cool

It seemed like a good plan to take a few hours out for a walk and a swim today. The draining heat hasn’t eased much (a handful of degrees lower than 105 doesn't count) and so looking for outdoor activities is not easy.

If you’re a Madisonian, thinking of where to go for a cool escape, what's your go-to place? Devil’s Lake. A cool body of clear water with beaches on both ends and towering bluffs at the side for good hiking. About an hour due north.

That was the plan.

But Devil's Lake is tricky. The hiking trails are a mess. Maps stray from reality. Reality strays from the predictable. And once you lose your markers, you'll never reclaim your path. The best you can hope for is some safe return home. This way or that.

Then there's the matter of a cool, clear, deep lake – since when has Devil’s Lake turned murky, shallow and warm?

I know, I know, we need the rains to fill the streams to flush out the warm waters of our lakes some.

In the meantime, we have what we have.


Okay, so this is our day:

Breakfast on the porch – with the hope that we wont quickly jump from 70 degrees in the first hours of the morning to 90 by noon. (Hopes dashed in this regard.)

A hike along the trails at Devil’s Lake. It should have been forest and bluffs, instead it was forests and meadows and a lot of warm sunshine in between. (No dashed hopes there, just a lot of hot confusion.)

A quick dip in the warm lake waters. For me – only up to my ankles. Something about the sign cautioning against swimmer’s itch (even though the park ranger swore they haven’t had a complaint for two weeks now!) was off-putting. (So hopes dashed, at least slightly in this regard.) Note alternative to swimming: fold out chairs in the water.

But hey, the exercise is splendid, the meadows are ever lovely and verdant and the company is superb (Ed, please don't hide your face!)

It was a wonderful day. (No dashed hopes at all in this regard.)

movement

As I consider the three days since our return, I see that they have one thing in common: in all three, we’ve slowed down to a crawl. Whereas during our trip, each day had a good dose of walking, hiking, or swimming, since we’ve been back, each day has had a good dose of sitting. Yes, there was a market outing and there have been many hours of watering, so not every moment has been spent on the couch, but I do have to admit that especially on hot days, it’s hard to come anywhere near the amount of activity that we typically have when we’re away.

Sunday. Ed, we have to return to our more active ways! (I say this now that the temps have dropped a handful of degrees.)

And so in the morning, we plan on doing one of my favorite small loops – a combination of kayaking-biking that brings back memories – it’s the first such “excursion” that Ed and I did in the year that we met.

We eat breakfast on the porch (at last! it's 'cool' enough!)...

...then I poke out a few wasps from the hinges of the old pickup truck (this, after poking out a few wasps from the lid of the second garbage can, having already done this once from the lid of the first garbage can) and we load it with the two boats and two bikes. Off we go.

...Toward Lake Kegonsa, where we leave the bikes. We drive then toward Lake Waubesa and put in the kayaks on the Yahara River (just after the damn).

It’s a lovely little run – not taxing at all, but it’s bird filled (and algae filled and, unfortunately, in the Mud Lake – dead carp filled) and the breeze is wonderful and the sky is blue and it just feels good to be pushing at water again!

My Huck Finn Ed says to me – we should take the boat down the Yahara this summer, all the way to the Mississippi... (The Yahara runs into the Rock which, in turn, eventually runs into the Mississippi). I say – okay.

Our summer play is just like that: plans hatch from the seat of a bike, or a boat on a very warm day.

As we glide into Lake Kegonsa, the Sunday boat traffic picks up, but that’s okay, we get out here, leave our kayaks and bike back toward the truck.

The bike ride itself is mostly flat and delightfully bucolic.






Ed rides always a few paces behind me. I comment over my shoulder that my tires need a little more air and within seconds I hear a little crunch and I think surely I must have flattened one. I glance back and see that my tire is just fine, but Ed and his bike have landed in a ditch.

Now, Ed is one experienced cyclist and I have never ever seen him fall. Yes, I know that many years ago he broke his collar bone going down a hill fast and flipping over something on the road, but that was then and it was a hill and this is now and we are on a stretch of simple, quiet roads.

Eventually I learn that a car came up on him and in trying to merge behind me, what with my lackadaisical la-di-da peddling, he managed to hit my tire and take a tumble.

He’s not hurt and indeed, the whole incident is one that is chuckle worthy, nothing more than that, but I post about it with the hope of encouraging all out there to wear helmets, because even on the simplest runs, you just never know.

