Portland, the Columbia Gorge, and Over the Cascades
August 31, 2006Portland and the Columbia River Gorge
The drive from Seattle to Portland on Tuesday is uneventful, save for the traffic and rain, but our friends in Portland, Floyd and Beverly, have located a pet-friendly hotel for us close to their house. Maxie, the cat, is still reeling from his move from the country, and we’ve all agreed this is no time for him to meet Ethan, but no matter- we’re staying very close and Ethan tours with us all day, anyway.
We don’t get a really good feeling about the hotel. The hallways are grimy and part of one wing is sheeted with a huge blue tarp. But we take a look at the room, and it’s quiet and clean and close to their house. Going back down the stairs to get luggage out of the car, I smack an insect that looks like a giant mosquito – but according to the natives of the area isn’t – against the wall, and his corpse haunts me on every trip to and from the room.
We are on the eating tour here. Floyd and Beverly cook for us not one, but two nights. Organic lamb steaks one night, chutney-marinated chicken the next, and we bring wines to complement. Their house is serene, full of Beverly’s paintings although they’ve just moved in. We settle into that feeling of old friends who might have seen each other yesterday, or twenty years ago: it doesn’t matter. They are what my mother calls friends of the heart rather than friends of the road. This is not the place to describe their unique talents and accomplishments, but Beverly’s art and Floyd’s writing have both garnered attention and deserve yours. Visit Floyd’s website for samples of his writing and a bibliography at http://www.floydskloot.com. This will also take you to Beverly’s website so that you can take in some of her artwork.
Yesterday we drove the historic highway along the Columbia Gorge. Built in the early 1900’s at the dawn of automobile travel, it was one of the first paved highways in the country. Narrow and winding, it’s newly paved and lined with arched stone railings built by European artisans. The canopy of the trees, the misty rain, and the relative isolation of the highway all lend themselves to a mood of something primeval. Emerging at Victory House, far out on a point, the rain stops momentarily and below us, past the swirling clouds is the river, glistening silver in the filtered light of a sun that can’t quite break through the clouds. Further down the road, we visit Multnomah Falls, 6200 feet high and crossed by a bridge built at the turn of the century. The bridge complements the stone lodge at its base. We also stop at Horsetail Falls, long and narrow behind us. Ethan and I hop on a wall and have our picture taken.
Our next stop is Bonneville dam, which serves as a power source for the entire Pacific Northwest and also offers fish ladders that enable salmon to swim back upstream to spawn. We are reminded that salmon find their way back upstream, apparently by smell, and return to their own spawning places to spawn themselves, laying thousands of eggs and then dying. Interestingly enough, those spawned in hatcheries return to the hatchery: hence the fish ladders. While I knew in theory that salmon swim upstream to spawn, actually viewing them through the underground windows as they fight against the current gave me a whole new respect for salmon.
The seventy miles that take the traveler from Portland, which gets 40 inches of rain a year, to Bonneville, which gets a hefty 75, to The Dalles, right on the other side of the Cascades, which gets about 4, may offer one of the most interesting geographical contrasts in the world: One drives from rainforest to semi-arid desert in the course of a few miles, and the change is so drastic when the Cascades have been crossed that we almost think we have dreamed the primeval nature of the rainforest. For here, as we approach The Dalles, there is barely any vegetation, flat buttes and brown rock attesting to the aridity of the area. It was here that the early settlers faced critical choices: Having come this far, they could portage the Mighty Columbia or go over the cascades in covered wagons. The wind blows in The Dalles, and I mean blows at 35 miles an hour, making a picnic lunch, let alone a portaging or mountain crossing, a less than pleasant proposition.
A few miles down the highway, we cross to the Washington Side. We plan to visit Maryhill Winery, owned by folks who did a tasting at The Corkscrew last winter, and the Maryhill Museum of Art, conceived and founded by railroad magnate and paved road proponent Sam Hill.
