New Glarus/Madison, Wisconsin 2016
My trip to Wisconsin to visit Donovan & Michael took place Nov.24-28.
After spending the night with MasterG and dropping me off at the YVR airport, I found it was not that busy and things went by okay. Before getting to my gate, I had Burger King for breakfast. I got a jalapeño chicken fries combo and apple pie. I then waited for my United Airlines flight. I was expecting the same great flight I had previously with them but nope… I had a 4 hour flight in which I was cramped in the window seat, there was no power outlet, and you had to access any entertainment via an in-flight app on your phone, tablet, or website for your laptop. I was not too impressed by this plane. I arrived on time in Chicago’s O’Hare Airport and had around an hour layover. I went to a McDonald’s and got a chicken sandwich meal plus a couple of apple pies. I took it to my gate to eat and plugged in my laptop to work on one of my upcoming blog entries. I found that my flight to Madison was the same exact plane I just took. There were far less people so I had the row to myself. At least this flight made sense given it was under an hour to MSN. During the flight, I thought about 2008 and my first meeting of Michael & Donovan when both David & Kevin were alive. And now, after all these years, we are meeting again but both David & Kevin are no longer in the picture. I had tears in my eyes when I had the thought of eventually returning home and not being able to tell David how my trip went, knowing it would have made him happy. It was night by the time I touched down in Madison and as I emerged from the gate and went down the escalator, I saw Michael & Donovan (M & D from now on). We gave each other a hug. While Donovan has gained a little weight, Michael has gained considerably more. But both are still handsome! We waited for my luggage and then Michael drove us (Michael would do the driving all my visit) to a stop at a Target so he could get a couple of cooking ingredients. He then drove us back to their home in New Glarus. I remember in my conservations through the years with Donovan that they have spent a lot of time and money renovating it slowly as it was an older home. And while it was an older home, it was nice and spacious. I got the tour and there was a bedroom for myself. It was used a while ago by a roommate of theirs but he essentially disappeared. My packages from the stuff I ordered about a month ago were waiting for me. I got my new leather pants from a supplier in San Francisco, Leather Etc. It was the same place I got my first pants from back in spring/summer 2006 but after my trip to Palm Springs last summer, I gained an inch or two and it no longer fits. These new pants fit around my waist okay but the inseam and leggings are a little too baggy. Once again like in 2006, the bottom leggings have to be hemmed. I let M & D know and Donovan would look for a person to do the hemming later. Also, part of my packages was a copy of Gate of Thunder (plus two Bonk’s Adventure games on the same CD) for Turbo Duo CD that I bought off EBay. Finally, my 3 copies of Angry Video Game Nerd Season 9 DVDs that I got off Amazon.com arrived too (one for myself, the other two as gifts to my siblings). After I left my luggage and laptop bag in the room, we had spaghetti for supper while watching some TV. We went to bed afterwards. I was warned about some lack of heat in the bedroom but I was given a heavier blanket to help keep warm.
Friday morning I noticed a kink in my neck, likely coming from the pillow I used and how I slept. Turning my head to the right was discomforting and it would take days to slowly get better. Anyways, I had my shower and went downstairs for delicious pancakes that Donovan made. After that, Michael took me to the local brewery for a quick tour at the New Glarus Brewing Company. Despite the cloudy weather, it wasn’t a bad tour in and outside the brewery and while I don’t drink, I was impressed by the steins they were selling among other souvenirs. Some of them had nice art on them and I found one that very much was in the classic style my parents would love. While my parents generally don’t accept gifts from us kids (especially me), I had a feeling they would like it given it would match the elegance of their home. I also bought myself a stein that was more of a US patriotic style and it was both cheaper and smaller. Altogether, it cost $182.84 Cdn. Michael then drove both of us home while Donovan was cooking Thanksgiving dinner. Before sunset, we were joined by this cute Daddybear named Scott and the four of us had dinner together. There was turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, corned hash, cranberry sauce, and peas. All of it was excellent! I didn’t bother having any of the pumpkin or mincemeat pies. Before we finished dinner, a fifth bear who was a little late visited and had some of the leftovers. After I was done, I went to the TV room and continued watching the Star Trek TOS marathon that BBC America was doing that day. These were selected episodes, likely popular ones with trekkies. Scott and the other bear eventually joined me. After M & D finished clearing the table and washing the dishes, Donovan joins me on the couch for some hand holding while a couple more bears come over (one was a FtM and was actually quite woofy) and play some board games with Michael. We were invited but I declined. As I was engrossed in watching Star Trek, I go on the Biggercity app on my phone and find that Scott had a profile. I cruised him and he eventually responded favourably to my cruise. After an hour or two, he had to leave but before he left, he and I had nice long kiss! I certainly hope to see him again the next time I visit! WOOF! After the other three bears left, we prepared for bedtime and I spent some time with M & D in their bedroom, talking about David for a while. I then went to bed before midnight.
