Wisconsin. It was Sharon's & my first night away from Lucy; a belated anniversary celebration. We wanted a spot within an hour or two, and a way to enjoy fall colors,. We ended up deciding to head to Hudson, Wisconsin (right across the St. Croix River, about 40 minutes from home), and had ourselves a nice little time. Hudson was a quaint little river town, but (like all quaint communities within arm's reach of Twin Cities commuters) is struggling with the influx of new disgusting subdivisions and expansive, culturally-bankrupt homes. The heart of the city, though, includes a beautiful riverfront and business district, where we stopped first.
We had sandwiches & coffee at a coffee shop. Coffee shops are a part of most of our visits to a new town. The vibe in such places is pretty consistent throughout the places we travel, and this was no different. There was a display of "protest art" painted by Hudson High Schoolers. Some were quite good, and some were quite funny. There was one that reminded me of 3rd prize in the Springfield Art Competition in the "Marge Painting" Simpson's episode; the one where there was a smokestack sending pollution into the air & a unicorn with tears in its eyes and a thought balloon with the word, "Why?" It had two guys shaking hands to conclude the purchase of an SUV with a starving African child superimposed in parking lot next to them. Again-kind of funny in it's insubtledy. Anyway, nice lunch.
Next we headed off for the main activity of the day, which was a fall color bike tour, doing a loop that took us off into the country-amazing rolling hills of the "driftless region" there-down pretty much to River Falls and back on byways and country roads. Wonderful day of biking. 60-70 degrees & sunny & fall colors were definitely at their peak.
We also had about the best meal at a restaurant that night that I can ever recall. Not much else to say about that.
Rumination: T.V. Land is my addiction on vacation. Cable-less at home, it's a total fixation for me when traveling (though, not something I've been able to indulge much since Lucy's been around). My entire understanding of SportsCenter, for instance, is based on what I've experienced on vacations, but T.V. Land, is where I always end up. Saw an episode of Three's Company Saturday night that involved the cast getting into a misunderstanding of some sort.
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10 comments:
Sounds like a nice trip. Say, do you guys have a goldfinch toy bird yet? If not, I may have one for you guys.
Definitely a nice trip. Kind of overdue.
Actually-we got that one. Thanks.
Which ones do you have? Do you have a loon?
Actually, I don't think we have a loon. We've been going with the backyard feeder birds (blue jay, goldfinch, robin, rw blackbird, chickadee, cardinal) plus a red-winged hawk & a Canada goose, since we're seeing them all the time, too.
Two feeder birds we should really have, if we're trying to reflect what we see at our feeders: house sparrow, house finch.
Which one is going to bring in the bird flu?
They all have it. And their constant sneezing keeps scattering all the seeds off our ground feeder.
That's some bad shit. I hope that we miss this nasty killer.
At least the government's on top of it. I think Bush appointed some guy to head up the Health & Human Services Epidemic branch with some guy that used to work for Amtrack.
Nothing like being brow-beaten into posting but what the hell.
Does sound like a good trip.
What type of food did the restaurant serve?
Perhaps you should consider an all TV Land vacation. You wouldn't have to go far. Could be as simple as house sitting for a friend and ordering pizza.
I could dig a vacation like that. Not so sure about my wife.
The restaurant was called San Pedro, and the nearest type of cuisine we could attribute to it was some sort of mixture between carribean & mexican, though almost all the dishes (aside from pizza, for which they had many varieties) seemed to be unique inventions for the restaurant. We both had fresh, hot apple cider (it was a little cool out), with a bread appetizer, a salad with a ton of different & fresh greens, & a main course that was vegetable tacos with red beans & rice. It was all just amazingly succelent & good. We were also feet from where the food was being prepared by this array of chefs working around the grill & brick oven. I was able to compliment the cook to his face.
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