Maryhill Winery and Museum
They are only a mile apart, and both sit on high bluffs overlooking the Columbia. Maryhill Winery has only been in operation for five years, but its tasting room and patio overlooking its nascent arbors and the Columbia River are spacious and attractive. Ethan is invited in for the tasting and revels in the attention, briefly greeting the owners’ huge white Pyrenees, Harley, whose head is about the size of Ethan’s body. He doesn’t mind Ethan being there, but doesn’t like Ethan looking at him, we discover. Ethan has the good sense to back off. It’s never any fun to hear about what someone else tasted, but I can tell you that the premium tasting, which we did, was excellent, particularly the Zin, which the owner calls “Port Lite” because of its rich quality. Visit the Maryhill winery website at http://www.maryhillwinery.com. to learn more about how the arid microclimate and sandy soil create ideal growing conditions for Maryhill wines.
The museum was originally intended as a home for Sam Hill, who wished to establish a Quaker farming community. The dream for a utopian community faded, but at the suggestion of Loie Fuller, a modern dance pioneer and close friend, it became a museum of art. Situated in the middle of an outdoor sculpture park, the castle-like mansion in this isolated place offers, surprisingly enough, sculptures by Auguste Rodin. In its diversity it also offers an incredible collection of International Chess Sets and a huge display of the artifacts of Native People of North America, and I mean broken down by region and tribe. We could have spent far more time here, and you should, too. A guide at Multnomah Falls said it best: “I have been to art museums all over the world, but this little guy, he’s one of the best I’ve seen.” And so he is. Learn more at http://www.maryhillmuseum.org.
Back at the hotel, the corpus of the mosquito-that-is-not-a-mosquito greets me. We sleep, woken by my sister, a welcome voice after 14 days on the road, and prepare for our trip to the Willamette Valley to do more wine touring. The day is cool and clear, and we are eager to get going. This trip is going way, way too fast.
Hanging with the Hooligans
Hanging with the Hooligans on Whidbey Island
Saturday, August 26th – our 8th day on the road.
We’re on our sixth state now, and in Eastern Washington the roads are flat and straight and dotted with pine trees. It is 270 miles to Seattle, 335 to Whidbey Island where we have an assignation at the beach home of Ray and Elizabeth Pelley, with the two of them and Bill O’Hearn, who is visiting from New York. The four of them attended ISU together some thirty years ago, and Ray, Jim, and Bill were roommates. We see Ray and Elizabeth periodically, but Jim and Bill have not seen each other in a long time, perhaps since college, so this is a significant reunion for The Three Hooligans.
Closer to Seattle, the Cascade Mountains loom large and brown as we press west. As is the cast all over the Northwestern United States, drought has taken its toll.
Before crossing the Cascades, we stop in Ce Elum, Washington, after viewing the Columbia River Reservoir, which provides water for most of Washington, and across from it Petrified Tree State Park. A sign on an overlook tells us that the Wampunum Indians once lived peacefully along its banks. Being peace-loving, the tribe had no treaty with the government, and are now extinct, as are tribes who fought back when their lands were taken away. Ce Elum doesn’t look like much from the highway, but its main street is full of stores – coffee houses, outfitters, and, for us, the motherlode: A high end wine emporium next to a pet store that carries all Ethan’s favorite brands: Wellness, Nutro, and one I’ve been wanting to try: Merrick’s Turducken and Mediterranean Feast brands.
Ethan, you see, in the entitled state of mind that has been created by his status of King of the Road as he perches on his dog throne in the back seat, has been slightly off his feed.
It all began two nights ago, when lacking a microwave, we are unable to heat his food. He is served room temperature food, Unacceptable meal, and he looked at me like I was serving platescrape stew.
Yesterday I bought him a can of Mighty Dog, a commercial, available-in-any-grocery-store wet food. He gobbled it greedily, but the byproduct was the most horrible dog breath either of us have ever smelled, especially in a closed-up car. This event is close on the heels of us blaming Ethan for the sulphurous smell of Yellowstone Park, but this time, it is, indeed, emanating from him.
