wish you were here

This weekend in Chicago was unusually cool and autumnal. It was actually refreshing after all the heat we've had recently. As long as it goes back to being hot this week! (It will.)

Had a long bike ride along the lake, which looked very blue indeed. I felt a little blue because the beau is out of town, but it is nice to have time to myself. I ate sushi with one friend and Puerto Rican food with another. Went swimming at the pool. Took said bike ride. Relaxed.

 Perhaps you didn't know that Chicago has 18 miles of lakefront bike and walking paths.  They're there because in 1836 public officials had the foresight to decree that the lakefront remain "forever open, clear, and free." It's an amazing urban resource and one I take advantage of quite a lot. It's one of the things that makes Chicago a wonderful place to live in and makes up for the drawbacks (i.e., high city taxes and insane parking fees, endemic poverty/violence in certain neighborhoods, the winter--OK, let's stick to the positive stuff).

Right now the city is discussing options for revamping Lake Shore Drive, a major road (really a highway) between the lakefront and the city, both to make sure it can handle traffic demands in the future and to make the lakefront even more accessible and user-friendly. I'm not looking forward to the construction involved, but hopefully the end result will be worth it.

I'm arranging a boating outing for the beau's birthday next month so we can go out on that lake. More on that later.

back to Wisconsin

We went back to the boyfriend's family's cottage in northern Wisconsin for a week. Just us. Perfect weather. It was heavenly--except for the mosquitos, thanks to the cool and wet spring.

With all the green rolling hills, the farms, and the cows, you could almost be in France. Without the wine and good restaurants. Well, there is good food there--beef, pork (mmm bratwurst), beer, etc. We picked up some great sharp cheddar and some New Glarus beer of course, and I made sure to bring some rose' and red wine.

A most excellent spot for morning coffee.

  

There's not much to do except swim, sail, canoe, bike, read, and relax. And cook and eat. It's pretty great.

There was a lot of meat eating going on.

 

 But we did do a little socializing. We got a drink at one of the area bars after a bike ride and admired the many stuffed examples of local wildlife.

So many dead things.

 And we managed to see some live wildlife as well. On one bike ride we saw maybe 30 or 35 deer. Maybe they were on their way to a deer party. One wandered into the lot next door and was snorting and stamping at the boyfriend's cat, like a delicate little bull. The cat finally had to concede and walked away.

We also saw a bat (wish we saw more of those, for the insects), hummingbirds, a turtle, a fish that jumped out of the water right in front of our boat, bald eagles, cranes, and wild turkeys. I was not so thrilled to see a snake swimming in the water after I'd spent several blissfully ignorant days swimming in it.

But the big event was me finally getting to see a bear!

He's that black thing in the middle.

The boyfriend usually sees at least one per trip, but generally early in the morning. I don't care about bears enough to get up at 5:30. But this time he spotted one at the side of the road in the afternoon while we were in the car coming back from somewhere. He quickly turned around and I managed to get a snap while it was lumbering off. 

 

We also went even further north to visit the boyfriend's sister and niece at their house on the shores of Lake Superior for a night. It was a completely new area for me. News flash: Lake Superior is extremely cold, like your-bones-will-ache-in-three-seconds cold. I did dip in a couple times just to cool off.

Stopped at a park trail on the way, but I was hardly dressed for serious hiking.

Lake Superior.

 The boyfriend's sister is raising chickens, so that was pretty exciting for this city girl. There were a lot of them, including some chicks that had just hatched.

 

This guy ran at me a couple times, defending his women against the interloper.

The coop.

Boyfriend and his sister by the lake.

For the Fourth of July, we went to Bayfield, a charming little sailing town. We sat on the docks and watched a pretty great fireworks display, and also got to take in the displays from neighboring towns, including one on the nearby Apostle Islands. I love small-town Independence Day celebrations. It was definitely preferable to being in Chicago--my friends on Facebook were reporting the usual Beirut-like mayhem there.

We'll go back to the cottage in August for boyfriend's birthday. It'll only be a long weekend, but I am already looking forward to it! And maybe next year we can actually go to France or Italy. For now, though, I'm very grateful for these Wisconsin vacations.