Little sunshine in the Big Woods
So Kevin, Indy and I are back from our weeklong sojourn to Wisconsin to burn off some furlough days (me) and take a much-needed break before student teaching begins (him). We went to Hayward, Wisconsin, to visit my in-laws at their summer house. This was my third trip up to the lake.
We were nervous about taking Indy with us because a.) It's a nine hour car ride to the house, b.) she would have to share the house with my in-laws' elderly Lab, Bailey, and c.) she can be difficult in new situations. She's very food-aggressive, and we worried that because of this, there would be problems between her and Bailey. I'm happy to report that she was an absolute doll the whole week. We took her to daycare all day last Friday and overnight so we could just pack up and go Saturday, and as long as the car was moving, she was sleeping. She only started getting antsy when we were about 15 minutes from the house and the forest road was bumpy and twisty. Surprisingly, Bailey and Indy just kind of avoided each other all week. The only scuffles came when it was WAFFLE TIME OMG and only one dog would fit in the coveted under-table spot. Luckily Grandma made enough waffles for both dogs to get their own.
I'm glad Indy had a good time, because the rest of the week was kind of shitty. Sunday and Monday, we went into town, got him a fishing license and had lunch at Coop's (seriously the best pizza I have ever, ever eaten) and went boating, fishing and canoeing. The rest of the week, not so much. From Tuesday on, it was cloudy and cold. It was either pouring rain or windy and 50 degrees. It sucked SO MUCH. The house is about 30 minutes from the nearest town in deep, deep woods. If it were too cold to be out on the water, there was not a damn thing to do. I read all of the books I brought with (I Capture the Castle, The Commodore, Anna Karenina) and practiced different knitting techniques so I can start making things that aren't scarves, which is kind of pathetic for a vacation.
A family of bears have apparently moved into the neighborhood, but I didn't see one, which was a bummer. Apparently, one bear would wander through the property to raid my MIL's raspberry patch, according to the nightly deposits of bear poop we would find every morning by the satellite dish. I did see: deer (many), loons, ducks, bald eagles, geese, wild turkeys, something that looked like a baby pheasant, herons, and hawks.
I managed to talk Kevin out of going to see Harry Potter on Wednesday (after catching the midnight premiere of Prisoner of Azkaban, I swore I'd never go see HP on the first day ever again.) so on the night we decided we couldn't take being in the house one more minute, we drove into town to see Public Enemies. I was meh on it, but Kevin really liked it. Since a lot of the movie was filmed around here, it was cool to see all the familiar spots on screen. My best friend's boyfriend was an extra dancing in the scene where John Dillinger meets Billie, but we didn't see him. Also, during the scene where Dillinger escapes from the state pen for the second time, he stops the car in front of the hardware store my grandfather owned in Lockport for years and years.
So the vacation pretty much sucked. Our big excitement for the week was going shopping in town and going out to dinner for Kevin's birthday. We got a lot of fun foods (fancy popcorn! Beer bread mix!) and some touristy-type stuff, and we found a really nifty old mantel clock for $25 at the local thrift shop.
I begged Kevin to leave Saturday, thinking we could come home at our leisure and have Sunday off to veg, but he wasn't having it. I'm still kind of annoyed by that. I was nearly crawling the walls with boredom, and if my mother-in-law had told me one more time how many calories/carbs/salt were in whatever I happened to be eating, and how easy it was to get in town, and the difference of price between Hayward and Aurora I was going to seriously lose it. I drank an entire bottle of wine one night (which is crazy cheap in Wisconsin, what's up with that).
So we left Sunday, and it was only after much nagging on my part that we got on the road at a reasonable hour. Thanks to the shitty economy, the stretch of highway between the Dells and the Illinois border was not as insanely congested as it usually is on the weekends in the summer. As for license plates, we saw: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming, Texas, Idaho, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Government, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario. Almost all of the Pacific Northwest and a shit-ton of truckers from Canada.
