Friday in Ely

 

My coffee station.  It works pretty well.

View from the deck.

We had cereal with blueberries for breakfast.  

Deer eating the left-over bean plants.

We went on a nice walk. We checked out the trail that Jay has been working on.  It is very nice.  He has done a lot of work.

It is a constant job

We went into town to run a few errand and then it was time for lunch.

Jay had offered to take us out on the pontoon.  So we went down to get it ready to take out.  It is quite the process.  I wish I had taken a picture of it all covered.

The metal pieces that help hold the tarp up are from their old satellite dish.  How creative is that!?

We got it all set and ready then .... DEAD BATTERY!!! argh.  Jay got the battery out to take up to the house to charge it.  We just enjoyed our Smirnoff and the ambiance.

Maybe we will try again tomorrow. 

Jay was taking the canoe back up to the house to put away for the winter.

Jay went back to work clearing brush. We relaxed.  Jeanne was able to get some  work done.

Jeanne fixed dinner.  

Chicken Alfredo and home grown beans.

What a nice day, sunny and warm, a perfect fall day.

Thursday, Sept 29 to Ely

It looks like it will be another gorgeous day

Laura made crepes this morning.  There wasn't enough time for Liam and Emmet to enjoy them.  We sure did.  It was a pleasure to be able to spend some time at Laura and Wilhelm's.  They really made me feel welcome.  Laura is enjoying her time at home.  She has a year to enjoy being at home, before she has to be back at work.  She isn't getting paid but Epic guarantees that her job will be available when her year is over.

Nutella, bananas and more wild blueberries.  (Apparently, Wilhelm picked A LOT of them) 

Out of the way spot where Wilhelm parks the van

Jeanne and I packed up and left around 9 am to drive to Ely.  

The trees are starting to turn color.

We made several stops to get groceries at stores that are not in Ely like Woodman's in Eau Claire.  This was also a lunch stop.

We split a Reuben sandwich and fries.  It was a good sandwich.

Next stop was Virginia for another grocery store, Super One.

We arrived.  We got to Jeanne & Jay's about 6:30 pm. 

Jay was at a dinner we had planned to attend.  This was another disappointment due to my Covid.  Of course, if we could have gone to that we would have missed Laura's crepes!.  We would have left Laura's by 7am.

We had a nice dinner of left-over chicken fried rice.  Yummy.  It was nice to have a meal that was so quick.  We got laundry started and then ate.

Jay got home from the dinner.  He said that it was a big success.

In the evening we watched the Chicago episode of Somebody Feed Phil.  Jeanne had not watched it before.  It was a great review of where we had been.  Fun to see so many familiar places.  After that we watched the Portland episode.  I had not seen it before.  I was a little disappointed because many of the places they showed were not actually in Portland.  It felt like they did not think that Portland had enough to offer.  It was still fun.

Wednesday in Oregon ... Wisconsin, That Is.

 I am shifting my blog entries to My Travels now.  This is the main floor of Laura and Wilhelm's home.  Upstairs are several bedrooms and then there is a loft area.  The master bedroom is on the main floor.  Downstairs there is a small guest bedroom.  It is a huge basement which is mostly Wilhelm's bike shop.

Family Room

Dining area 

Tristan asleep in the living room.  He did not want to get up. Fawkes is keeping him company.

Cool spice rack. There are magnets on the wall. You pull off the whole can to use the spce. I guess you need to be careful to not just pull the lid off of the can.

Today, was a normal school day so Wilhelm was up early to make a batch of German brotchen for breakfast.  The brotchen also go in the lunch boxes.  Liam and Emmet had to get down to the bus first.  So Wilhelm has to make a new batch pretty frequently.  Tristan gets on the bus a little later.  We had the brotchen for breakfast.  They are very good.

Jeanne and I relaxed in the morning.  When it was close to lunch time we went to Panera bread for lunch because they have outdoor seating.  I should have taken a picture of my half sandwich and Autumn squash soup.  It was delicious.  We walked across the parking lot to get some groceries.

We went to the Rotary Club trail to do a 3 mile stroll.  It is a trail that connects Fitchburg to Oregon.

Wildlife beware

It was very pretty.  I guess the middle of the day on a weekday is a good time to use this trail.  There were only a few people on it.  It is a 3.7 mile trail but we only did part of it. We walked for 1/2 hour then turned around.

Wilhelm's work van.  It is huge.  It also can fit the whole family plus bikes and whatever for family vacations, with the seats put back in. 

Laura made a batch of banana chocolate chip muffins for coffee time for when Emmet and Liam got home from school. we also had left-over blueberry pie. 

Another pretty sunset

We had a nice relaxing day.  It was disappointing that we had to cancel the Lake to Lake Food Tour in Madison.  But we managed to have a good day anyway.

Emmet is trying one of Laura's yoga moves, the leaping lizard.

Cool bedroom with climbing wall

We had guacamole, chips and margaritas as appetizers.  Laura made a delicious quiche for dinner. 

It was a late dinner because Tristan had several after school programs to go to. 

Liam and Emmet

I have felt pretty good today.  Mostly just a little stuffy.  So far this is feeling like a very mild cold.