So, $16 later, armed with chlorophyll dog biscuits, breath-refreshing Greenies, and organic dog food, we can finally breathe through our noses in the car.
Sunday, August 27th
Having crossed the Cascades in a scent-cleansed car yesterday, we headed north from Seattle to the ferry at Mulkiteo. It’s a stunning Saturday, but the ferry ride requires a 60-minute wait due to weekend traffic on this last summer weekend. As the cars inch toward the port, pulled over on the shoulder of the road, Jim waits impatiently while the universe and the ferry fail to comply with Jim’s Rules. This is the first sign on this trip of Jim’s customary crankiness, and I don’t understand it until it occurs to me that we are within Ray Range. Only Jim surpasses Ray, his wife Elizabeth tells me, in curmudgeonry. When they get together, they rant and rave and drink until they mentally collapse, spent with the effort of raving against the universe at large.
Indeed, we are within range: on the other side of the Sound on Whidbey Island, Ray and Bill await our arrival. Ray’s directions are precise: .4 mile here, turn and go .7 mile here, down the hill .8 mile, etc. There’s the house: beachfront, a house-wide deck facing the bulkhead, a view of Seattle 35 miles across the Sound and Mount Rainier, visible on this incredibly clear day at 100 miles. There are blue heron, seagulls, and osprey.
The cocktail hour moves forward, enriched by a walk to the beach at the end of the lane, and a grilled shrimp dinner prepared by Ray and Elizabeth, and a fire in the firepit. A glance through the telescope at Pluto and its four stars, and I’m off to bed. The Hooligans carry on late into the night, with only minor injuries. (firepit brush-up adding wood.)
In the night I wake to surf banging against in the bulkhead, but in the morning, the sea is like liquid silver. We meet a man on the beach who has spent the past 28 years on the island, fixing up an 82-year-old house up on the cliff overlooking the beach. His hobby, when not working on the cabin, has been combing this beach at Satchett Head Point, where he has found Wooly Mammoth bones at low tide. He tells us that during one of several glacial ages, cave people from Alaska and upper Canada would run the Wooly Mammoths off the cliff, or find them chased over the edge by predators and would take what meat they could salvage. His finds are now in a museum further up the Island, in Langley. Ray and Elizabeth have also met this man, and he has also told them about the remains of an underwater Indian village.
The next day we drive to Coupeville for a lunch of mussels harvested from the farms just outside town, on Medrona road. We l earn that Whidbey Island is the largest island in the contiguous United States, second only to Rhode Island. Its rolling hills and pines and, in areas, sheer cliff faces over looking the ocean, point to its identity as a product of the Whidbey glacier. Today, it’s known for its shellfish, produce and fruit (sold at a number of farmers’ markets) and is a weekend getaway for many Seattle families, who own second homes here as Ray and Elizabeth do.
Leaving the restaurant, we walk up a hill to a scenic oversight for an official Hooligan Reunion photo op. In the background is Mt. Baker, around which a huge group of cumulous clouds is rapidly building. The Hooligans pull out a conspiracy theory, not for the first time during our visit. Mt. Baker has erupted, they claim, but the government is keeping it under wraps. We scurry to the liquor store to lay in provisions. Back at the beach house, we drink Lemon Drops, made meticulously by Ray and poured into sugar-rimmed martini glasses, to await our demise, should Mt. Baker actually erupt.
It’s hard to leave the beach house and to see The Hooligans bid each other a fond farewell once again. Elizabeth and Ray are marvelous hosts, and we have been treated like royalty. It’s heartening to see The Hooligans together after all these years, crafting conspiracy theories and bickering their way through jigsaw puzzle races (yes, there was such an event and Ray and Bill now hold the Whidbey Island record for Jigsaw puzzle racing, which is 23 minutes and some change. Elizabeth and I hold the distinction of second place winners. As far as we know there are no other contenders.) Ethan has embraced his new Beach Dog status, barking at the surf and wading into the water to retrieve his ball. Back at the house, he sits on the bulkhead with the Hooligans enjoying the sunset, then crashes on the deck, oblivious to the escalating Hooliganism at the evening wears on.