We're pedaling along, and we pass a nature trail and we’re curious about this too, so we leave our bikes and hike down a bit, past willows and tall cattails and prairies that haven't yet turned yellow and brittle.


 













We push around an old, abandoned tennis ball, outdoing one another in the distance of the kick.

In the course of this rambling kind of a day, we come across your typical side of the road corn and melon stand and we pause to buy both, but it’s sort of a sad moment because typically, corn here spills from trucks loaded down with it and it is joyously sold in huge quantities to willing cob loving buyers. This year, the crop in southern Wisconsin is in severe trouble because of the heat and drought. The family selling what little they have looks grim. Rain, where the hell are you this year?

In the evening, my girl and her fiancé came over for supper, which of course has the corn and the market tomatoes etc etc. An Ocean commenter reflected that when you are on vacation, you always eat better than when you’re home. That’s not true for us. We eat with great care at home and we let go of any hard and fast rules when we travel. And so it’s good to be back to a fridge filled with veggies and seasonal stuff.

But let me repeat – may we please help out the growers in the south of our state by giving them (us) some rain?

tribulations

1.

Late last night, as Ed and I fell back (so quickly!) into an old routine of falling asleep downstairs while watching a movie, then waking up with a jolt long after the movie had ended. I see that Isis is purring next to me, but quietly. I’m thinking – maybe he’s missing my nephew.

As we get up to retreat upstairs, Isis goes outside. There isn’t a litter box in the farmhouse and in any case, he often takes a night’s stroll through the yard. He spends the night in the sheep shed and I don’t see him until after breakfast the next morning.

Morning: Isis meanders slowly up the brick walkway to the farmhouse. I’m horrified to see a big gash at the side of his head – a rerun of a cat attack from some five weeks back, only bigger and uglier. This time we're prepared. Ed washes the wound and puts on some antibacterial cream. Isis seems fine otherwise – appetite’s good and he follows us, sitting back in the shade to watch the world go by, but I have to worry about this aging animal. He’s slouching more and in my eyes, he’s looking old.

2.

For the first time, Ed joins my daughter and me for the trip to the downtown market. It’s cooler today – 86 instead of 96. It makes a difference!

We are shockingly coordinated, the three of us. Perhaps you can spot the (accidental) similarity?

I am pleased to see so many farmers displaying robust crops. They’re hanging in there, though most of the daylight hours are spent on bringing water to the fields. We buy the usual – tomatoes, potatoes, cheese curds, oyster mushrooms, shiitakes. And flowers.

 

Relieved to see so many bright colors (after feeling the oppressive heat of the past week), we retreat to the farmette and check on Isis.

So far so good. More ointment on the wound. Hoping that the attacking cat will learn to stay away.

3.

This morning (and afternoon and evening) I open a Word file that I had not viewed since October 3, 2011. It’s my book project and I hope to make significant inroads during the remaining two months of summer.

I spend the day rereading what’s there (and wanting so much to edit it some more, even as I know that what I need to do is not edit but write – add pages to the current 124).

4.

For dinner, I make a salad.

change

My nephew and I surveyed the garden one last time.  I’ve learned what survives the heat. All the lavender plants are thriving. Of course. Hot and dry. So... southern France.

Nasturtium? (Monet’s standby in the more northern Giverny) Forget it. No amount of water helped keep them sprightly and flowering through the heat wave. They hate it and they let me know it. You touch them in a kind gesture of sympathy and they shrivel, like a kid sticking out a tongue at you for not giving her what she wants.

But of course, next year may be different altogether. It may rain again. Wisconsin (like life?) is so unpredictable.

As I drive my nephew to the airport, we talk about uncertainty. Not clear when I will see him again, not clear where he will be.

So my nephew’s gone and Ed and I have to think about watering, but in the meantime we’re back at Paul’s Oasis Café and here’s a change for you – Paul is married now! You go away for a month and the wheels keep spinning.

For dinner I cook up one of my market standbys: green beans, potato, egg, tomato, scallion.

 Missing are the Mediterranean anchovies. Present is Isis. (The photo of him is from the time I was watering. He sat back, somewhat sleepily and contemplated life amidst the smallest of the tomato plants.)

Life. ... when I jump out, you jump in (jump rope song from childhood days).

heroic efforts

It is always surprising to me how easy a complicated journey can be when nothing goes wrong. Take our trip back: Wake up at 4:30, cab comes at 5, check in at the Barcelona airport an hour and a half before flight takes off, and by 6:50 a.m. -- taxing along the runway.

