stuff to do

Ed has “stuff to do” in Lake Mills today. If you’re not a Wisconsin reader, then you probably don’t know Lake Mills: about 20 miles east of Madison, it’s a sweet little Victorian town (or at least parts of it can be called that), clustered expansively around a small but quite beautiful lake.

I have “stuff to do” as well, but my stuff is highly transportable. You want to bike over with me? – he asks. Oh, so much…

That’s how I find myself doing “stuff” (for me – reading cases) on a bench on the village green of Lake Mills, as Ed does his “stuff” (playing tennis with his buddies) a small distance away.


Let me put in a plug for the Glacial Drumlin State Trail from Madison (or, more accurately, from its eastern out post – Cottage Grove) to Lake Mills (and beyond), especially for those who love bucolic scenery, a flat ride, and limestone pebbles under their tires.










I have to say, with a beautiful, mostly sunny sky, it is a heavenly spin. The reward is, in part, in the destination. The lake is the real spirit here– choppy and wavy today due to the wind, but serene nonetheless.










I had wanted to take my “stuff” to a café, but nothing resembling a café is open and so I pick a bench on the green facing this important storefront.





Every once in a while, I look up to do some significant people watching. My Styrofoam cup of bad coffee from an eatery on Main Street is perhaps not a highlight, but everything else is so supremely pleasant that I do not mind.





Toward evening, the men finish their game and Ed and I bike home.

You could not have a better day of summer stuff.

catching up, at home

My big walk for the day? Around the block. On this most beautiful summer afternoon!

Eh, others are taking it easy as well.











At least I left my computer behind. This time.

from the Wisconsin River: paddling toward the Mississippi, day 5

The morning river fog lifts. A few clouds drift in. The sand is warm, the tent is warm. Even the river bathing routine today is not unpleasant. The sand island is like a stage, but there is no one watching as I scrub my scalp with a combination of soap, water and whatever else the river bed throws in. (True, at night we had visitors – we see fresh deer tracks come up from the river and then retreat back again. But now, there are only birds and most are hiding in trees across the water.)

A summer shadow on the beach is like a Matisse sketch of a person with strong limbs. Or at least made stronger this year by so much carrying, climbing and rowing. Bird tracks cross the sand (and the shadow) in all directions.





We head out for a day of nonstop paddling. The Mississippi is still almost 20 miles away and after that, we have to navigate the great American river to get to the take out landing.

It’s a warm day. The thermometer would probably show 70s, but it feels warmer than that. Initially, there is plenty of sun and we’re careful to avoid burning. I study Ed in his former girlfriend’s father’s shirt and an old hat he found on the roadside. From one angle he looks to me like a Sicilian padrone – a good soul, kind to animals and dragonflies…





From another, he is Huck Finn with years added (though not to his soul – Ed is so very much a Huck, at least if we read Huck to be the compassionate adventure-seeking runaway, the kid who would like the river more than what town life had to offer).





And here we are, still on the Wisconsin River, still watching turtles plop and herons take flight…










And, maybe because it’s America’s holiday, we get treated to a return of the bald headed eagle…






As for people? No, not really. We pass only the occasional Alumacraft Jon boat with two, maybe three fishing men and women (everyone in these parts uses the Alumacraft).





Good catch today? Nah. Three nibbles. But we’re having such fun.

And we are too. More relaxed now, even as I’m paddling nonstop – dip one end, dip the other. My vest is loosely on a shoulder (for an idle moment of sinful pleasure… well, not too sinful: my inflatable is one hell of a steady tub and the current here is laboriously slow), my feet are dangling in the water. Ed asks for a song and I oblige with some Simon and Garfunkel. Life on the river can be very slow and beautiful.





The sand bars still trap us occasionally, but Ed can heave his way out with his powerful arms. Mine can’t reach that low. Nor are they nearly as strong. (For instance – I count that he paddles once for my four strokes and still he is faster.) I climb out, pushing the boat to deeper waters, picking up the current again.

And finally, we come to the last road bridge over the Wisconsin. High up, spanning the river. A tribute to the automobile traffic that roars across it.





…while the railcars stand to the side, waiting for their moment. With a half hope that they, too, are part of our American way of life.






And three miles later, we are on the Mississippi.

