Travel, Travel, and Then Travel

We spent the last week visiting several spots around the country.  We started off by flying into Albuquerque to visit my family.  We had the whole family together for a celebration of my sister's life.  We spent several days enjoying the local cuisine, playing cards, hiking the brown hills and remembering our times with my sister.  While it was a nice time together as a family - especially meeting my new grand-niece - it wasn't for the best of circumstances.  Also, even though the humidity is low in New Mexico (especially compared to what we experience in Wisconsin), when the thermometer is above 95 degrees - it is just hot.

We flew back home and left from the airport to go immediately over to Madison to spend the 4th.  The condo was still there, which is always nice, and we spent some time meeting with contractors to discuss our renovations.  We managed to select one of the contractors and now have to work through getting everything we want done designed and specified, hopefully leading to starting construction later this year.  We did manage a couple of really nice walks around town which gave us lots of time to talk about the renovations as we continue to evolve what the final plans will look like.

We spent most of the day on the 4th with Kathy and John enjoying hamburgers on the grill, the first sweet corn of the season, a few rum punches, and setting off fireworks with her neighbors.  But one of our highlights for the trip was finally making it to Smokey's Supper club with our friends, Jim and Judy, after a 33 year wait.  Our first attempt to eat at Smokey's was in graduate school with our grad school friends, Dan and Ann.  We walked in attired in chemistry grad student chic (think jeans with acid burns and t-shirts) and promptly discovered we weren't their optimum clientele.  Most of the people were in suits and about 30 to 50 years older (at least they seemed that much older to a bunch of 20 year olds) than us - needless to say we promptly decided it was time to find another place for dinner.  We had never tried to eat there again in all the years we have been visiting Madison.  I must say, it was everything one hopes for from a Wisconsin supper club.  Good fish fry, excellent Brandy Old-Fashions, and somewhat dated (I might say tacky) decor.  After dinner, we visited Jim and Judy's new house on Lake Waubesa to enjoy a spectacular sun set along with a tour of their new place.

We got home Thursday night to spend Friday catching up on laundry, mowing, and a few other chores before packing for a weekend at Lake Geneva with John and Linda.  It was another fun weekend with them as we enjoyed boating around the lake, our favorite frozen yogurt shop in downtown Lake Geneva, eating too much, and catching up on their family news.   We had great weather both days - although a little too chilly on Saturday morning for jet skiing around the lake - and we enjoyed a nice couple of days boating around the lake discussing the real estate for sale around the lake front.  Always nice to pretend.

After our visit at Lake Geneva, we headed over to Lake Delavan for short visit with our sister-in-law, Pat, who was had rented a house on the lake for her family's annual get together.  Kathy and John were there along with our niece and nephew, Angela and Chris, so we had a chance to find out what everyone has been up to since the last time we saw them.  Then it was finally time to head home and get ready for going back to work on Monday.