of the Irish flag, with a shamrock charm and a claddagh charm. A guy named Moose sat with us and told us all his conspiracy theories. Then I drove to Travalon’s house, and we went to see his mother for her birthday. We watched a one-man show that was very entertaining, and then Travalon and I went to Sweet Mullets to watch the first half of the Seahawks-Saints game. We watched the second half at Country Springs and then went to the waterpark there, where we played just like the kids did, racing each other in the Lazy River. We played so hard that I slept too late and couldn’t make it to Mass in time. I did go to brunch, and Travalon joined us, then he and I watched YouTube videos of the songs I was debating for our wedding. He preferred the Grancini to the Handel. We watched the movie Inside Llewyn Davis, about a folk singer who is kind of a jerk. Luxuli’s husband told us that the actor was in character at a party and picked up a woman that way, so some women must like bad boys. Then after Travalon and I went to 5:00 Mass, Rich had us and Luxuli’s husband over for dinner before I actually went to band practice for the first time in ages. Good thing I got there late – I have to ease back into playing! And I need to get my fiddling fingers back; it’s been even longer since I played the violin. There’s a challenge where you practice something for 100 days and film yourself, then you post it to show your improvement. I’d love to spend 100 days practicing the violin for an hour, but it’s hard to find the time. Besides, who wants to watch a film of me practicing? Squeak, squeak, squeak.

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My OTHER Choir Director's Party

Friday night, if you can believe it, Travalon and I had dinner with the president of the entire state university system. We went to a Celtic Studies dinner and another couple sat at our table and started chatting with us, and that’s who the man was! His wife was an environmental consultant. After dinner we listened to a fabulous flautist and fiddler play Celtic tunes.

Saturday morning I met the Rosary Ladies for coffee and the rosary, then I drove to Travalon’s place and we went to the new brew pub in his town, Sweet Mullets. Really great beer! I highly recommend them. Travalon has started his own blog, where he reviews restaurants and taverns around the state, so check it out. Then we went to a water park with the usual slides and Lazy River, as well as an indoor/outdoor hot tub that was very enjoyable. As Travalon said, we could pretend we were at a resort in Aspen. We finished the evening at a pizza place called Dry Docs, which was his old hangout since high school.  Delicious pizza!

Yesterday Travalon was going to come my way, but the weather was supposed to be bad, so he stayed home. Richard Bonomo, Kathbert, and I went to a party for my OTHER choir director, who has been at his current job for 35 years. Since this was a Lutheran party, there were plenty of bars and brownies for dessert after the family-style dinner. Then lots of people said really nice things about my OTHER choir director, and we gave him a trip to Leipzig, to the Bach Fest in June. He was embarrassed, since he hates being the center of attention, but I think he was touched. He did laugh really hard when we sang a song about him to the tune of “Rubber Ducky,” holding up pictures of him in front of our faces. “Every day when he plays some tunes with his fingers/He directs bells and orchestras, recorders and lots of singers,” or something like that. I failed to keep a copy so you’ll just have to imagine it.

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Water Park Birthday

Saturday was Travalon’s birthday, and he wanted to go to a water park (indoor, this time of year, of course), so we went to Kalahari in the Dells. They have evening passes, and that is the time to go, after the screaming children are gone for the day. There were lots of teenagers, but they mostly just hung around in clumps and spent little time screaming. My knee was bothering me, so I thought my options would be the Lazy River and the hot tubs, but I did try going up the steps very slowly to the water slides. As the evening wore on, the trips got less painful, maybe because of all the time we spent in the hot tubs. There were several fun water slides where we could go down together on a raft, and a scary one where they put you into a pod and then the bottom dropped out, and Travalon’s favorite, the Vortex. As his brother said, it was like getting flushed down a giant toilet. You went down the slide and into this big round area where you went around and around and finally fell head-first out the bottom into a nine foot deep pool. I almost got killed on that one because the girl behind me didn’t wait until I was out of the pool before she went down the slide. I had just gotten right out from under the “toilet” when she fell out of it. Scary! The life guard yelled that she was supposed to wait until the light was green, but she insisted it had been, which I highly doubt. Otherwise it was a really fun trip I would recommend to anyone who loves water. They even have an adult-only section where you can enjoy an adult beverage in a hot tub.

Before the water park, we went to Damon’s for dinner and played the trivia game they have there. Some other people were playing too, but TRVLON won one round. Then yesterday we watched the Packer game at a sports bar near my house with Luxuli and her husband, and they had the same trivia game. We did really well at it, but we had some stiff competition – nobody! Then we all went to a Christmas concert, and then Luxuli had us over for a birthday dinner and cake, not in that order. Don’t they say life is short so eat dessert first? Richard Bonomo and Kathbert joined us too. Afterwards Travalon and I were talking about what weekday evenings are good for getting together, and I said Tuesdays are not good for me because I have Adoration from six to seven. Travalon said, “Why do you need to be adored for an hour? I already adore you!” Isn’t that sweet?