Land in Paris (no issues – weather’s beautiful throughout), eat lovely breakfast of pain au chocolat and café au lait at the airport, board plane (okay, insert here a qualifier: Delta, you should update your interiors to remain competitive!), take off within acceptable timeline, eight and a half hours later land in Detroit.

Immigration officer is friendly, customs officer even cracks a smile. Now, there is a problem with the plane to Madison, but so what. We’re an hour late. We have crossed six time zones and traveled thousands of miles and crossed an ocean. I can take being an hour late.

Here’s the tough part: we came home to record breaking heat. Whereas last year, June was cold and wet, this year June in Madison was hot and dry.

And I mean hot. Several days of above 100 degrees. In my thirty years here, I’d never known it go that high – not even in July or August.

My nephew, whom I asked to occasionally water the garden, you know, in case it doesn’t rain, had his hands full. Thanks to his herculean efforts, the orchard is saved, the tomatoes are thriving and the flowers, though already peaked in terms of their blooming time (more than a month ahead of schedule..sigh...), still add color to an otherwise parched and limp looking farmland.

And here’s another thing: my nephew befriended Isis to such an extent that the cat is actually a tad indifferent to our return home and spent the evening snuggling next to my nephew rather than next to us.

[Slightly disconcerting, though in a very good way, is the fact that my nephew was better at keeping the farmhouse spotless than I would have been – disconcerting because I always thought I could claim top honors in cleaning. I was outperformed.]

This morning I faced the problems that farmettes tend to have: the wasp nests in the garbage cans, the holes made by animals all over the yard, the spent flowers that I can only clip and say – sorry I missed your show... see you next year! and the various packs of animals that are regularly visiting here. The latest ones? A family of sandhill cranes seems to like the barn area. Deer are frequent guests as well. I can’t even imagine what other more secretive creature has come to the cooling shades here.

And still, things look good for us. Great even. 

In the evening, we do last minute all-American things with my nephew (he leaves tomorrow). A visit with my daughter and friends...

A trip to a multiplex ('Moonrise Kingdom'), a pizza at our favorite local pizzeria...

... and then, following the inspiration from a fellow blogger and encouragement from my nephew, I take on the task of cutting Ed’s hair.

Before...

...and after:

...to the backdrop of my nephew doing his final act of watering.

It’s good to be back. But I do wish my nephew didn’t live so far away.

art

It’s rare that you’ll find us seeking out big cities just so that we can visit a particular museum. Rare does not mean never. As we are in Basque, there is Bilbao to think about. Bilbao is home to the (now 15 year old) Bilbao Guggenheim Museum of Modern Art.

Now, there’s a whole story about the Guggenheim brothers and their rise to wealth (and it’s not an especially pretty story), and there’s another one about how it is that the Guggenheim offspring turned to philanthropy, and then there is a great story about how a prominent architect (Gehry) won the bid to design Bilbao’s museum – but they’re long stories and I promised I’d cut down on long stories here, so we’ll put them aside for now. I’ll just say this – if you like the Guggenheim Museum in New York, and the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice, you will be stunned at the magnitude and originality of the space created for the Guggenheim collection in Bilbao.

On the approach, it just looks a little weird. Almost thrown together. Titanium plates, glass, limestone block, all shuffled, like a deck of cards or a clumsy tower of kid blocks, just as it spills to the table.

Maybe you’ll be charmed by Puppy (pronounced ‘poopy’) – Koon’s flower pup that stands just as you come close to the entrance. I kind of have an “eh” reaction to Puppy, but he does offer color, so there’s that.

The Museum stands at the side of an old Bilbao bridge and I could write another chapter about the integration of the (somewhat severe) bridge into the design and making it a wonderful integral part of the entirety -- and we're talking about the old industrial part of Bilbao that grew along the once busy river, so there's that challenge too...

... but I'll pass on that and say only that the best view of the building will be from the bridge. And so on the evening of our arrival in Bilbao, we walk across the bridge and look down on what now surely must look to you like a magnificent ship. It takes your breath away! (As does standing on a busy artery, high over the waters, if you're inclined toward vertigo.)

Once across the river, we walk along its bank, then cross back on the nearby pedestrian bridge – also something to admire.

Even after you cross it.