We wave goodbye as we leave. It’s turned misty and cool and we’re headed to Portland.
Bison Rule!
August 25th
Leaving Custer's last stand, we take the Beartooth Highway from Red Lodge to Cooke City, the Northeast entrance to Yellowstone. The highway is stunning and, it turns out, was closed last summer due to mudslides, the first in 68 years.
Despite the hype, the highway does not disappoint, and after stopping at the Box Car Drive-in for a hamburger just like the hamburgers mother would have made if mother cooked (sorry, Mom, just kidding) we began the climb to 10,000 feet, surrounded by peaks and valleys and alpine meadows and glacial lakes. The road's only open June through October, and the reflectors along the side of the road are extended with slender tree trunks so that the snowmobiles can stay on the road during the winter.
In Cooke City, we stay at the Alpine Inn, a modest roadside hotel with North Woods-themed bedspreads and two chairs outside the door of the room, facing Main Street. Yellowstone is three miles away, and we spend three hours on slow roads. There are fisherpeople on the Lamar River, and herds of Bison wandering on the roads looking for food.
Dinner at the Beartooth Cafe is overpriced but good, and I am happy to report that my mashed potatoes, served with trout, were NOT covered with glossy brown -- well, glossy brown whatever it is ---
The modest look of the town belies its role as a tourist trap. Gas is $3.80 a gallon, and a bottle of Kendall Jackson Merlot, usually $8.99 retail, is $17.00 in the grocery store. I won't tell you what we spend on a bottle of Zabaca Zin at the Bearclaw. It's obscene.
In the morning, we take the North route through Yellowstone, and at 8 AM, as the park opens, the Bison are feeding openly on the road. A flyer we have been provided with warns us that Bison, although they appear docile, weigh over 2000 pounds, and can run 30 miles an hour and have gored careless visitors to the park. We have come to a dead stop as a bull, clearly the Leader of the Pack, undeniably grumpy, and with a head as large as a Volkswagon Bug, takes his stand on the road while his herd feeds. Ethan gives one feeble yip, thinks better of it, and whines under his breath in the back seat. We nose our way through the herd, and traverse the roads through Missoula and on to Coeur d'Alene, Lake Coeur d' Alene sparkling in the late afternoon sun.
Custer's Last Stand
August 24, 2006
The last two days have been very scenic and very exciting. Rising early in the morning, we cross the border from South Dakota into Montana to visit the Little Big Horn Battlefield. It is raining a bit and 67 degrees as we approach the battlefield.
From today's perspectives of military strategy, what little I know about it, what happened at Little Big Horn is preposterous. Three contingencies are sent to defeat an allied Indian war party comprised of Lakota and Cheyanne warriors. The rush for Gold in the Black Hills has rendered null and void a treaty between the US Government and the Indians, and the land they have been given has been invaded by those seeking gold in the hills. The Indians have left the reservation in defiance, led by their spiritual leader, Sitting Bull, and Crazy Horse, the great Indian Warrioer.
On the afternoon on June 25th, 1876, Custer and 210 of his men are surrounded and killed before reinforcements can arrive. It is here that these solidier are buried in a mass grave, small white tombstones dotting the hill where they fell. The spot is uniquely quiet and peaceful once we climb the hill to escape the tour buses.
Ironically, the allied Indian Troop efforts were for naught. Within two years all of the surviving Indians had gone back to the reservation, been killed, starved to death, or fled to Canada. The free nomadic life of the Great Plains Indians had vanished forever.
