We met my online pal Patton, aka Chris Mehring, for lunch right next door to Lambeau Field. Lambeau is home to the Green Bay Packers, and Green Bay itself is home to a bunch of football fanatics. You'd have to be fanatic to go to a football game when it's 40 below, which I believe is every game of the season around here. We settled for touring the GBP Hall of Fame. I, who do not like football, enjoyed it very much. The photo is of me and Cousin Chris. I know we look like couple of blobs the way this is sized, but you can tell it's me. I'm the short white blob. Chris is the tall one.

People I like online always seem to turn out to be just the way I thought they would when we meet in person, and Chris was no exception. He was nice as pie, funny, and charming, and I'm not just saying that because he bought us lunch. We're not really cousins, but I thought at one time that John had some Mehring relations so I joked about it with him. It turned out to be Zarlings, not Mehrings, but we keep the joke going anyway.

In general I seem to get along very well with Wisconsinites. Jeanne and Scott couldn't have been better hosts, always seeing to our comfort, and I seem to recalling laughing almost the entire time we were there. Tracy gave up her company picnic to spend the day with us, and she's a fan of both gardening and online diaries so we hardly stopped talking. I don't know what Bill gave up, but I think highly of him, too. We spent two weeks in England together back in 1992. He's one of only two non-spousal travel companions that I'd happily travel with again, and that's high praise indeed. If it weren't for those dreadful winters I believe I could be happy living in Madison.

I'm kind of fascinated by all things Wisconsin, thanks to marrying a guy from Milwaukee, so I've had a little mental list over the years of places I'd like to see. Door County was right up there, but somehow we never made time before to visit this classic vacation destination. It's the upper half of the "thumb" of Wisconsin that juts out into Lake Michigan (if you're looking at a map, Wisconsin and Michigan both look a bit like mittens). I talked John into it as we were leaving Green Bay since it wasn't very far and we didn't need to be back in Milwaukee at any particular time. I thought it was just beautiful. I love landscapes of farm and ocean, or in this case Great Lake. The air off the lake mingles with the scent of tilled earth, and the lush greenery contrasts handsomely with the deep blue-grey water. We had coffee in Sturgeon Bay, admiring the classic architecture, and I feasted my eyes on old wood barns and big, sprawling farmhouses as we meandered back down to the city. I'm only sorry it wasn't Friday so we could have a big ol' Fish Fry, a traditional Wisconsin treat.

I'm awfully easy to please on vacation. Give me something pretty to look at and I'm happy.

Our final day was spent apart. John did more genealogical research, and I went shopping. I'd originally picked out the Hotel Wisconsin because it was right across from the Grand Avenue Mall downtown, but every time we mentioned this to locals at the beginning of our trip they blanched and said, "Isn't that a transients' hotel?" I decided to stay at the Best Western next door which turned out to be quite nice. The other hotel seems to have been cleaned up and didn't show much evidence of transient population, but I didn't want to take any chances.

The logistics of car rentals, planes, and getting to our car in San Jose went smoothly. We flew American Airlines this time, and it was so much better than dealing with Northwest (whom we used in February for the funeral). Sometimes I think there's no difference at all between airlines, but that's not entirely true. There's a reason Northwest's nickname is Northworst.

Back home, reunion with pets, copious notes from the pet sitter keeping track of who did what while we were gone (Dixie went off her feed, the cats never even noticed we were gone, both as usual), vast amounts of e-mail to enjoy, bills and catalogs in the mail, a week's worth of newspapers to be gone through, and work the next day. It was great to be in our own bed again, but I don't quite feel like I really had a vacation. For that, I think I'll rely on my weekend trip to Seattle next week. No reason to tour since I grew up there. Just lots of sitting around with friends drinking, eating, and talking. My idea of relaxing.

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