Madison - Part 2

Jo had some business in Neenah, WI last Friday so I tagged along to spend a little time touring beautiful Neenah.  Turns out you can walk through the downtown in a fairly short time and there was really only one shop that I felt warranted me shopping in, so I kill some of the time until Jo was finished, I decided to stroll through a few neighborhoods to see what Neenah had to offer from a housing standpoint.  One highlight was finding a miniature Statue of Liberty that a local businessman donated to the city - don't ask me why, he just felt the need.  I had a great time admiring some of the larger houses in Neenah and strolling along the shores of Lake Winnebago.

 After her meeting finished up, we drove down to Madison to finally get to see a UW football game since we hadn't made it to one as yet.  Saturday was an absolutely perfect fall football day.  Not a cloud in the sky, temperatures in the mid to high 50's, and a light breeze.  Plus the Badger's played great against our new Big Ten rivals, Maryland.  We stayed to enjoy the band during the fifth quarter before walking up State Street to see the old sites.  After a great dinner with Kathy, Drew, and Amy it was time to pack up the car to head home.  To cement the perfect football Saturday our other alma mater, Illinois, won against Minnesota.

Sunday morning we hiked for our daily exercise covering about 5 miles and then stopped for a cinnamon roll at City Market just to be sure we didn't waste away to nothing from all that exercising.  Sunday afternoon was trick and treat time in Milwaukee.  The city schedules tricking and treating for a weekend afternoon around Halloween.  While it is safer for all the kids running around the houses, some of the mystery of Halloween seems to be lost.  It was great fun to see all the kids dressed up in their costumes with princesses being a very popular theme among the young ladies.  We finished our weekend watching the Packer's lose - oh well, can't have everything.

I also finished pulling all the fall crops from the garden last week.  This meant the last of the acorn squash (which after roasting and combining with some gnocchi made a great pasta dish for Sunday), onions, leeks, and carrots.  We had pretty good carrot crop this year with less of the gargantuan, mutant carrots that we had last year.  Only parsnips and some mini-Brussels sprouts are left.
 

Madison - Part 1

We celebrated another birthday for Jo almost two weeks ago (I'm a little behind on my posting).  It was a pretty low key affair, with just the two of us.  We heated up some of our Papa Del's pizza since that seemed like the best taste treat and had birthday cake for dessert.  Then it was to the fun part, opening presents, with Jo picking up several new clothing items and a few things for the kitchen.  Then it was off for a nice quiet walk around the neighborhood to chat about all the changes since we starting celebrating birthdays together a long time ago.

Jo is on the University of Wisconsin Chemistry's board and since she had a meeting two Friday's ago, we headed over to Madison for a few days.  While Jo went off to help the Chemistry department solve its problems, I helped my sister-in-law by raking a few leaves.  Since she has most of Sherwood Forest in her yard and many of the trees hadn't decided to drop their leaves yet, my help on raking was pretty minor, even though I spent several hours out raking.  We had beautiful fall weather while we where there, the fall trees were in full color, and it was great to catch up on Kathy and John's recent trip.


Saturday night we headed over to the UW Field House to watch the women's volleyball team take on Minnesota.  UW won, which is always good, and it was a lot of fun to watch these athletes in action.  Did make Jo and I reminisce about when we were younger and could do more on a volleyball court - like move and jump.

Love those Lobster Rolls

Jo had a business trip to NY early this week, so we tacked on a visit to our old stomping ground in CT to see several of our friends along with all the changes in the area.  I flew into Providence, RI on Thursday and picked up the rental car for the drive to New Haven where I hoped to be able to find Jo at the Metro North train station.  Although they have changed the driving patterns around the New Haven train station, and several of the key landmarks I use to find the way to go are no long there, we managed to meet up without too much difficulty.  Then it was back to New London, CT to enjoy some tasty clam strips at Fred's Shanty with the Thames River in the background.

Afterwards, we stopped at Clyde's Mill to enjoy a few cider donuts and fresh squeezed apple cider even though we were pretty full with clam strips.  Even so, we made sure to buy enough to last us through the entire weekend.  After chasing away the bees long enough we headed over to Bruno and Sheri's.  They are both looking great and we spent the evening catching up on all that is happening in their lives.  Friday morning as they went off to work, we spent the day sightseeing.  This included driving by our old house and seeing any changes (not many that we could tell from the street), walking the boardwalk at Ocean Beach, and most importantly having lobster rolls for lunch.  Captain Scott's was our lobster roll destination where we enjoyed the delicious simplicity of the lobster rolls while talking with E, who Jo worked with at Pfizer.  Sure can't beat a lobster roll.  Next up on our nostalgia tour was a drive-by of the Pfizer sites we worked at.  Jo's building was sold to General Dynamics and there wasn't much we could see there.  At the research site, Pfizer is in the process of tearing a bunch of buildings down so there was a lot of change to be seen.  Dinner was with several couples that we did things with when we lived in CT.  It was fun hearing about everyone's busy lives since we last saw them.  After dinner and we were driving home we were both a bit sad that we don't get to see these friends more often and we didn't hold out much hope in convincing any of them to move to warm, sunny, Wisconsin.

Saturday dawned to rain and ominous clouds so we moved a movie into our plans.  Jo, Sheri, and I headed to a local cinema to watch "Gone Girl" while Bruno stayed home to putter around the house (which I totally understand since rainy days are perfect for house puttering).  A very good, although suspenseful movie - we all came out of it a bit stressed.  We finally managed to get a walk in before dinner as the rain had tapered off.  Then it was time for dinner in downtown Westerly before we went to the Granite Theater like old times.  The play was "South Pacific" and was well done with good singing and clever use of the small stage for all the locations the musical requires.

