Today I write to you from a hotel room in Toledo.
[Side note: Do you ever think of Dr. Seuss's Oh, the Places You'll Go! when you read Weekly Findings and Dana and I are on the move? Because I do, sometimes.]
To recap, both for my own posterity and for those of you who are curious: A week ago Saturday, we hopped aboard Amtrak once again and took an overnight trip to Dana's motherland, Wisconsin (which meant riding the Heartland Flyer from Oklahoma City down to Fort Worth, then the Texas Eagle from Fort Worth to Chicago, and finally, the Hiawatha from Chicago to Milwaukee). Once again we slept in a Superliner Roomette, and once again, we recommend you, too, invest in a Superliner Roomette should you find yourself traveling overnight on Amtrak. (For just a bit more money, you get a private room, a bed, an endless supply of coffee, and all dining car meals included. Plus, you meet fascinating people who are traveling for all sorts of interesting reasons.)
Once in Wisconsin, we made a beeline for Appleton—where, in more ways than one, it felt like summer truly began for us.
What a relief to experience temperatures in the high-70s (of course a few days crept up to the 90s, but Wisconsin 90s are, somehow, infinitely more pleasant than Oklahoma 90s), local beer, cool breezes, giant hugs from family, and corn on the cob.
We had breakfasts and dinners with the people we love; took long, ambling walks and pressed our faces against empty storefronts for sale; set up our laptops and worked from a picnic table on the bank of a river; bonded with a pet dove; visited the thumb of the state and relived our campground days; and, finally, collected our car from my in-laws' (who are very kindly storing all of our possessions since we sold the RV), plus our dashboard plants and some fall clothes, and hit the road once again.
Yesterday we headed east: through Illinois, Indiana, and into Ohio. Today we'll keep on eastward—tomorrow, too—until we land in Maine.
Before I lose my wifi opportunity, I'm hitting 'send.' It's a short one from me this week; stay tuned for more next Monday.
'Til soon,
Helen
Notes from the week of August 7
ATE, DRANK
+ Cranky Pat's pizza & Spotted Cow beer in Neenah, WI
+ grilled salmon, potatoes, corn on the cob
+ veggie burgers, potato salad, more corn on the cob
READ & NODDED MY HEAD
EXPERIENCED
+ up-close look at an Alfa Romeo
+ campground trick-or-treating on a golf cart
BEFRIENDED
+ Smidley, a dove
FAMILY VISITED
+ Connie & Bruce
+ Mike, Becky, Annabelle, Madeleine, Harry, Lois, Heather, & Jay