Michael woke me up on Saturday morning. As he was naked and about my height as I laid in bed, I serviced him until he blew. WOOF! After my breakfast of lite-protein and a shower, Donovan made waffles for us. We then travelled all the way to Madison to spend the whole day mostly shopping. Our first order of business was to get my new leather pants hemmed as we were going to a leather gathering later that night. We found a place I think was called Top Tailoring. Sure enough, the tailor was able to hem my pants and it took about a 10 minute wait. Awesome! Second place we went to was Barnes & Nobles. We spent around half an hour there and I picked up a couple of religious books. At the cash register, I made a small donation to give a classic book for a child. The third place we went was a cool video game store that was pretty similar to Willow Video back home, called Preplayed. I first checked to see if they had a used copy of Disney’s Fantasia on Blu-Ray but to no avail. But I did find two interesting purchases: Muramasa: The Demon Blade for Wii and a PS1 RPG that I’ve been wanting for years, Lunar: Eternal Blue Complete. Both were used but the condition for Lunar was pretty good and came with practically everything! It was $152.93 Cdn all together. Before continuing, we stopped off at a place called Happy Wok for lunch. I had kung pao chicken with peanuts. Things went downhill when Donovan and I got into a long debate/argument on matters of religion and politics. Like Daddy Eric back in Texas, it was the same thing: both profess a Christian faith but then say: “I would take fundamentalist Islam over fundamentalist Christianity any day!” I’m once again puzzled that someone would say that and be ignorant to the problems that Islamic terrorism has been doing for 15 years in the United States and other nations compared to relatively few problems that Christians have done (and even then, mostly scandals). I argue while Christianity did some bad things in the past and will continue to make mistakes even today, it has overwhelmingly done more good in giving the world literacy, science, philosophy, art, music, human rights, hospitals, universities, etc. than Islam ever did. It all comes down to the founders of their religions and what they preached and the actions they did. In Christianity, Jesus taught love and forgiveness, never killed anyone, and never prescribed death to non-believers or those who opposed him. In Islam, Muhammed was unforgiving and ruthless, killed thousands of innocent people, and gave orders to his followers to kill Jews; Christians; and other non-believers. At this point, Donovan tried to use the “what about the Old Testament?” argument since it has violent passages. I retorted that yes, the Old Testament treats violence as a reality but both Jews and Christians recognize that they are historic-specific and not binding for all time. But then we got back into a circle saying that if fundamentalists in Islam can use the violent passages in the Quran/Hadith to justify violence, certainly fundamentalist Christians can do the same with the Bible. But I would refer back to my argument that it is STILL based on the conduct and standard of the founders of these respective religions that determines the actions of believers. If a Christian kills an unbeliever, he contradicts his faith and may compromise his salvation. This is not so in Islam since Muhammed killed and encouraged his followers to kill and that to be guaranteed paradise, being killed in jihad was the best thing to do. This debate lasted about an hour and Michael couldn’t take the tenseness of the atmosphere so he went outside and came back in a couple of times. When he did that, I recalled the first visit back in 2008 when David and I took them to a dungeon party downtown (the now long gone Davie Village Café) and David and I got into a heavy debate about morality and having sex with those just under the age of consent. I noticed Michael was very uncomfortable about the whole thing and then just now, he showed the same look. In the end, as we wrapped up talking about politics Donovan and I agreed on some things and had to disagree on others. For the next few hours I could sense Donovan did not take it well and said little to me.
After lunch, we went to a Walmart that Donovan once worked at so I could pick up some Snyder’s Pretzels. Not only were they easy to find, they also had a couple of flavours I’ve never seen before: Smores and Salted Caramel! I grabbed two boxes of my favourite large salted sourdough pretzels and one bag of each flavor to try them out later. We then made a quick stop off at Radio Shack for Donovan to check for some parts he needed. I don’t even remember the last time I was in a Radio Shack (possibly at Bellis Fair Mall in Bellingham, WA around 15 years ago or more)! One comic book shop we went to next was Westfield Comics. They had some nice figures but I picked up the second part of a Zelda graphic novel I’ve been looking all over for. As sunset was starting, we went to a couple of second hand stores. The first one had a lot of books and movies. I picked up a copy of Ray Comfort’s book on The Beatles and since it looked interesting (though I’m not a fan of Ray Comfort) I bought it. The other second shop was more clothing and furniture based but Michael needed to have a look around. As night was soon on us, we then went to Safeway to wait for and pick up Michael’s pup, Nick. We then decided to have supper and it was going to be at HuHot Mongolian Grill. It was a great place and while it was full, we got a table in a few minutes after one group left. The selection of meats and veggies were pretty generous for an all-u-can-eat Mongolian Grill. For pop, they had free flow so I chose a raspberry flavoured Dr. Pepper (I did a second flavor but forgot what it was). It was an excellent meal and at the end - with Donovan’s permission - I paid for all 4 of us. Before our main event that night, we went to Best Buy as Michael wanted to find speakers that connected via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. He wants it so they can listen to music in the dining room while eating. He couldn’t find an appropriate one and as for myself, I picked up a Nintendo amiibo of “Pit” from Kid Icarus. We then drove into downtown Madison and put on some of our gear in a parking lot about a block away from the bar we were going to. I put on my new leather pants and while it fit well, the leggings and crotch area was too loose so it meant I’ll have to look into alternating the pants to make it tighter. The new harness fit well too. We then proceeded to WOOF’s and as you can guess, was the city’s bear bar. There was a pansexual fetish night going on and while it was a nice bar, it did suck that having a lot of women and straights around was kind of killing the atmosphere. There was this cute stocky bearded Daddybear who was getting his nips played with in front of me by another Daddybear which was hot to watch. The four of us sat and stood together and I had a couple of glasses of pop. I met the owner and we even drove by his house sometime before that night (M & D pointed it out). Behind us was the pool table and some BDSM going on, including a woman getting her ass strapped. Before leaving we had a picture taken of all four of us and I bought a sweater from the shop in the back. We returned to the van and dropped Nick back at the Safeway we picked him up at. We went home and then to bed afterwards after a fun day together.
