Hot Times in Wisconsin

On last year's trip, we had a stretch of nearly two weeks when the temperature was over 90 degrees. Of course, we were in the southwestern deserts at the time, exploring Arizona, Utah, and Nevada. This time we're about as far north as you can be in the U.S., and it's still over 90 degrees every day. Maybe we're bringing it with us. We're perfectly capable of having a hot time in cool weather, but haven't had a chance to prove it.

The visit yesterday with Judy was very heartening. We didn't go out there again on Monday evening because Tom said Judy wasn't up to it, but she feels her best early in the day, so we got there a little after 9am and stayed until noon. She's on assorted pain medication and bopping around her house in a wheelchair, but she was smiling and talkative, and her ribs have healed enough that a few belly laughs didn't ravage her. It would've been nice to spend more with her on Monday, but we're very glad that we had the time we did.

Our friend Mike is a professor of economics at University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, and Mary Ellen is a music professor at Viterbo University, also in La Crosse. We hadn't met her before but have known Mike for ten years. He makes one or two trips a year to Cooperstown for research at the Hall of Fame library on baseball economics--he's the big expert on salaries--and we always have him over for dinner. He's been waiting a long time to host us, and yesterday he cashed in that wish in a big way.

He had told us he was inviting "a couple of friends" over to dinner with us, but it turned out to be dinner for a dozen people. Mary Ellen was teaching all day, but Mike's classes don't start until next week. So he had plenty of free time to prepare dinner for twelve. The day before, he made the desserts: two massive tortes, one blueberries and one peaches. But we sat in the kitchen and watched him put the rest of this fantastic meal together over a period of two or three hours. He was ably assisted by their youngest daughter, Louise, who's 15 and did some of the prep work.

It's hard to express how impressed we were by Mike's meal. Just seeing how effortlessly he put everything together was impressive, how little fuss he made, yet by 6:30, when the guests were gathered, he trotted out more things than I'll be able to remember. I'll just mention the two main dishes. The biggest deal was the seafood paella, cooked in a massive pan. Let's see: lobster claws, mussels, shrimp, catfish cheeks, sausage, green beans, corn, onions, and more. Terrific. But Linda's favorite was the watermelon and crabmeat salad, served over broiled yellow squash and topped with "Arnold Palmer vinaigrette" that included black tea, lemon, honey, and olive oil. You get the idea.

The food was wonderful, and the conversation was brisk. There were two or three doctors there, a high school pal of Mike's, some teachers, a student or two, and the special guests all the way from New York. Lots of great stories about plagiarism, my favorite being the Speech class where the students were supposed to create a speech about a great event, and one kid actually recited Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Then there was the student from Thailand who copied his whole paper from Wikipedia and told the teacher he had written his paper in Thai and used the computer's translating function to put it into English, and by some wild coincidence it came out looking just like this other thing.

It's 9am right now, and in a little while we're driving up to a bluff overlooking La Crosse for good views of the area, and then it'll be over to the dialysis center in Onalaska. Late this afternoon, we're taking a boat trip on the Mississippi River, which we're looking forward to. Then tomorrow it's on to South Dakota.