Sunday after enjoying brunch in the sun on their deck we took a quick tour of Sheri and Bruno's garden.  We continue to use their garden as a model for ours to try and make our garden as functional and varied as they have accomplished.  Then to continue to enjoy the beautiful weather we took a walk up to the dairy farm just up the street from their house.  The cows were close to the road so Jo could fulfill her periodic need of petting a cow - it has something to do with her childhood and raising cows, I personally have never understood her need to touch cows.  Then it was back to the house to pack up and head back home to ready ourselves for another week of work (well to be honest, Jo has to ready herself more than I do).

Go Illini

This last weekend, Jo and I joined our friends, John and Linda, for a trip to our alma mater, Illinois.  The main purpose was to see their youngest daughter who just started at Illinois and to see her play and march with the Marching Illini during the football game.  We drove down to Chicago on Thursday and then all piled into a car for a wild ride to Champaign-Urbana as it was raining cats, dogs, squirrels, chipmunks, and any other animals you can think of for most of the drive down.  The next morning had us up and taking a walk through the campus to see the good old quad, Illini Union, and Alma Mater statue.  Jo then headed off to do a bit of work meeting with some of the local Northwestern Mutual sales representatives while John, Linda, and I walked around the campus and got lunch at one of the restaurants that managed to survive through all the years since we were there last.  After Jo's meetings we all did some much needed replenishing of our Illini clothing and gear at the stores in campus town.

Saturday we were up and going early to watch the Marching Band march over to the football stadium before we settled into our seats to watch the game against Purdue.  We were joined by John and Linda's oldest daughter and significant other who came down for the day.  T
he weather certainly wasn't what we had expected to see in Champaign in early October with the temperatures struggling to get into the high 40's and every now and then a little sprinkle to keep you from really warming up.  But we were at Memorial Stadium again after almost 35 years so the weather didn't dampen our mood too much.  The first half went well although neither defense seemed particularly adept at stopping the other's offense.  Still high scoring games are at least fun to watch.  Unfortunately, Illinois came apart in the second half and we didn't get the chance to see an Illini win.  After the game we marched with the band back to the Education building where they played a short concert.


Then it was off to probably the real reason for the trip, dinner at Papa Del's pizza.  If you haven't realized that Papa Del's is the best pizza on the planet, then I'm sorry for you.  Even though the place was packed and it took almost 90 minutes to get a table (everyone at the game obviously realizes it is the best pizza) it was worth the wait for the delicious combination of thick tasty crust, sweet sauce, and just the right amount of too much cheese.  That evening we caught some more volleyball as we watched the Illinois women's volleyball team take on our other alma mater - Madison.  The Badgers won the game and since we rooted for both teams - although much quieter for the Badgers - we were guaranteed a win.


Sunday after brunch with John and Linda's daughter it was back to Papa Del's to pick up 3 extra large pizzas (30 pieces of future deliciousness) to stock our freezer at home.  The weekend flew by, but we had a really fun trip:  we were amazed again at how much the campus has changed from our college days, it was fascinating to listen to John and Linda's daughter talk about her college experiences and realize how similar they were to ours, we got to see and sit in the Illini Union where Jo and I first met, and we came home with lots of pizza - what's not to love.  Already thinking about our trip for next year.

Jury Duty

Earlier in September I got the dreaded mail notice summoning me to jury duty for the last Monday and Tuesday in September.  So last Monday I dutifully transported myself to the Milwaukee County courthouse to spend my days hoping and hoping my number would never be picked.  I had almost got through the first day when just at the end of the day 30 of us were selected to be voir dired (if you can use it that way).  The short message is that I was selected to sit on the jury and get an more inside snapshot of our legal system in action - because who wouldn't want a retired chemist on their panel.

I won't describe the actual trial but let me just say being on a jury involves sitting around a lot waiting to actually go into the court room and hear the trial.  There seemed to be a lot of discussion happening just between the lawyers and judge that we weren't allowed to hear which meant hours for us jurors trying to stay occupied in the jury room.  The trial we heard was relatively short and seemed pretty straight forward and we finished everything up on Wednesday.  I must admit I'm fairly happy I won't be summoned at least for another four years.  On the plus side, I now know where the Recorder of  Deeds is located - in case I should ever have a deed that I should need recorded.

Walk around Lake Geneva

 After enjoying boating around Lake Geneva multiple times with our friends, John and Linda, Jo and I decided it would be fun once to hike the path that circles the entire lake.  So two Saturday's ago, we packed our hiking bags with some food and water and set out early in the day to tackle the 21 mile loop.  It was beautiful day for the hike with sunny weather in the high 60's to low 70's.  It is a particularly enjoyable hike since you are trekking past all the mansions that line the lake since they are all required to provide deeded access to the hiking path.  It was interesting to see these homes a bit more up close and personal and to marvel at the size of the homes, which for the most part are second (or third/fourth) homes for people.  We enjoyed our hike although we had started to feel it with about 3 miles to go and were very happy to get back to the car and rest our weary tootsies.  A stop at Dairy Queen for some blizzards on the way home helped us to ease our aches and pains and replace some of the calories we burned off.  Once home, we got to assess the damage and besides a few truly impressive blisters the only other challenge was a few sore leg muscles and a bit too much sun for me on my neck and face.  We are already talking about whether we should try it again next year.


The night before our hike, we headed over to the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee to enjoy watching the Panther women's volleyball team take on the University of Illinois - Chicago.  We were able to get great seats since it was pretty sparsely attended.  It was a lot of fun to watch and got us both reminiscing about when we were younger and we could quickly move around the court - although never quite as well as these young women did.