Crazy Horse Rides Again
As a followup to yesterday's entry, the Bavarian Inn provided adquate Bavarian food BUT the mashed potatoes were again coated in a glossy brown substance. Still, we enjoyed ourselves and appreciated waking up among the Black Hills Ponderosa pines. Our day today consisted of a visit to the Crazy Horse Memorial, the endeavor of a lone sculptor, Korczak Ziolkowski, a Polish-born orphan who was raised by an Irish prizefighter in Boston until he left at age 16 to seek his fortune. Already a sculptor on the Mount Rushmore project, he received a letter from Henry Standing Bear, a Lokota Sioux Indian chief, asking him to create an equally powerful memorial that would remind the world that "the Red Man has great heroes, too." Korczak Ziolkowski died before the work was finished, but it continues, with seven of his ten children and his widow continuing work on the project. The most fascinating thing about this project, besides its enormity, which I will address in a moment, is that fact that although Korczak Ziolkowski did not have the money to move with any great speed on the project, he has refused up to ten million dollars in government money to complete it. It is entirely privately funded because, according to a documentary film shown in the visitor's center, he didn't believe that the government would finish the project. Today, after fifty eight years, the head of Crazy Horse is finally carved out. The sculpture is the largest in the world. The head is 88 feet high. The entire sculpture is as long as a cruise ship and taller than a sixty-story skyscraper. There's a fabulous visitor's center and an Indian cultural center. All proceeds from admissions and sales go toward the monument. Leaving the monument, we take a winding trail through Deadwood, now a gambling mecca, and Lead, and lunch in Spearfish, one of the prettiest towns in South Dakota. The city park has an ampitheatre and a small trout stream running through it. Even in hundred-degree weather, it's cool in the shade, and we eat our sandwiches, offer Ethan water, and set off across the plains for the long drive to Sheridan, Wyoming. Tomorrow: Little Big Horn National Memorial.
Across South Dakota in a Day-Wow!
Yesterday, we visited the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota. It was first built in 1892, and is now used as a convention center. You can read more about the Corn Palace on the Essay, "Welcome to the World's Only Corn Palace: It's Amaizing!" Leaving there, we head west on I90, and the terrain becomes more stretched out. The farms are further apart. the hills more rolling, and the cattle tinier as we view them against hills that dwarf cars, billboards, and towns. Our first destination is Wall, South Dakota, which emerged from obscurity when it was on the Today Show in 1998. Wall Drugs, which is now a block square and has sundries, a cafe, a souvenier shop, and a Black Gold jewelry shop, dominates the town. There is bus parking. It is teeming with tourists. It is icky. There is no other word. We stop briefly to buy post cards, and while Ethan stays in the car with Jim and whines because he can't meet the twin Weimeriners who lounge in front of Wall Drugs with their owners. A postcard stop is plenty. There are gem shops, jewelry shops, facsimiles of old west saloons, western wear shops, and, unhappily, way too many Winnebagos, but then one is too many.
The morning is cool and breezy, but the Badlands, where we are headed, is destined for 101 degree heat today. Passing Chamberlain, the approach to the Missouri River is spectacular. Beyond the roiling river and arched iron bridges is a suggestion of the Badlands to come: stark hills, no visible vegetation in sight. The land flattens again, then begins to heave into slowly rising hills.
The Badlands is lunar in appearance. We drive a loop full of hairpin turns and braking tourists, flatlanders like ourselves. I understand why Lewis and Clark, in their 1805 journal, wrote that the land was fit for nothing. Except, of course, spectacular vistas.
Further west, we approach the Black Hills. We visit Rushmore, ateem with tourists and not dog friendly: Ethan may not leave the parking lot, and to my eye, he's a lot better behaved than some of the tourists, but lacking a credit card and thumbs, he's hardly able to contribute to the economy by buying souveniers. We take our pictures and leave, unwilling to contribute to an economy that does not welcome dogs.
The Black Hills are beautiful, and we drive a loop in Custer National Park that is alive with bison herds, small mountain goats, donkeys, and wild turkeys. There are some fools that stop on the road willy-nilly, despite the warnings not to do so -- Bison are apparently not sociable, and I respect that: They're big and scruffy looking and may be angry that their ancestors have been so exploited.
