Bloomington, IN, to Tomah, WI

Had a wonderful visit with Mike and Reba in Bloomington.  Got there the afternoon of Friday, August 3, with no problem.  Dropped Lucy off for a couple of nights at the Wayport Kennels.  We went to dinner that evening to a neat restaurant called Sweet Grass. Delicious filet Mignon and crab cakes with collard greens spiked with jalapeno.  YUM.  Saturday Reba and I went downtown in the morning to the farmers market. 

 Then, after indulging in a little retail therapy (including Smith's Shoes) we met Wayne and Mike at Nick's English Hut (http://www.nicksenglishhut.com/) for a classic bar lunch.  We caught up with Holly, Pete, Cole, and Gemma that evening when they came over for supper. (Gemma, do you like that?  "Yeth!" ;-)  What a couple of cuties.

Sunday morning we left the Roberts' home at around 8 AM to go pick up Lucy and make our way north to Kenosha, WI.  On the way up I-65 we saw the huge span of wind turbines....  It was very sci-fy-ie.

Got to Kenosha in time for lunch at Frank's Diner (of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives fame)...or so we thought. Turns out they close on Sundays at 12:30 PM (I was SURE the website hours were wrong due to a tragic typo!).   This is as close as we got to eating at Franks....

BUT...one of the people still sitting outside the diner offered another option in Kenosha, the Coffee Pot on 6th Avenue.  She even gave us directions.  And it was really close to our hotel that evening.  Great!  We took off,  sought a parking place with shade for the pup in the car...and walked over to the Coffee Pot, checking out their nearly full outdoor dining area as we approached.  Upon entering, we were told the restaurant was closed.  What is this with northern diners?

Well.  Not to be outdone, we settled on our proven formula.  Near the water + Bar + Clean windows = Where We Ate.  So nondescript that neither of us can remember the name.  If you're in the area, try Frank's or the Coffee Pot and let us know what we missed.

The day wasn't lost.   The reason for our stopping in Kenosha was that the Transparent Watercolor Society of America was in it's last day of showing the 36th Annual National Juried Exhibition at the Kenosha Public Museum.  Salminen, Chee, Dobie, Nuttall...well, you get the "picture."  I would have hated being the judge for this one.  It was a great show.  My favorite was Debbie Cason Rankin's PIECING IT TOGETHER IN LIJIANG.  I love the texture created by watercolor "being watercolor."

 

John Salminen's THE MALL won a $4,000 award...and at a selling price of $5,000, was the only painting I saw marked with a "sold" red dot.

 As a bonus for the day, the museum had just opened a show of Zoltan Szabo's watercolors depicting scenes from 43 of our 50 states.

Wayne and Lucy met me at around 3 PM and we headed for our hotel for the evening, the Best Western Harborside.  As we checked in I was informed that hot water was not available...but hopefully would be soon, as a plumber had been called.  We unloaded our stuff from the car and settled in for the day.  (BTW, that whole idea of carrying in a suitcase each has been dispelled.  A suitcase for each of us, a bag for Lucy, a bed for Lucy, our cooler, our food bag...you get the idea.)  A little while later we walked down to the car...and saw, in the process, the ground floor of the hotel "taking on water."  I talked to one of the plumbers involved and he said there was a rather large hole in a pipe that they were trying to resolve.  

It had been a long day.  We decided to abandon the Best Western and go to a nearby LaQuinta for the night. 

This morning, Monday the 5th, we left Kenosha and headed for Two Rivers, WI, and the Kahlenberg Horn headquarters (https://www.kahlenberg.com/).  CruiserMarine.com is a distributor for the Kahlenberg horns.  While Wayne was conducting business, Lucy and I took in the town.  I checked out the public library, then we took a walk after parking the car beside Lake Michigan and the Lighthouse Inn.  The white car in the picture is our Chevy Impala rental.  Rich.

For lunch we picked Kurtz's Pub and Deli, an excellent choice.  We split a reuben and had a small glass of the dark Hacker-Pschorr draft beer.  

After an afternoon of navigating detours on Highway 21 across Wisconsin, we are settled in at the Microtel in Tomah, WI.  We've never stayed at a Microtel before, but it fits the name... everything's a little smaller.  Great room, though, nice and clean.  Tomorrow we head to the west....