They say that approaching the joining of the two rivers is a grand event. I’m expecting a choking moment of accomplishment, with a twinge of wonder at the splendidness of it all.

I get, instead, a slap in the face. Or, rather, on the side, with waves. One after another. Rolling from the river to the shore.

We are on the first day of a long holiday week-end and America has taken to the river. We’re not talking paddles and canoes. We’re talking power boats. And picnics and cold cases of beer. And children jumping into the water and young adults pushing the bikini line way low and older adults too, having that I don’t care, I’m here to have fun attitude that makes this indeed one big party scene.





The Mississippi, festooned with Americans celebrating freedom in a big way.





I find the land celebrations to be loud, but rather endearing. The power boats are another matter. Let me put it mildly: I don’t much care for the motor boats, nor their effect on the river.

Noise, there’s the motor noise. Echoing across the waters, it is tenfold louder than what you hear on the highway.

Then there are the waves. Ed and I are fighting to keep our boats on course. We are mere smudges of dirt on this speed track. There are times when I am sure they are coming straight at us, even as we hug the shore line.





It is a dreadful way to experience the Mississippi.

(Lest you think it's all on the Wisconsin side -- no indeed. Iowa has its own contingency lined up on the shore.)





I shout out to Ed – why don’t they just go down the river once and come back when the trip’s over? Why this back and forth stuff?

Why indeed. Because it’s fun to race crazily between point A and B and back again. And to be faster than your buddy in the other boat. (I’m guessing here; it all seems a bit insane to me.)

Once we are a couple of miles away from the initial batch of boat fiends, we experience, briefly, a true Mississippi moment: a tug is pushing barges – two across and five deep. The front ones are empty, Ed tells me. See how they rise above the water?





We watch, mesmerized by the enormousness of this transport method. The barges command the river. All else (even the power boats) falls by the wayside.


And now, finally, we pull up to the county park beach. The car is there, waiting for the boats, for us. Ed folds up my inflatable as I watch the beach scene. Unlike the river noise, I find this more intimate and welcoming. Groups of young men, groups of children, banding together to have fun on this warm holiday afternoon.





If I want to think back fondly to the Mississippi, I’ll bring up these images – of families unloading the cooler, of friends cooling off in her waters, soda (or beer) in hand, of children dashing in to get the sand off.










I’m grinning as we head back east. Happy Fourth of July week-end indeed.



As we approach our starting point, where we left the other car, we pause at Culver’s. What’s your special today? Mint explosion. Hmmm. Like a fireworks of mint. No, forget that. We’ll share a vanilla. Small please.





And so on the Fourth of July we are not on the Wisconsin, and not even on the Mississippi. We’re back home, in Madison – doing what one does here on this day: going to my local and very endearing Westside Community Market…













…Picking up vegetables and flowers (yes, lovely flowers this week!) with notes of red and white and purple – will you settle for purple?









We’ll throw charcoal on the new grill out on the balcony (cheapest one on the market!) and roast and toast and maybe, if I haven’t fallen asleep by then, I’ll go out on the roof and watch the fireworks all around town.

from the Wisconsin River: paddling toward the Mississippi, day 4

You and I know that there are only two types out there: those who love to camp and those who will have none of it (okay, with some reluctant go-alongs thrown into the camping bunch). Which type am I?

I don't know. In Poland, I camped a lot – mostly on long kayak trips, with heavy cotton tents that allowed bugs in, never with family, always with friends. We didn’t have motels or even much of a hotel culture. If you wanted to get away from home with people your own age, you camped.

Like so many women I know (and a not a small number of men), I’ve always had issues with living in the wild. The bugs, yes that, the animals that like your food, the absence of easy cleaning options, the weather vicissitudes – at the end of the day they can crush your spirit.

But here I am, the fourth night under a tent on yet another island on the Wisconsin River.

Am I a go-along? Well, I do like to see the joy in Ed’s face as we set camp. But I’d by lying if I didn’t admit that there are hugely wonderful moments for me as well. When do they come about?

When you can pitch tents randomly, on sandy banks of a river island, any island. Any shore, for that matter.

When the weather is perfect – not too hot, not too cold. With no chance of storms.

When you don’t have to hang up your food to keep it away from bears.

When you have a fantastic (and cheap, Ed would add!) REI tent that has four huge mesh screens to keep the bugs out and the views there, at the turn of your head.