Then, leaving Custer National Park, the most amazing thing happens. I see a sign for "Outlaw Ranch." Now, this is an experience that has been erased from my memory til this moment. Outlaw Ranch was a Lutheran Ranch that my sister Debbie and I attended for at least a couple of summers in middle school. We drive to the ranch, introduce ourselves to the office manager, and get our picture taken. Only two of the A-frames that Debbie and I stayed in are still intact; the mess hall has burned down and been replaced; I remember the barn and the chapel. No matter that it has changed: to dredge it from memory upon sight is truly miraculous.
Tonight we are esconced in the Bavarian Inn outside Custer, South Dakota. They offer small guest rooms and a Bavarian restaurant featuring things like Weinerschnitzel, Sauerbraten, and Jagerschnitzel. The difference between Weinerschnitzel and Jagerschnitzel, according to the in-room menu, seems to be the mushroom gravy the Jagerschnitzel is covered with. After my experience last night in Mitchell with mashed potatoes covered with a glossy, canned brown gravy that resembles nothing so much as a do-it-yourself temporary hair color, say "Chestnut Brown," and tastes like brown-dyed brine, I'm suspicious, but determined to be a good sport. We have acknowledged, Jim and I, how spoiled we are food-wise, given as how Jim is an accomplished chef and we have access to great ingredients.
Roadtrip2006: RedGranite Wisconsin
We leave Springfield in humidity much like that of Thailand, I would imagine, humidity like that in Atlanta when I was living there one summer fifteen years ago when, marathon training, I rotted through four pairs of shoes. It’s humidity too thick to breathe, too dense to see through. It rains all the way to Redgranite, Wisconsin, with a brief lunch stop in El Paso, and then miraculously stops.
Redgranite is north and slightly west of Madison, Wisconsin, and came into its own in the early 1900’s through the mining of a Redgranite quarry that provided red granite for Chicago and Milwaukee prior to the common use of cement. You can read more about Redgranite in the essay at Lindastravelessays.com.
We are meeting my cousins, Joel, Jennifer, and Jessica; my 82-year-old mother; and my 70-something Aunt and Uncle at the Stang cabin, which has been in her family for 60 years and which my cousins have taken ownership of. It was originally a one-room schoolhouse, and moved from another location, but now, although it appears small, it sleeps sixteen people comfortably, thanks to an added upstairs, sleeping porch, and a foldout couch. Jennifer’s sister-in-law, Nancy, from Sturgeon Bay and her 16-year-old golden retriever, Duffy, join us. What a contingency for a send-off!
I have not been to the Stang cabin for 45 years, but it appears exactly the same: Plaid wallpaper in the wood-planked living rooms and sleeping/dining porch; a small water closet and separate shower; two dormers up a steep flight of stairs, almost a ladder, really, both with several beds; and a steep incline down to Pearl Lake traversed from the original cement steps built by the original owner, Grandpa Teddy.
We conform to the Wisconsin Friday night Fish Fry tradition, down the road in Wautoma at a restaurant called SilverKryst on Silver Lake. Its’ outer décor is puzzling: A huge black steer in front, paint-peeled eyes that appear like Glaucoma greet the many Friday-night Fish Fry revelers, and the stairs within the glass doors lead down to a subterranean double door after several sets of stairs decorated with cast iron cherubs.
Like many there, we are a big family group, and we linger over dinner, laughing and telling family tales. We are in our forties and fifties, now, we children, but I remember babysitting a thumb-sucking, diapered Jennifer at the lake, and wonder where 45 years have gone.
Back at the cottage, Ethan is being put in his place by Turner, Joel’s alpha bitch. Rather than just rolling over and showing his ever-present submissive nature, he cowers and foams at the mouth. When we return he curls in my lap, exhausted, while we drink tea, tell more tales and finally crawl off, still giggling, to bed.
Our final day there includes a tour or Redgranite, pop. 900, including Mosier's Sporting Goods, a shopping tradition in Redgranite since the 50’s and the water-filled quarry, now a swimming hole for the not-faint-of-heart. Teenagers and twenty-somethings, still basking in their own immortality, jump off the shear cliffs into 200-foot-deep water. A recent fatal accident is marked with a makeshift shrine by a nearby tree. Posterboard goodbye notes, vigil candles and stuffed animals piled at its trunk make a sobering backdrop to the swimmers and divers.