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Big Fat Greek Water Park

Sometimes I envy Toque McToque for her job, because she could write an interesting blog just about the people who call. Today she had one woman call who had been trying to log in but forgot she does not have access to the internet. Then another one was upset because on a form she had received from Toque's office it said: "Attachment - N" as in none, but she had not received any Attachment N.

When I said I was tired of this 9-5 stuff, perhaps I should have been more specific. Actually, I start work well before 9 am, but I was contacted about a job that starts at 6:30. Yikes!!! That's about the time I roll out of bed in the morning, and that is painful enough. I can't imagine being at work by that time! Those 7 am meetings we have at my current job once a month are painful enough. (It doesn't help that they are in a conference room we aren't allowed to bring coffee into. Doesn't that violate the Geneva Conventions??)

This weekend Anna Banana II and I went to a water park and also rode the go-karts. I figured I could out-drive those punk kids, having many years of driving experience (none of your business how many), but I always came in second to last, just before Anna Banana II. And of course there was always one punk kid who mistook go-karts for bumper cars. Dude, you aren't cool, just illiterate. See the sign that says "No bumping"? Or did you think that was for decorative purposes? The water park had a cheesy Greek mythology theme and was a lot of fun; in keeping with the cheese factor, we had to get some ice cream in little beads. I had looked all over town for cheap water shoes before this outing, but everyone was either out for the season or only had expensive ones. Wouldn't you know that as they routed us through the gift shop on the way into the water park I found exactly the shoes I wanted? Although I wasn't necessarily thinking of getting them in retinal-damage neon green.

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Nobody's Role Model

This weekend proved, once again, that I am a role model for nobody. This will come as a HUGE shock to my regular readers, I'm sure, since I've already bored you with stories of getting thrown out of a bar in Greece, taking a hostage in the church parking lot, and impersonating my friend Ethel just to take a photography class. So why should this weekend be any different? I'll tell you - it wasn't. I snuck into a water park and didn't pay a cent!

My brother and his family were staying at a water park about an hour from my house, and since they are usually more than three hours away, I thought we should try to get together. Friday night Richard Bonomo and I drove around forever in the woods, which were beautiful, unaware we were barely half a mile from the kiddie mecca of water parks and other random tourist attractions (including alligator feeding and an upside-down White House) where the restaurant was. We finally found it, and when I told our Bulgarian waitress that it was my half-birthday, she obligingly brought me a free sundae. A whole one, even... but I did have to share it with my youngest nephew, who pointed out that his half-birthday had been just this past Tuesday.

Saturday Rich and I went to a neighborhood picnic with my neighbor Hardingfele and her family, then I called the water park to find out how much it would be to join my family there. (They had weekend passes via their hotel.) They told me it was $40 for a pass or $9 for the mere privilege of entering the water park and watching other people go on the rides; this was after I was on hold for 20 minutes and transferred to five different people. It was the guy at First Aid who was able to give me an answer, so if you call a water park, my advice to you is to ask for First Aid right off the bat. It will save you a lot of transferring. I decided to wait until the evening and go out for the fireworks but was annoyed to see when I got there that they were having "Double Days," which First Aid had neglected to inform me of. So if I had bought that $40 pass, it would have been good on Sunday too! $20/day for a water park seems much more reasonable. Ah well, I thought, too late now - I'll pay the $9 and watch the fireworks. However, they wanted $5 just to allow Erin Caitlyn O'Honda to use their parking lot, so I went off in search of free parking. Free parking was easily obtained across the street, but then I couldn't figure out how to get to the main entrance, so I simply entered an open gate that said: "Authorized Personnel Only." (Sometimes the superpower of invisibility comes in handy; men may not notice me, but neither do water park personnel!) Anyway, I bought overpriced flavored ice and ice cream in little beads to share with the niece and nephews, so it's not like they got no money out of me. The fireworks were very fine, and then I headed home and arrived about midnight.

Sunday after Mass a bunch of people were visiting town, including Bella Maryella, the friend who left me her hedgehog and electric mandolin before she headed to the East Coast. We all went out for brunch, and then several of us went for a walk in the zoo. In the evening I went hiking at a county park with Cecil Markovitch and the single B-Boy, then we went to a Mexican restaurant Cecil had tried with another friend - he loved it and the friend hated it - to see what the B-Boy and I thought of it. Cecil thought the mojitos were too weak - although he allowed that they were very flavorful - but we all enjoyed our food. They had three desserts on the menu: plantains, flan, and tres leches cake, and we couldn't decide, so Cecil got plantains, I had the cake, and the B-Boy had the flan, then we tried each other's. They were all delicious, but in a happy coincidence we each liked our own dessert best. Then I had to stop by the grocery store to buy bananas, because I had run out, and the rabbits would have revolted this morning without their daily banana fix. And who wants to deal with revolting rabbits?

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