Perhaps those are the obvious. Let me add some special ones: when you wake up in the morning and you look outside to see a misty dawn…





…And you know you don’t have to get up yet. You doze on and off to the music of birds. Sometimes the loud squawk of the crane, the chirp of a swallow or something completely unknown. It’s quiet out there. The morning is cool, but your bag is warm. The breeze travels from one corner of the tent to the next. The rain flap is up – no rain in sight. You look out and watch the morning progress.

















So, now you know about our last morning on the Wisconsin River. And all mornings were like that. Camping-wise, this trip scored on the upper end of the continuum of pleasurable outdoor living experiences.

But the day leading up to this: day four of our river life -- was it a good one? Yes, I’d say so. Sure, my river bath that starts the morning was cold and the water was, well, colorful. But it was at this most splendid island (see previous post). Who could complain.





And the paddle downstream continues to be bucolic and beautiful. The clouds help keep us cool (it would be so sweaty hot without them!).
















Our paddling stretch on this day is in two parts – fifteen miles down to Boscobel, navigating sandbanks and fallen timbers, passing the occasional fishing boat… having a good morning? Yep. How many? Twenty five so far. What kind? (The list is so long that I lose track. I do hear river bass and blue gill and walleye and a half dozen others.)





But mostly, the river is empty. Okay, not really empty. We see numerous cranes and when we get closer to the fallen timber that lines the shore, we hear the constant plop of turtles retreating into the water.










On a railway track I watch three raccoons mess with each other and toward the late afternoon, I watch a deer trot away from the river as we approach. But these are the only disturbances. The shore is a place of tranquility. Rarely do I see evidence that we, humans, have trotted through this landscape as well.






Boscobel is our stop for the day. We leave our boats at the landing and hike into town for food, water and WiFi.

Boscobel is closer in my mind to a town than a village. The demographics are town-like – a little over 3,000. But more importantly, Boscobel has a spirit to it. It’s opening up rather than putting up shutters on empty storefronts. (And it can’t be for the success of its logo: The Wild Turkey Hunting Capital of Wisconsin.)

I shouldn’t be surprised that we find an espresso café on the main street. No, it doesn’t define a boom mentality, I know that, but it does tell me that the town aspires to reach a broader client base. And there appears to be a thriving canoe rental business. And (I'm told this many times) a Chinese Restaurant. And a well tended museum at the old depot.





After 4 days of instant coffee (yes, there you have another downside to camping), I cannot resist an espresso. We settle in with our computers and chat to the owner’s husband. Open just two weeks. So far so good, he tells us.





There are a number of bars that offer food (if you noted the offerings at Bob’s in an earlier post, you will have recognized the menu of every single bar we’ve come across, plus minus an item or two), but we pick a coffee shop/diner type place for a meal – the Vale Inn.





Homemade pies and homemade soups, says the menu. But I want substance and so I have a quarter roasted chicken dinner (lookin’ awfully fried to me, but hey, it’s what’s underneath the skin that counts and the meat is quite moist and tasty), with the largest portion of fries this side of the Mississippi and choice of salad (iceberg, cole slaw or jell-o), $6 for the lot. Good deal. (But good greif, who forgot to tell our small town bars and diners that vegetables are super cool?)





It’s early evening and we have to hustle along. We have more than a third of the river before us and we want to end the paddling on the next day (Friday).

The sky is clearing. That’s good, in theory. I’ve noted here times of being wet and cold. But sun on the water is a tricky story. Especially if you’re heading west and the sun is heading in the same direction. We squint and try to pick out spots with a strong current. And we try to do it quickly, with a strong push to add another 8 or 9 miles to our day.















The light is fading now. It’s after 8 and we haven’t found a good spot to land. Spoiled, yes, after last night on the most perfect island. But, too, the sand islands are less frequent. Some of the islands here are densely wooded and marshy at the edges (though cranes appear to love this stuff).










But, our luck holds: as we round the corner, we see a diamond shaped sand bar, right in the middle of the river. It’s high enough, and its position at the bend offers wonderful views in all directions.

We pull in. The air is still and the bugs are coming out of wherever they went to rest for the past few windy days, but it hardly matters. Our tent keeps them out. Even as the occasional puff of wind refreshingly enters in, to make this yet again a beautiful camping moment.