Cascade, Wisconsin

Jenny and Pat had moved to Cascade while we were in France.  It didn't work, we found them anyway. 

They live on Lake Ellen in a resort called Harbor Lights.

The Harbor Lights bar is amazing.  Pat's been coming here since he was a kid.  The food is generous, delicious and affordable.  The owner/chef is a real character, which is what the whole place has a lot of.  Back to what we're doing at that bar in a moment.

We lived in an RV for six weeks but Pat and Jen lived in something not a lot bigger than an RV for over a year.  All four of us, eight including the critters, are enjoying their new home.  Not only is it spacious, it has privacy, good air conditioning, plenty of storage and best of all, fast WiFi and a strong cell phone signal, something that was sorely lacking in Theresa.

The photo to the left was taken on the one block walk from their house on the way to the beach.  Jen says she likes it on the weekends when all the campfires get going.  It makes the neighborhood feel like just what it is, a resort.

By the way, the weather here this weekend has been spectacular.  It has been in the 70's with a slight breeze and low humidity.  That will all change today according to the forecast, and as I write this, according to the thunder outside.  We were glad to enjoy the three days of spectacular Wisconsin weather.

The lake is already warm, at least along the shoreline.  It's a nice sandy bottom here, with clear water.  It's a really beautiful lake.

It wasn't only the nice weather that kept us here.  We asked a mechanic to service the engine AC on our RV while we were in France.  Plenty of time to do it, right? 

It's Friday morning now almost noon and we're still waiting for the phone call that the part is here.  

Until it comes, we are just wayward travelers at this place of refuge.  We'll suffer through it. 

That's what the 5 Corners Truck and RV Repair has offered us, as well.  A wayward travelers discount for the 3 days and counting of delays they are causing us.

We told them we wanted the RV back on Tuesday and by that I meant Tuesday morning.  True to the stereotype they waited to the very last minute while we were gone in order to diagnose the problem. 

They found some parts that needed replacing and ordered them the day we were flying back.  The assembly came in from the manufacturer on Tuesday.  It was new, but had a damaged fitting.  Apologies, damn those lazy suppliers, etc, etc, we'll have a new one out tomorrow. 

No problem, as we will just delay our trip a day and stay another night with my sister, we really don't mind.

Next day, the part came in, but was missing a switch.  The next day (yesterday) the guy bringing the switch didn't show up and then they couldn't reach him.  We told Jen and Pat, we may not be leaving for a while.

In the mean time, the four cousins are getting along fabulously.  Sometimes there are interactions between any two of them that are amusing, but its all friendly or at worst punkish. 

Wurstchen has systematically been stealing Libby's milk bones and hiding them in new places including in our suitcases.  He really likes her bones and has been carrying one around in his mouth like Churchill with his cigar.  He likes the bones so much he doesn't take them out when he barks.  It makes for a strange muffled bark, not very ferocious.

The critter photos below were all taken at the same moment, just to get a sense of the chaos going on.

Wednesday was the best day of the week.  Pat rode his bike so that I didn't have to take Jenny to work to have transportation.

That was very nice of Pat, but in fact, I really liked taking Jen to work.  We had interesting conversations on the ride down and I usually got some nice pictures in the early morning light on the ride back.

Like this one, of downtown Grafton at Mill Pond Park.  This was where the town ice skating rink was in the winter and it was where the end line was on the spring canoe race.  Back to that later.

At the park they have these cool docks for wheel chair bound kayak boaters.  The kayak goes on the rollers and then you launch like a new ship out of dry dock.

It was 7:30 and I was looking for a coffee shop to type up the packing slips for equipment that needed to be sent to Hawaii in my part-time working role.  

The Grafton Hotel shown on the right had a restaurant in it when we were growing up.  I remember it for its big steaks.  My perspective on what qualifies as a big steak may be different now than the 11 year old version of me, but I think they really where big.

Grafton's celebrates its history on the Blues trail.  There was a recording studio in town and famous blues musicians passing through on a regular basis.  We were completely unaware of this history when we were growing up here.  Grafton reinvented itself by finding it's history.  That's pretty cool. 

As a result, Jen tells me Grafton is now quickly becoming the leading center in Wisconsin for assisted living communities.  There are apparently a lot of of old blues men and women around here.

The commute from Cascade to Saukville, where Jen works, follows County W along the Milwaukee River for part of the way.  It goes past Ehlers Park, the site of the starting line of the Grafton Canoe Race, held shortly after the ice broke up each spring.

People came from all over to participate in this timed race.  There were probably 50-60, maybe more, canoes in a race, at least during the mid-70's when I was racing.  We would get into the river in starting groups.  They would start a group, wait a bit and start another group. 

When the starting gun would fire, you would immediately hear more gunfire, or really something that sounded more like firecrackers.  This was the sound of wooden paddles breaking in two.  The person that was holding the paddle had too much adrenaline at the moment of the starting gun.

We were the home team in this race.  We lived on the river and spent as much time as possible in our canoe exploring it.

My favorite story to tell about the Canoe Race is a year my best friend and fellow explorer, Dave and I were serious about moving up in the standings.  We were literally one turn away from that finish line you saw in the earlier photo at Mill Pond Park.  We were neck and neck with a canoe in our class.  We were pretty close to physically spent.

The two guys in the other canoe asked us if we knew how much longer it was to the finish line.  Of course we did, this was OUR river.  I can't honestly say if it was Dave or me that said it, but the response from our canoe was..."about half way".  They stopped paddling.

We moved past them considerably in the standings.

Thursday night we went over to the Harbor Lights for dinner.  It's got a bar, some tables along the water and a big pool table in the back.  A nice place to hang out in any circumstances and as it turned out, really great food including spicy fried pickles.  Surprisingly good!!

One could imagine that it might be an alternative living space for Pat and Jen.  It's very comfortable inside.

The chef, who is also the owner, is meticulous with his preparation.  This is the Packer Cheese Steak sandwich.  I can't say enough.  The seasoning on the crisscross fries was also excellent.

Bravo, 5 stars for bar food.  Those wooden bar trays were pretty cool too.  They had been around a long time and fit on the bar very nicely.  It provided a nice flat table for eating on.  

We were treated to dinner by Pat and Jen, thank you very much, so I didn't see the bill, but it seemed very affordable.

Oh! and the cocktails were very generous pours.  In fact, the bartender prides herself on her 50/50 cocktails.  I suspect we'll be going back there for the fish fry tonight.