Sheboygan Postcards

Oh, the vacation is chugging happily along...

Pedaling with Morfar at the quarry

Paddling with Papa

 After one of the hottest summer's we've had in recent history, it is cool and wet and green here up north.  They are recovering from the drought, at least in part, and we've come at just the right time for a beautiful vacation.

Lake Michigan afternoon

Warm enough for beach joy.

Morfar with the cousins!

 I'm shooting for a whirlwind of "postcards" in the next couple of days to keep up with the pace of our trip.  How is your summer winding down? Or is it??

on the road...

We are on our annual going-home, our all-day ride in the car north.  One of my favorite parts are the Indiana windmills (sometimes it's the Illinois windmills - depends on how we're going, but WOW).  This time the story (Skellig, by David Almond) had to pause at Ani's request for a rousing round:  

Come to the top of the path in the garden, there you'll see the mill! 

Look how the sail's now turning up so fast on yonder hill a-and fa-alling
down again and down again, it never does stand still!
 

We came to Sheboygan first, around Indianapolis, through Gary Indiana, Gary Indiana, Gary Indiana, let me say it once again (there is a lot of intermittent singing in our car), through Chicago and Milwaukee.  I get a little moony over the old industrial structures near Gary, and going into South Chicago. Don't know what it is, but I love it enough to take some fuzzy shots from the car as it speeds along...

Yeah, fuzzy. But I love them. Even the water tower.

We were met with rain, which feels glorious, and a band concert in a soft drizzle. We were so happy.

Here's Morfar, the star of the baritone section of the Sheboygan Pops Concert Band. We danced, we sang, we applauded. Eliza kept saying, "We're here! I'm so glad we're here." 

*****************

The rain continued into our first day, so we headed to the John Michael Kohler Arts Center where we figured the girls might last half an hour with all of their energy, but we were there for 2 hours, happy, curious, inspired.  There were so many wonderful exhibits there - like the Optic Nerve by Carol Prusa - but you'll have to go and look at their website to see photos of them.  I took photos of the only art I was allowed to:

It was amazing.  

 

 I know - you're wondering if toilets are the only thing I can find to photograph in Sheboygan.  But really, wouldn't you be tempted, with toilets like these?

Are you still with me? How's a girl to choose?

Yes, there were 5 bathrooms and I took photos in every one, casing the joint for, um, users, of course.

Tell me something about yourself that I don't already know

 

 

Oh yes, and there was a hot-dang art studio available for anyone (though it was populated mostly by the young'uns), outfitted with materials inspired by the current exhibits.  Eliza could have stayed there all day long...

 

...and home for lunch and naps and dollhouse play and checkers and dinner, complete with blueberry pie, with Great Grandma. 

Pretty promising first day of our vacation... 

ah, there we are...

The computer has returned to our lives...the one that houses all the photos...and how I've missed the processing of taking and looking and sharing! So here is one jumble of Summer to start off...

Milking goats with Osha

Camel, with morning glories

Lovely

even Lovelier

One sunflower bloomed before we left...

Stinkers by the river

Making jewels and jewels and jewels

Chickens on the golf course??

Amazing food tops off our golfing days

Following Night Golf (wha--?), a sleepover in the tree house

Lounging

Heavy Lounging

Finally - the laziness and the pause of Summer

(We're on a trip seeing family right now, so I'll do a bit of this and that, then and now to get caught up)

We are...

...reading A Wind in the Door, having loved A Wrinkle in Time. I'd forgotten so much about it.
...learning about cell structure! (Mitochondria are a major part of A Wind in the Door)
...getting to know our neighbor baby...holding babies has become a favorite pastime.
...learning the Brazilian martial art of capoeira, at a special class at the library.
...playing with friends - and taking them to the movies to cool off (I hadn't taken a gaggle of kids to the movies before! It was hilarious! I spent just as much time watching them, down the row, as I did the movie).
...dreaming of the fall and beyond, making grand plans of backpacking, sailing, exploring. ...collecting and drawing the two kinds of plantago that grow outside our house, while listening to the Herb Fairies story about Tago, that plantain fairy.
...reading. Anything and everything. Saber tooth tigers, evolution and Ivy & Bean for Ani; Goosebumps, Ripley's Believe it or Not, and graphic novels for Eliza. The Land Remembers by Ben Logan for me. A long long list of dissertation material for Dan.
...researching - what things were invented in the years we were born?? (Eliza - the genetically modified tomato, the braille glove, and the phone tooth (shudder); Ani - youtube!; me - the first internet; the artificial heart; Dan - ethernet and Bic's disposable lighter...ah, humans.)
...cooking - baba ganoush, beet dip with flatbread, blackberry-peach crisp, salad, salad, salad.
...making baskets with our friend Molly...math, figuring, creating...so satisfying to watch something beautiful grow out of so many simple parts.
...enjoying our finches and hummingbirds and the brilliant green bees that are visiting our sunflowers.
...preparing for our trip to see all of our family up north! Going through clothes, selecting books, picking out new coloring materials for the car.
...impatiently waiting for the computer to come back to us, so we can share photos of some of the fabulous bits of our quickly passing summer!