Before and during my trip, I was told by my friend James (Rubberrhino) in Minneapolis that he would be visiting his mother and brother in Milwaukee for Thanksgiving. On his way home Sunday, he would be passing through Madison so that morning, the three of us met him at Panera Bread. We spent an hour chatting and it was good to see him and talk about rubber and leather events. I was grateful M & D were patient throughout the chat as they could say very little. After the brunch and saying goodbye to James, we then returned to the same Walmart from the previous day so Michael could look for a contact lens kit. Afterwards we went to a couple of small places. When we returned to New Glarus, we stopped at a park so I could snap a few pictures (a shame it was cloudy that day) and then we went to a fast food restaurant (I forgot the name) which served soft ice cream desserts. It was a very nice treat, I remember getting a cookie dough flavor. After a quick stop to a small hardware store and being amused by these bottles of pop they were carrying, we went home and spent the rest of the day there. We watched a couple of DVDs and ordered pizza. The first movie we watched while we waited for the delivered pizza was Latter Days, which was okay but Donovan likes it more. The pizza they had me create was Canadian: pepperoni, mushroom, and bacon. It was pretty good from the place they ordered from. After Latter Days we watched Bearcity. It was pretty good and the bears they had were super woofy! After the movie was done, it wasn’t long for M & D to go to bed as we had to get up early for my morning flight. I started packing while they went to bed and then I became emotional. I started crying. I wish I didn’t have to go and leave them given they are one of the few things connected to the life I had with David & Kevin years ago. It kind of felt being in a leatherbear family again but I have to go back to reality. After I finished crying and got most of my packing done, Michael approaches me and asked for me to cuddle with Donovan for a bit as he wanted it. So I went up and we cuddled in bed together. We talked for half an hour and relayed my sadness. We talked about future visits and acknowledged the love we had for each other. After we were done, I left and let Michael return so he could go to bed. I then completed most of the packing and went to bed myself sometime before midnight.
We got up before sunrise and I put my stuff downstairs. I found I couldn’t take everything so I left all the pretzels, the amiibo figure, and WOOFs sweater. I would let them know when to ship it to me in the future. Michael drove as usual with Donovan in the passenger seat and myself in the back. We got back to MSN and said my final goodbyes to them and thanked them for their awesome hospitality! While I was early, security had quite a lineup and there wasn’t much time to relax or get some breakfast before my flight. After about an hour and the cloudy morning illuminated the Midwest, I arrived in ORD. I wanted to return to the same McDonald’s there as before but there was a lineup and I had no breakfast given the limited time for my connecting flight home. I had a washroom break and picked up a pop and snack quickly. The flight back home was also abysmal but fell asleep on and off. Before landing, I helped this bearish guy with his customs card as he has never been to Canada before. I even proofread it for him to make sure he filled out the required spaces and he was thankful. After landing and the long walk to customs about an hour before noon, there was no interview - just did a passport scan and stuck my customs card into the machine to be photocopied and handed to the customs official. MasterG picked me up at the same drop off point. On the way back to his place, he mentioned about the heavy wind recently in the Lower Mainland and that they are predicting snow soon. Oh great… anyways, I paid him my $20 for the ride and I found my car was okay after that trip. After I got home, I gave my parents the stein and they loved it! They thought it was perfect as it represented the classical European renaissance art style they prefer.
I had a wonderful time visiting with M & D. They haven't changed which was a good thing and perhaps, we'll get in some more play for my next visit. I plan to come back in the summer or fall again but I'll have some more concrete come this spring.