It’s evening, We’re hungry. Pintxos first, okay Ed? He goes along and we sit down at a known place thinking that surely a known place will be easy to navigate and we have okay tapas (sorry, pintxos) – a good octopus salad, a yummy egg spinach and ham tortilla and, well, a sort of flat tasting artichoke, but fine, all fine, can’t be immediately brilliant at this, it takes skills to order tapas here, yes, I admit it, it’s complicated.

And now we look for a dinner spot. I ripped a page out a book with several names of modest places. None of them are open anymore. And so for future reference: we promise ourselves never again to use printed guides for food searches.

Wandering up one street and down the next is sometimes a nice way to pick dining spots – but this time we do not strike gold. More like an “also ran.” It is a café, an old one and we order just appetizers – mushrooms with nuts and ham, fried mussels and fried green peppers. I know, lots of “fried.” 

And they are just fine but here’s the thing – we’ve been having a heck of a tough time eating inexpensively and well since leaving San Sebastian. Let me qualify this – none of it has been bad, but nor has it been memorable (for example, I just nudged Ed and asked him if he remembered what the third dish was in Bilbao and neither of us could recall it. You could say that this is what happens when you travel with the beginnings of dementia, but I don’t think we’re there yet).

The next morning, we are at the entrance to the Museum before it even opens.

 

You can’t come late to a popular place. You want to have a minute at least to enter it in the quietness that lets you see it, even if only ever so briefly, without distraction.

And we do have that.

Art people complain that too many visitors gawk at the building and don’t take in the art. I can’t imagine how this could happen. The art is perfectly distributed between three floors, all opening onto the grand atrium. (here it is, looking up.)

It is the easiest museum to navigate and it has such imposing art (consider this first room of canvases of Lenin and Stalin, with prominent penises in each, or consider the second one -- the snake: a huge and I mean huge, so huge that you can NEVER remove it from the museum – art sculpture)...

There is a rule (I think) that allows you to photograph the architecture but now so much the individual canvases and no one knows how to distinguish between the two. I certainly don’t know. There aren't signs, just an occasional person to tell you no, not that, but yes to the other.

I wont spend forever on the art here, even though Ed and I do spend forever on the art there, inside Gehry’s building – which is unusual for us. Okay, just a tiny bit more: consider a small room with warm light bulbs and a thousand photos of people. Or another room, where a teacher has kids do a dance in front of the mirrors permanently there.

Or the special exhibition of David Hockney, who painted countless canvases of Yorkshire landscapes and then, after, moved on to produce incredible ‘paintings’ with his iPad. You can see the latter here:

I mean, how do you not marvel at it all? MoMA in New York has a lot of the ‘famous’ art. The pieces in Bilbao are (for me at least) less known, but oh my, are they impressive.

Okay, okay, I need to stop. It was, I have to say, one of the very best museum experiences we’ve had in many, many years.

Here we are: look closely and you’ll see us reflected. In many panes.

And now we are outside the museum again and the air is pleasant, the light is bright...

And after? There is no after. Our trip really does almost end there. We go back to our cool hotel and I upload pictures (the WiFi is so slow!) and we munch on free snacks...

... and then we walk back to the train station – reeling back our travels here, back, back, so that we let go of the new spaces, one at a time...

...and we take the train back to Barcelona. (Not a short ride. Seven hours.)

We pull into Barcelona at 10:30 at night. We have a handful of hours to accomplish the following: walk to the Hotel Villa Emilia, reclaim my suitcase with the rosés, find supper, pack up and cushion those damn wines, rest, shower, grab a 5 am cab to the airport (no bus runs that early here).

Where to eat? When we were here earlier in June, we poked around the neighborhood to find a place close by that would serve a good supper very very late. A block away there is the casual, the wonderful, the (finally!) well priced "Little Snail."

The proprietor is a good soul who asked to be photographed and placed on the Internet (I will be famous!) so here he is:

The satisfaction comes with the food. Simple, sure, but memorable. Fantastic paella, followed by shrimp with an abundance of garlic...

 ...ending with an apple tart. (night menu, all inclusive price: 12.90)

So it’s a perfect ending. One always hopes for a perfect ending. You can’t expect everything coming together for you every day, but isn’t it true that the end of it all, it should put you in a good mood? Day is done, gone the sun... It was such a good trip!

And the (full?) moon shines brightly over the Calle Calabria in Barcelona. Home, for just a few hours, passing through, to get to the real home.

[From Detroit: Happy Fourth of July!]