Even though the vacation wasn't so much fun, I'm amazed how relaxed I am after getting home. I feel like we've been away for weeks and I'm seeing the house for the first time in forever. It's nice being home.
We were nervous about taking Indy with us because a.) It's a nine hour car ride to the house, b.) she would have to share the house with my in-laws' elderly Lab, Bailey, and c.) she can be difficult in new situations. She's very food-aggressive, and we worried that because of this, there would be problems between her and Bailey. I'm happy to report that she was an absolute doll the whole week. We took her to daycare all day last Friday and overnight so we could just pack up and go Saturday, and as long as the car was moving, she was sleeping. She only started getting antsy when we were about 15 minutes from the house and the forest road was bumpy and twisty. Surprisingly, Bailey and Indy just kind of avoided each other all week. The only scuffles came when it was WAFFLE TIME OMG and only one dog would fit in the coveted under-table spot. Luckily Grandma made enough waffles for both dogs to get their own.
I'm glad Indy had a good time, because the rest of the week was kind of shitty. Sunday and Monday, we went into town, got him a fishing license and had lunch at Coop's (seriously the best pizza I have ever, ever eaten) and went boating, fishing and canoeing. The rest of the week, not so much. From Tuesday on, it was cloudy and cold. It was either pouring rain or windy and 50 degrees. It sucked SO MUCH. The house is about 30 minutes from the nearest town in deep, deep woods. If it were too cold to be out on the water, there was not a damn thing to do. I read all of the books I brought with (I Capture the Castle, The Commodore, Anna Karenina) and practiced different knitting techniques so I can start making things that aren't scarves, which is kind of pathetic for a vacation.
A family of bears have apparently moved into the neighborhood, but I didn't see one, which was a bummer. Apparently, one bear would wander through the property to raid my MIL's raspberry patch, according to the nightly deposits of bear poop we would find every morning by the satellite dish. I did see: deer (many), loons, ducks, bald eagles, geese, wild turkeys, something that looked like a baby pheasant, herons, and hawks.
I managed to talk Kevin out of going to see Harry Potter on Wednesday (after catching the midnight premiere of Prisoner of Azkaban, I swore I'd never go see HP on the first day ever again.) so on the night we decided we couldn't take being in the house one more minute, we drove into town to see Public Enemies. I was meh on it, but Kevin really liked it. Since a lot of the movie was filmed around here, it was cool to see all the familiar spots on screen. My best friend's boyfriend was an extra dancing in the scene where John Dillinger meets Billie, but we didn't see him. Also, during the scene where Dillinger escapes from the state pen for the second time, he stops the car in front of the hardware store my grandfather owned in Lockport for years and years.
So the vacation pretty much sucked. Our big excitement for the week was going shopping in town and going out to dinner for Kevin's birthday. We got a lot of fun foods (fancy popcorn! Beer bread mix!) and some touristy-type stuff, and we found a really nifty old mantel clock for $25 at the local thrift shop.
I begged Kevin to leave Saturday, thinking we could come home at our leisure and have Sunday off to veg, but he wasn't having it. I'm still kind of annoyed by that. I was nearly crawling the walls with boredom, and if my mother-in-law had told me one more time how many calories/carbs/salt were in whatever I happened to be eating, and how easy it was to get in town, and the difference of price between Hayward and Aurora I was going to seriously lose it. I drank an entire bottle of wine one night (which is crazy cheap in Wisconsin, what's up with that).
So we left Sunday, and it was only after much nagging on my part that we got on the road at a reasonable hour. Thanks to the shitty economy, the stretch of highway between the Dells and the Illinois border was not as insanely congested as it usually is on the weekends in the summer. As for license plates, we saw: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming, Texas, Idaho, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Government, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario. Almost all of the Pacific Northwest and a shit-ton of truckers from Canada.
Even though the vacation wasn't so much fun, I'm amazed how relaxed I am after getting home. I feel like we've been away for weeks and I'm seeing the house for the first time in forever. It's nice being home.