Summer is well and truly here! It's been in the high 20s and sometimes evens moved into the low 30s. Not glorious dry heat though - it's been quite muggy and at night there have been some terrifying thunderstorms. Some weekends ago I had cleverly left my car window open at night - then the rains started pouring down. Just as I decided I was going to make a dash for it and shut the window I was thrown back into bed by the brightest flash of lightning and so I shelved that plan. I had to drive sitting on a towel for 3 days and the car stank for ages! But now it has finally dried out, and I learnt my lesson about making sure the windows are shut before locking the car :).
Last Sunday I drove to a State National Park called Devil's Lake. It has beautiful rock formations and a lake created by a glacier as it made its way through Wisconsin millions of years ago. I had arranged to meet up with a friend and her 2 sons who were having a camping weekend. When I got there it was much busier than I had expected and I couldn't find my friend. As my cellphone was out of reception there was no way I could get in touch with her. I decided just to hang out with Lucas but he was having a bad day and is not keen on the heat, and so he was being what's known in parenting books as challenging. (Us real mums have a different name for it but let's not go there.) It was awful. I desperately and stupidly tried to buy him off with ice cream (wrong flavour = tantrum), some blue crushed ice thingie that he spotted and decided he wanted, until I had queued for it for half an hour and spent 4 dollars on it, then it was all wrong and bad and wah wah, and I was just sitting on a stone wondering how I was going to continue the day with this screaming little monster when I bumped into a woman whom I had met at a birthday party, and her 2-year old little girl. Praise the Lord! (I think I actually said that when she said hello, which must have seeemed a little odd but fortunately didn't put her off talking to me.) Lucas and I joined the little picnic she and her husband (who is of Friesian descent) had going on the hillside, and after some nice conversation I felt much better. The bottle of beer they gave me possibly also helped. Lucas was happy playing with his little friend and it turned out a great afternoon after all. PHEW.
Wednesday evening my sister Barbara and her partner Erwin arrived from Chicago. Amazingly after a 3 1/2 hour bus ride the bus was actually on time. They spent a couple of days exploring Madison - Thursday lunchtime my friend Jim asked what they were doing so I replied they had gone downtown and were going to visit the Capitol, and he asked "what are they doing the other 8 hours of the day?". Ha ha. There's actually quite a lot to do in Madison, if you include drinking beer by the lake as 'doing stuff'. We spent Thursday evening doing just that. Friday they went on a cycle ride and Saturday we spent most of the day hanging out on the little local beach observing overzealous and competitive fathers build insane sandcastles. ("We have a special kit", one told me, without any obvious hint of irony. "We got it online.") Lucas knows what to do with a sandcastle, of course, designer or otherwise, and he had fun trampling them back down again. Saturday night we had a little barbeque at mine, Barbara and Erwin sliced, marinated, grilled and garnished while Jim and I drank beer and decided it was like watching the food channel in your own backyard. It was fab and delicious!!
Sunday we drove to Prairie du Chien on the Mississippi river, with 2 sturdy mountain bikes strapped to the back of the car. We visited a local flea market (America at its very best!) and walked along the river while Lucas charged along screaming "myturn myyyyyturn" at all the speed boats that whizzed by. Late afternoon I dropped Barbara and Erwin and their bikes at a snazzy motel, where Barbara explained to the lady at reception that no, we don't have a car registration because we have bikes. Yes that's right we are cycling back to Madison. Yes she is going in the car right now but we are not going in the car, we are going on our bikes. Poor thing will never get over the sheer confusion of it all. Lucas and I had a lovely drive back screaming BOOO every time we saw a cow, which is roughly every 30 seconds in Wisconsin. We also saw some Amish horse-and-carriages, such wonderful anachronisms in modern America.
Barbara and Erwin should be back here by Thursday, and on Friday we are all going to Chicago for the weekend, so I will be back on the blog after that!
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