Vacations are tough. They remind me that I love spending time with friends and family, writing fiction, and playing music. I got to do some or a lot of all of those things these past few weeks. I’ll share some of the fun here, in pictures and words.
Each year, we alternate seeing my parents for Christmas and Jodi’s parents for the New Year. We’ve been doing this ever since our first winter together, all those years ago in graduate school. When at my parents’ house for Christmas, I like to go to one of the performances of the nativity at my mother’s Congregational church. She’s the music director and organist at the church, and their production is always a big deal. Besides, I like the evening or night service (depending on my exhaustion level). This year, we got a two-fer: a misbehaving child, dressed as a cherubim, pinched and poked the poor boy next to him. This was so plain to the audience, they applauded when the tortured boy got up and walked across the stage to escape his tormenter. The event inspired me to write short story based on the event, with my own interpretation of the happenings (of course).
We arrived in Chicago on the 27th, only to find out that cooleysekula.net was taken down by a several-hour power outage back in California. Despite a battery backup, the system went down and couldn’t be correctly restarted until we returned. Anyway, we got our rental car and drove through the city to head north to Milwaukee, where we were spending the night. Chicago’s skyscrapers had red and green illuminated roofs, festive and colorful for the season. The Sears Tower was particularly well-lit, its two tall white towers shaded red and green. My photos aren’t great, but you can see the bright coloring of the Sears Tower’s antennae pretty well.
Chicago was misty, and like much of the territory east of the Missouri river was much warmer than usual. The El Nino has really kicked in this year, and isn’t expected to dissipate until late 2007. This means stormy weather for the West and Southeast and warmer temperatures for the Midwest and Northeast. The combination of warm weather, lighting, and tiredness gave a dreamy quality to the drive from Chicago, north to Milwaukee, and then further north to Park Falls the next day.
Milwaukee wasn’t much different than Chicago. The weather was overcast and cool, but not too cool. We arose the morning after our arrival in the Midwest and repacked the car, heading out for the lakefront for breakfast and coffee at Alterra. The coffee chain converted an old pumphouse on Lake Michigan into a perfectly located cafe, with tables scattered around the pit in the floor where the pump is located, and with delicious lattes and breakfast burritos. This was a terrific pick-me-up after the travel from the previous night. This cafe is one of our favorite places to go when we’re in Wisconsin.
Since the first time I came to see Milwaukee in 1998, when I hit a bar down in one of the wards with an old friend of mine, the city has been changing. The complaint du jour now is about the major construction effort to rework various highway interchanges near the downtown. I must say, however, that compared to the hulking wrecks of the old highways, with their spilled guts of concrete and rebar, the new overpasses and roads look great. Milwaukee would be a great city to put down some roots.
Heading north, we passed the small windfarm belonging to Wisconsin Energy (WE), the turbines spinning gently in the air. Its many hours from Milwaukee to Park Falls, and as we headed north we encountered a growing crust of snow on the ground. There wasn’t much, a testament to the power of El Nino to hold the cold arctic wind at bay in the winter months, but it was refreshing after the muddy browns and greens of Connecticut and Illinois. Jodi constantly reminded me that we were moving targets in Wisconsin; this was made possible because of our Illinois license plates, which in the Northwoods labels you as a FIB. Look it up.
We spent New Year’s eve at Midway, a bar outside of Butternut, Wisconsin where Jodi and I were married. Jodi and I had fantastic pizza, and I learned that seven Miller Lights are **not** enough to make a man buzzed. We watched the Packers trounce the Bears (Shane, the owner, is a big Bears fan) and then put on the hats and welcomed in the New Year. I think this hat makes me look both fat, and like Harry Potter. Maybe it’s the Miller Light neon sign’s healthy blue glow that helps both of those along . . .
During the game, the light rain outside turned to snow. Huge, heavy flakes hit the ground and over the course of three hours put as many inches on the ground. By the time we left the bar at around 1 am, we we crunching through some of the best pack I’ve seen in years. I cleared our car while Jodi got the engine running, and we made a very, *very* slow trek back to Park Falls over county roads which hadn’t seen a plow. Some hadn’t even seen too many other cars at that point, either, and there were a few moments filled with the question, “Where’s the road?”
Snow was a real rarity on this trip. The change in this year’s weather pattern made the experience of a snowfall a treasure. This night, with the snow pouring out of the sky, was the best night of the trip. I don’t mind the cold, but it’s sweeter when it’s accompanied by snow.
Finally, we went back south to Madison and spent a day there. We always try to hit the old town and go to our favorite places. Given the fact that we arrived on Jan. 1, hotels were dirt cheap and we got a great room downtown right next to State St. and the university campus. Unfortunately, arriving on Jan. 1 meant all our favorite places were closed. We did manage to hit our favorite cafe the next morning, and see things like the “Holiday in Lights” display in Olin Park and “ROYGBIV”, the colored lights display on a long hedgerow on University Avenue west of campus. It was a great way to start closing out the vacation.
For more photos, see “wp-content/uploads/xmas2006/”:wp-content/uploads/xmas2006/
