lydamorehouse | After A Few Detours, We Are Home

Image: Dr. Evermore birds... in Madison (Me for scale. I am only 5'2" but not ant-sized as picture might have you believe.)

I must apologize for the radio silence. After we packed up Mason, we did a LOT of days of just driving. I can report for "What Are You Reading Wednesday," that I finished up the audiobook of Darcie Little Badger's A Snake Falls to Earth. I tried to start a number of other books, but bounced out of them due to narrators that drove me a little crazy for various reason, the most annoying of which was a female reader who decided for reasons known only to herself to read the one female character on the crew in a falsetto. It was oddly off-putting, so I sent that one back, unfinished.

But, so, other than just driving and listening to audio tapes, we only made a couple of stops on the way back. The first was to see my mother-in-law, Margaret, whom I think I noted is in hospice. She apparently waited for our return and a chance to talk to Mason because we just got the news that she's taken a downturn. She's now on oxygen and morphine. You wouldn't have known it during our visit though. She rallied for us, following the conversation like a trouper, even offering candies to Mason, like she did when he was just a smol.

I'm glad that we had no other plans that day and so we could spend as much time as we needed. Then we only made the short jump from Indiana to Madison. I really wanted to be sure to devote some time to the Deke Slayton Museum (more on that in a moment) and so didn't want to be rushing through Chicago traffic to try to get there before it closed. Because it was such a short drive, we ended up at our hotel super early and the room wasn't ready for us yet. Luckily, I am always ready with roadside attractions.

The first place we stopped was the site where Elvis broke up a fight...

Elvis in Wisconsin

Image: a really bad silhouette of Elvis and a long description of the event of June 24, 1977.

Roadside America is one of my favorite resources because, literally, this plaque is on the corner of a car dealership. I mean, they actually keep it up and it's not as difficult to find as you might think given it's obscure history, but the gas station where this fight took place is long gone.

From there, we drove past a gold Civil War Statue, but did not stop for a photo op because it wasn't really worth a detour. If you follow the link, you can decide for yourself. Then, we checked out the scrap metal birds (picture above) which were ABSOLUTELY worth the detour.

By the time we were finished with all that, we were able to check into our hotel room and take a short nap. When it was time for dinner, we briefly thought we wanted Japanese fast food, but it turned out that fast food is always kind of gross no matter which country of origin. So, Mason and I headed to State Street (Shawn opted to eat some of the not-great food to save her arthritic knees.) I think it was just as well that we left Shawn at the hotel, because Mason and I ended up being storm chasers when the TORNADO SIRENS went off. Luckily, that was after we ate at a really wonderful Taiwanese place, and were headed back to the car. As the sirens were wailing and our phones were yelling at us to shelter in place, we sat in a the car parking ramp for a long time trying to judge just how green the sky was and whether or not it was smarter to go or stay. But, after the second call from Shawn, who was worried sick, of course, we decided to make a break for it. We timed it between bursts of storm, but it was pretty harrowing. There were branches down and whatnot, but other than very threatening skies we never saw (or heard) anything truly scary, but it was still freaky, you know? Not going to lie. This will be an adventure we'll talk about for awhile.

Back at the hotel, we sat in an interior hallway with a bunch of other Midwesterners. The tourists were all outside watching the storm.

Today, we struck out for LaCrosse to visit my dad the day after his 83rd birthday. But, we got up early enough so that we could be at the Deke Slayton Bicycle and Space Museum around when it opened at 10 am.

Deke!

Deke Slayton statue (me for scale.)

I absolutely LOVED this museum. The bicycles and Deke really aren't connected in anyway that is obvious in the exhibit, but both stories are told well in their own way. There's a TON of astronaut memorabilia, specifically around Deke's story. And, if you're at all a fan of space, real life NASA stuff, and/or For All Mankind, this is an absolute must of of detour. It's a very unassuming little museum, tucked into the top floor of a historical Masonic Hall. Likewise, Sparta is a surprisingly lovely town--given how many Trump signs we saw in the other small Wisconsin towns we tried to visit for these kinds of things. 10/10 would recommend.

In LaCrosse, we had a great visit with my folks and got to have the traditional poppyseed cake for my dad's birthday and a lunch out at Rudy's Drive-In. (And, yes, our food was delivered by a young women on roller skates!)

Now we are home with a pizza delivery on the way. I'm just relieved to not be in a car anymore. Though we could not have asked for better driving conditions along Scenic Highway 61.

After A Few Detours, We Are Home

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