The winds of war blew hard last night. Part of a massive three-day blow. Off the lake came huge whitecaps. Dan felt obliged to move his sailboat into the grass. We had both fires going to guard against the cold, but soon it was time for me to go to bed. I was awakened at two AM though, after “something” had happened. I think that the big guys could not contain their war to just the little guys and things spilled over. Things seemed fine in the morning though. Games Workshop had released an addendum to the rules overnight, making last night’s results obsolete.
Today, I was laid low by my GLP-1 medication. It wasn’t until an hour ago that I began to function again. My gut was in a twist, but it is better. Good thing, because today is my birthday.
Last month, when we went north to the cabin, we froze. Memorial Day may be the unofficial start of summer most places, but not on Lake Superior. This time should be different. A gigantic heat dome is forming that will engulf the Eastern United States. With our only choices being to remain here in Sweat Louis or flee north, I choose the later.
This weather situation triggered a memory of an old, cheesy, Sci-Fi B-movie that I had once seen. In this show men travel to the moon, where they find oxygen, a breathable atmosphere and women. All that I could remember about it was a sequence where a party of astronauts were walking across the moon’s surface. They had to be careful to stick to the shade, because when one of their number strays into the sunlight, he bursts into flame and is incinerated. Through the miracle of AI, this rather vague description was able to find me the title of the film, Missile to the Moon. This 1958 movie was actually a remake of the 1953 film, Cat Women of the Moon. Both movies sport the same plot; a colony of desperate women lure unsuspecting men into their trap. Let the misogyny ensue. Maybe next time they could just send Elon Musk?
All of this is merely preamble to our next rocket trip north. Eschewing our normal route, we are headed to the cabin via Wisconsin. Although, we are both retired and under no fixed schedule, our visit to the Badger state is time limited. The encroaching heat dome will soon engulf that place too. Consequently, we have limited our itinerary to three attractions:
The House on the Rock – An eclectic, complex, crazy quilt of architecturally distinct rooms, streets, and gardens designed by Alex Jordan Jr.
Taliesin – Architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s estate and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Witches Gulch – This otherworldly gorge is a mossy slot canyon in the Wisconsin Dells.
House on the Rock and Taliesin are closely located, but supposedly Wright and Jorden did not get along. There’s a story there. The Dells is devoted to waterparks and while we have chosen a more natural itinerary, our motel is fully pool equipped. I hope we don’t get sunburned. 😉
It was 49 degrees this morning. When will it ever warm up? Probably not until we head south again. Then it will be too Hot! It is so much harder than I thought it would be to be Goldilocks. So, what do the tough do when the going gets tough? They go out to eat! Early Sunday morning breakfast at Frank’s Place on Portage. Afterwards we toured the locks and saw the student drivers of the State of Michigan locking through. Such care was taken with this training vessel. All of the other boats that we have seen in the locks, have scraped hulls. Not this boat. I wonder what grade the first scratch earns that unlucky cadet?
Anne likes to play the license plate game when we travel. The other day, we were walking into Meijer’s across their parking lot. Always, a target rich environment. We were discussing her current situation. She had just recently gotten Hawaii, always a hard one, but seldom the last one. With a premonitory feeling, I asked if she had Alaska too. No? Wait for it. Because around the next pickup there it was, like magic. A few steps more towards the door and I asked, “Who provides for ya babe?” She thought that I was referencing our recent financial consultation, but I had to correct her, “No, Alaska!” It is good to know that on occasion I can still practice the old magic. She asked me then to summon Wyoming, but I was out of spell points.
The Practice Effect is a David Brin Sci-fi novel about physicist Dennis Nuel, who travels to an alternate universe where the laws of physics are different, allowing for “practical magic” where tools improve with use that practice makes perfect. Hailed as a wizard, Nuel must fight a warlord, all while trying to understand this world where the more you use something, the better it becomes.
I cast Magic Missile! On what? You don’t see anything. I cast Magic Missile on the darkness.
Heard somewhere in upstate New York, near Normans Kill, “A car, a truck, my kingdom for a horseless carriage!”
A kill is a body of water, most commonly a creek, but also a tidal inlet, river, strait, or arm of the sea. The term is derived from Middle Dutch, meaning riverbed or water channel. It is found in areas of Dutch influence as in the former American colony of New Netherland, like the Hudson Valley. Originally called “Tawasentha” (a place of the many dead), the Normans Kill is named for a Norwegian immigrant to the Albany, NY area. No Richard III connection.
Normans Kill is an interesting juxtaposition. Driving across the state on the New York Thruway in 2022, I noted this fact. I posted about it and then forgot about it. Rooting through old pics, I spied this one. I like the clouds. Googling Normans Kill in AI mode, I came upon a reference to what I previously wrote:
Normans Kill connection: A specific blog post from 2022 documents the origin of this particular line, referencing a moment of inspiration while the author was driving past the Normans Kill in upstate New York. It is not, however, an older piece of folklore or urban legend from the area.
I think I have created a reference to myself by a Bot. Seems rather masturbatory.
