Gone and back again

November 6, 2006 (12:12pm)
42º F, Cloudy, S wind 4 mph.

Good afternoon,

Now we are getting a couple of days of the warm and dry (reasonably) weather we should have had a few weeks ago. Go figure. The weatherman is talking of mid-60's for tomorrow. Hope to get some things done tomorrow, but it is Bible study and voting day too! Those two things will cut into my work time some a lot.

I/we sure will be glad to have the elections finally tomorrow. At least then the attack ads and their sludge slinging will be over for a while. Then we can look forward to about 6 months of intensive regurgitation of all the details of why someone lost the election and someone else didn’t, followed by another 6 months of less intense regurgitation of the same things again and the "I told you so’s" that follow. At that point, it starts all over again for the Presidential election. It might even start earlier - who knows. It really would be nice to have just an election on the issues and not on how high someone can pile the sludge about their opponent.

We decided that we "had" to make a trip to the Amish store near Shawano. Well at least it was a good (?) excuse to go for a ride for a couple of days. After stopping for our usual sweet roll and milk to chew on while we rode and filling the tank we gasoline, we headed northwest. We were not sure what time the store opened, but we really did need to worry, as they opened bout the time we left here. High on the shopping list was rye flour. Margriet was able to pick up a sizeable amount for about half the price of a 4# bag in the stores, when they have it.

I also have been chewing on a bit of granola in the morning when I get up early, like 4:30 A.M. and Margriet normally doesn’t get up until much later, so breakfast is often about 10:00 A.M. Too late for me not to be very hungry. Rather than buying it, we decided to make it, something I haven’t done for many years. The ingredients are also carried by the Amish store at a lot lower price. I think we got everything, except some slices almonds. Should be able to build a pretty good pile of it.

Margriet managed to find other things to buy too. They have an excellent supply of spices. Being in bulk, rather inexpensive too. One thing she did pick up, that I remember, was dried hominy. Almost first thing this morning, she put some on to soak, so expect we will be having it tomorrow with something. We are having chicken and dumplings for supper tonight, so it will have to be tomorrow. At the moment she is building Russian tea since she was able to get the instant orange drink there in very large quantities. Sure smells good as she mixes it too.

I did my share of wandering around too, looking for something interesting to pick up. I have made it a habit to pick up a bag of candy or some such to take to Bible study. They have a large variety of "old-fashioned" candies - the kind we had as kids. Everyone seems to enjoy the "flash back" and the younger folks get an education. Most often they agree we had pretty good things to eat way back when.

After leaving the Amish store, we wandered north through the Menominee Indian Reservation. We have driven that route before as it is beautiful and a really nice winding road. Reminds me of highway #21 near Wautoma that I used to drive from college to Milwaukee in the early ‘60's. That on wound between the lakes, this one follows a couple of rivers. Lots of twists and turns, ups and downs. Fun to drive. The water in the rivers was moving at a pretty good clip, thanx to the rain in recent times, and really looked cold and foreboding. Not the normal blue, but very dark gray thanx to the overcast sky. Of course the rapids had very silver water as it broke over the rocks. Really neat. The entire length of the reservation is more or less a no passing zone. They have put in many "slow traffic" turnouts, but we really haven’t seen that much traffic, either slower than we drive or faster. The nature of the roadway pretty much dictates the speed of travel.

Now that almost all of the leaves are off of the trees, the character of the terrain really stands out. Not only can you see farther, but in more detail. I expect the look of the landscape will change drastically with some snow on the ground. They you can see much farther, but the details are covered and not visible. It is really nice to live in an area where the seasons really change and so does our perception and actual picture change during the year.

We stopped at a small café, "Double Buck Café" in Cavour. One of those small town, Mom and Pop places that are over looked by the tourists. The place was spotless and the food excellent. Margriet had a bowl of soup and I had the biggest, fattest hotdog in my life. It was really good. Almost 1½" in diameter and close to 8" long. Had a special bun to put it in too. Really good with some raw onions on it.

Wandered further north into the UP a bit. Since the price of gasoline is 10¢/gallon cheaper than here, thought it would be a good reason to go there. We found a good Mom and Pop motel and checked in. The Mom of the motel was just coming back from the store with groceries, so I helped her carry the last of it in for her. Guess it doesn’t happen often, and we got an additional 10% off of the room rate. Was not the intention, but liked the result. We went looking for a church to go to the following morning and found a 125 year old small country church. Would be there the following morning, but had to find something to chew on before turning in for the night. Stopped at an Italian place, ordering walleyed pike with pasta. First time I have eaten walleyed pike with spaghetti! The fillet of fish was huge and all of the food was excellent. More than Margriet could eat and more than I should have.

After and while I was doing my morning devotions, I could look out of the window at the lake in front of the motel, watching the sunrise. It was rather pretty, but soon disappeared into the overcast. The lake had a sheet of ice over most of it, but the part that had open water was filled with ducks and geese, looking for breakfast. There were a few seagulls on the ice sheet too. Not too sure what they were finding to eat, but it much have been something. There was not a wisp of wind, making it hard to distinguish what was ice and what was water. Apparently the birds had little trouble.

We arrived back home a bit after 3:00 P.M. with a bunch of "pictures of the mind" and some good times to remember. We really didn’t spend much money and managed to have a good break from our "normal" activities.

Time to get a-going.

In Christ My Saviour,

Chris <><