Moseying On Home

Our last night in the UP took us to Escanaba which is actually on Little Baye de Noc on the bay of Green Bay. We stayed in a nice motel that Durwood used to stay in when he worked for Gillette way back when. We had a king-size bed too. Woohoo! That was real luxury after our week of doubles and queens. We went to a family restaurant for supper and then stopped at Sayklly's for a chocolate for dessert. Yesterday morning we drove down the main street to see the bay and found swans, and this fiberglass fish that declares that Delta county has the longest shoreline of any county in the whole US of A. Durwood wended us through the back streets of town and found the Farmer's Market so we stopped. We bought some tomatoes, a pound of little red potatoes, and a rutabaga (not my idea). He's determined that I'll like them other than in pasties. One man standing there (maybe the seller) said he likes mashed "rutabagies" better than mashed potatoes. I'm sure. We took a state road south so we stayed along the bay shore, stopping at a rest stop with a few campsites along the water. There were a few smart campers there enjoying the rare October heat. Once we got to Menominee, the end of the UP for us, we found Dauber's for our last pasty lunch of the week. Durwood got the regular beef and I chose chicken. Both were good and we made them disappear. Shortly after crossing the state line into Wisconsin we caught State Hwy. 22 that lead us through a few small towns to Gresham where a potter acquaintance of ours (through DIL1's family) had an open house weekend at his (world famous) kiln. Simon was giving a demo when we arrived and Susan led kiln tours. We saw one of their daughters (the one with the curly red hair) but not the other--and we missed her. I splurged my last $20 of vacation money on a bowl that Simon made; you'll see it when I post the souvenirs (aka loot) of the trip. After leaving the studio we kept going west until we got to Nueske's smokehouse where we'd stopped for a brat on our way away the week before, but they were out of buttermilk (again) and cooked brats, so we just bought a package of bacon. To. Die. For. Bacon. Once you've eaten Nueske's, you'll hate to go back to normal bacon. Then we drove home. With our little jaunt to Wittenberg tacked on we drove 1031 miles in 8 days, a respectable total for all we saw and did. I highly recommend striking out for parts familiar-ish and just enjoying it. I feel unwound. Ahhhh.

October 8--Peru, Moche, Pair of Earflares. The parrot god dances in the blue haze of smoke, firelight glinting off his golden beak. The Moche keen and stamp in time with the calls of the shaman. He is the one who calls the parrot god down to bless the harvest in the month of diminishing light. Now that the harvest has begun, the Moche dance and pray that it is plentiful. Rich men groom their sons to be rich men and their daughters to be rich men's wives. They are the ones nearest the fires. They learn the dances and the songs to bring the rains in the spring and keep the frost away so that the corps will last over the winter. Few of the poor men's sons learn the songs, they marry the daughters of other poor men who don't expect much for a bride price beyond a bit a wool and a basket of maize.

I'm off to mow de lawn in the sun and heat (heat?!? what is this, Australia???) of early October.
--Barbara