Update

[sillygoosegirl]

Last week, my parents were here. They are now on a month-long road tour of the great lakes in a mini van, which they purchased from Josh's parents, and then spent the week outfitting for their trip... it's got a great storable bed in the back. Anyhow, over the weekend, Josh and I went with my parents up to Wisconsin for some biking and some camping. Josh didn't know we were going camping though, until the last minute--he thought we were going to be staying in hotels, so he was a little irritable about it at first. Anyhow, we stayed our first night at Devil's Lake State Park and spent the morning hiking along the lake on the Ice Age trail. It was really nice. Apparently on Saturday nights over the summer they have ballroom dancing, and there is hiking and canoeing. Then we went to lunch in Baraboo, in this great restaurant that was in part of what was once an opera house (one of 3 in Baraboo). After lunch, we wandered through the building and into a cute costume shop and a wood carver's studio--he was working on a replica of a fairy tale wagon for the Circus Museum, which he has apparently been working on for the past 2 years (off and on, as there has been money for it). It was pretty cool. He talked with us for a while and showed us a Beauty and the Beast carousel horse which he had previously carved and had mounted in the window of his studio. After that, the plan was to hit the 400 Trail (rail-trail along the old line that went the 400 miles from Chicago-Minneapolis in 400 minutes) or the Elroy Sparta Trail (the first rail-trail in the US), but it was starting to rain, so we spent the afternoon at the Circus Museum instead. Apparently Baraboo was the hometown of the Ringly Brothers, who were like the guys in the circus business. In the evening, we drove to a totally forgettable private campground near the bike trails and went to bed.

We hit the 400 Trail around the crack of noon for a brief stint, then had lunch and did the Elroy-Sparta trail (from Sparta to Kendell, the Kendell to Sparta portion was closed for bridge maintenance). What with the long car shuttle, we weren't actually on the trail until 3:30pm. It was only 26 miles, so we figured we'd be fine... but the trail was dirt/gravel, and while the maximum grade was only 3%, there actually was quite a bit of elevation (750 highest to lowest--some of which we did several times), and then there were my parents on their wee-little-folding-bikes with 16 inch wheels. Plus, we had to walk our bikes through the 3 long railroad tunnels, and stop and take lots of pictures... so it took us 5 hours to do the trail and it was dark and cold by the time we were done. We had dinner at Cindy's Bar (the only place open) and then shuttled the cars back and stayed at the Mid-Trail hotel. This morning Josh and I drove home first thing after breakfast and I've spent most of the day doing various chores and unpacking (Josh too, though his chores have involved rather more reading of Newsweek, message boards, and playing Angband--ah, such important household tasks).

Anyhow, I also wanted to make a brief list of useful things I learned this week/weekend:
- Refrigerator door compartment thingies can be put on upside down, and ours were. Some fool put them on upside down, which is why we couldn't see the things on the door and they fell out the bottom (the part that was supposed to hold them in at the bottom was instead blocking visibility at the top!).
- With a little sanding and a new finish, our dinning room table can be cured of its water stain problem.
- Our china cabinet can be disassembled into two pieces for transport, in spite of what the woman who sold it to us said (which should make it more valuable when we go to sell it on ebay, since it can be transported in a mini-van rather than a UHaul, and moved by average strength people rather than 2-3 Paul Bunions now).
- The fabric seats of our dinning room chairs can be very easily removed and washed or replaced.
- Biking on gravel is much harder and slower than biking on pavement.
- A 3% uphill grade is actually quite a lot when you do it for 9 miles straight.
- Basil grows better when you break the tops off regularly.
- Eggs tarnish silver... rather dramatically.
- You can lift up the top of a stove for cleaning.
- Baby powder or corn starch sprinkled on sticky fabric makes the difference between it being virtually impossible to sew on, and pretty easy.
- I still do not have nearly as much faith in Josh as he deserves. (When we were biking, Josh was way ahead and stopped at a little store place... he got back on and started riding again when we got there. I asked if he had stopped to use the facilities and he said "no" he'd gotten a muffin. I was pissed that he'd stopped to eat a muffin and hadn't invited the rest of us to get muffins too... a mile later we stopped and he pulled said muffin out of his pocket to share. When he realized how hungry we all were and how short on daylight, he sent us on ahead at the next town and stopped by himself to get us all cookies then hauled ass to catch up with us with them.)
- It's a good idea to have a bike light, even if you don't think you will really need it. (Turned out Josh's light was completely without batteries and we weren't able to replace them on the fly because it took C's (ugh!), my parents lights were awfully dim (low batteries), and but my light with it's low power LEDs was hot stuff--thank you istar!)