Monday, August 8, 2005

The Road Home

It's a four and a half hour ride from my friends' house in Door County, Wisconsin, when you go the regular way. I left at nine this morning and took the long way around. So I just got home. It's five o'clock. I took a few side trips to look at the harbors and to find a cherry pie, but I never did, since the bakeries don't seem to be open on Mondays. But I did find cherry jam, and dried cherries, and I drank a 32 ounce bottle of cherry juice. Wisconsin may be known for its cheese, but cherries are right up there with the Packers in some counties.

After my disastrous underwater-sounding audio entry, recorded on the edge of Lake Michigan, in a telecommunications void known as a cedar forest, I tried to upload a real entry on Sunday -- the regular kind, typed and everything.  It wouldn't load and I couldn't save it -- although I realize now I could have printed it so I could try again. Meanwhile, that final audio entry was so pathetic that I didn't try to do another one.

While I didn't have luck with my cell phone, what I did have were four beautiful, sunny days with temperatures hovering around 75 degrees, along with a nice breeze off the lake, totally cloud free, clear blue skies, and a dog that looks like a cross between a German wire haired pointer, a bloodhound and a St. Bernard to entertain me. Oh yes, and wonderful food and conversation thanks to my longtime friends who cook with tagteam precision and tell stories with the skills of raconteurs.

He's an attorney and former judge who has had a lifelong passion for big game hunting and fishing. She's a conservationist who has worked for years in species preservation. Together, they're sort of Save the Whales meets African Safari. And it somehow they make it work. Ironically I knew both of them for years and they managed to meet without my help. Probably just as well.


Have I mentioned how nice it was to have a fire in the big stone fireplace one morning at the hundred year old cabin I stayed in? My friends use it as a guest house. The logs are hand hewn. There are stuffed animals everywhere. Not the cute kind from FAO Schwartz, the dead kind. Also snowshoes, a toboggan, and three black bear rugs. The main room of the cabin is so large they look like bathmats. And the claws are hazardous.  You don't want to step on them in the middle of the night.  Like I did last time I visited. Or like another guest who had to make a trip to the hospital. Dead animals have a way of getting their revenge.

The cabin's kitchen and bathroom are modern, thank you very much. I don't do outhouses. There's a wonderful screened in porch, lovely for enjoying a morning glass of juice and an English muffin.

Which brings me back to the most important stuff -- food. Where was I? Oh yes, slabs of thick sliced bacon, the best rice I've ever had -- Lundberg's organic -- the use of a fascinating battery powered pepper mill with headlights and a tasty mixture of four different kinds of pepper -- green, white, black and pink.  Also perfectly grilled petit filets, Copper River Salmon, giant, sweet, homegrown tomatoes, fresh lettuce picked just outside the back door, tender green beans from the farmers' market, and my favorite of all -- real FRESH EGGS. 

I love eggs that have been plucked from the nest that morning. Instead of sitting around in styrofoam containers for weeks and weeks. The difference in taste is just like Martha promised -- they taste like, well, EGGS.  


Oh, and Ollie, the hundred pound, very mellow dog who can leap off the ground with all four legs simultaneously, is a spinone, which is an Italian pointer. I can't ever remember the name of the breed, so I just call him a spumoni. 

I took pictures of the buffalo I saw on the way up, the giant flag I mentioned in one of my audible audio entries, and some other stuff I'll share eventually.

I actually stopped at a Walgreen's to get some of the prints made before I got home.Maybe tonight I get them posted. Then again, maybe I'll be eating the rest of the dried cherries and get to it tomorrow

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well Mrs. L. I did listen several times to the audio until I could make it out. I think you left out the HELMANS mayo part of the enty. haaaaaaa! I am glad you had a delighful time and got to bond with a 100 lb dog. (I have Luke, the Wonder Dog, who weighs in right under a hundred lbs.) I haven't been in that part of the country, but would love to see it. Is it near Egg harbor?  Time to get back to reality. YOU are a JEWEL.     Anne  

Anonymous said...

Fresh eggs are so much better than store bought but my sister gives them to me looking so bad  that i have to clean them before the hubby sees just how fresh they are...lol

Anonymous said...

Everything in Door County is close to everything else.  Egg Harbor, the one in Wisconsin, not out East, is just a few miles.  It's shaped like an egg, that's why. Mrs. L

Anonymous said...

hope you had a blast! judi

Anonymous said...

Fresh eggs are great but I can't bear to eat them while the hen is sitting on the window staring in at me, holding a "pro life" sign.  It makes me feel guilty, LOL.

Fried chicken for lunch?

Chris
http://journals.aol.com/swibirun/Inanethoughtsandinsaneramblings
http://journals.aol.com/swibirun/MyJournalJarSaturdaySixetcanswer

Anonymous said...

It is beautiful up there, and not all that far from our beaming metropolis of Chicago.  Sounds like a wonderful trip.

Anonymous said...

I wasn't aware Cherry Packers were in such demand. I work with a few fudge-packers...is that the same thing?

Anonymous said...

You had (and are) quite a trip. Thick slabs of bacon? Fresh eggs? Fresh cherries? And dead animals, exacting their revenge from their wall mounts. Does it get any better than this? I can't see how.

Anonymous said...

It sounds like an ideal getaway, Mrs. L.  I'm glad you had a chance to see some good friends and recharge your batteries at the same time.  Speaking of batteries, are you sure that was a pepper mill that used batteries and had headlights?  Okay, Okay, I'm bad!  LOL!  After all is said and done, I am glad you are safely back home.
Sam

Anonymous said...

Sam -- I thought Remo would pick up on that, but YOU??!!!  Haha!!  Mrs. L

Anonymous said...

WOW.  I want to be introduced to your friends, Mrs. L., I'm hanging out with the wrong crowd.  :-) Albert