Ethan tries to snatch a stuffed animal from the memorial and is hauled off to the car before he embarrasses us.
Back at the cabin, we burn the old pier, now rotted and piled up. Salvaging pieces for sentimental purposes. Run and coke, wine, and finally, the making for ham sandwiches and s’mores are hauled down the long, steep stairway to the beach, and we say our goodnights late, taking special care to climb carefully up to the dormer bedrooms and tucking in the parents downstairs.
The goodbye Sunday morning is fantastic: Seven adults and three dogs wave us off, and we do the signature family goodbye honk – two short toots as we round the curve and disappear from sight.
ROADTRIP 2006: Going to Wisconsin and Turning Left
Hello All,Ethan, in his Outward Hound backpack, is ready to go! On August 18th, Jim and I will embark on a 31-day, 6000 mile Roadtrip, with Ethan in tow. As you can see from the picture, he's already packed his Outward Hound backpack and is looking for sponsorhip/spokesdog opportunities with Outward Hound.We plan to stop first in RedGranite, Wisconsin and then, well, turn left. We hope that you will visit this blog from time to time to see where we are and enjoy tales of our travels.You can also post comments by clicking on "archive" or email us at: lindaleelenzini@insightbb.com. For previously written travel essays, go to this link: http://lindastravelessays.blogspot.com/Happy trails!Linda, Jim, and Ethan
Road Trip: The Pilot
RoadTrip: The Pilot
Desiring that Ethan get a test drive under his belt (leash) before Roadtrip 2006, he and I set off to Wisconsin to see my sister, Ethan with his doggie backpack loaded with food and bottled water.
Air conditioner blasting in the rental car holds the hundred degree heat at bay, and reaching the Wisconsin border we take blue highways, going through New Glarus, the Swiss village of southern Wisconsin with its cutesie-windowed building and even a chiropractor’s sign in Swiss; Monroe, Wisconsin, home of the Cheese Curd (for those non-Cheeseheads among you, the curds are the scrapings of the cheese barrel, small peanuts of cheese); and winding two lanes with dairy cows, barns, and neatly-painted farmhouses.
The farm my sister has sublet for the summer has two barns. Not a mile away is a shopping center with a Starbucks and across the field, a housing development. In two more years, this farm will be gone, the stone-foundationed barn, imploded, or perhaps taken down stone by stone, beam by beam. The owner, who has gone to Europe for the summer to teach Yoga, has left everything, including the hot pad with the Buddha on it, for our use. But mostly, we need the fans as there is no air conditioning.
There are no animals on the farm save those we have brought: Ethan, anxious to make friends, and Grace, a perfectly mannered but panting German Shepherd, and one-eyed Paco, the Chihuahua-Jack Russell. He looks like a pirate with a personality to match. s. I’m so busy making sure Ethan doesn’t nip at the two-year-old, Fionne, who is attempting to ride him, I forget to be careful where I step and Paco, the Evil-doer, bites my toe. Efforts to make it up to him by leashing him and taking him for a walk result in him chasing me out of the house. Not a cheerful one, that dog. .
For the first time any of us can remember, we four sisters are together without my mother, who is home camped in the air conditioning after a grueling trip to Chicago in the summer heat. We are often one or two together, but never all four. We celebrate one sister’s birthday with a cookout and a cake, flaming with candles. They play rummy after dinner, while I wash dishes, the closest I can get to water and cooling off.
We sleep in front of fans, my sister and I, Ethan equidistant between us so that he can guard us while we sleep. Morning comes early, and we flee to the nearest Starbucks for an iced mocha. The visit is over, and Ethan and I pack up and head home, doggie backpack emptied now of food and water. . If RoadTrip2006: Going to Wisconsin and Turning left is a TV reality series, RoadTrip: The Pilot is the acid test for the series.
