On the Road Again

Saturday we started, on the road, bright in early with the intention of going to St. Germain. John, Erin and I started out heading north out of Antigo. We were all hungry, since no one had breakfast before we left, so we stopped at what we had always called EAT, since that was the only sign that was ever on the restaurant. This time though it actually had a name, but I really can't remember it, hence it will be known as the Eat restaurant. We have always had good food there and today was no exception. John and Erin had lunch since it was already ten o'clock but I opted for the breakfast menu. John had the Giant Burger and by gosh that's exactly what it was. Erin had the pulled barbecue pork and I had the bird-nest scramble. It was all excellent!

On the road again, we started seeing the rummage sale signs. Whenever we could stop, without getting rear-ended, we did. We found a few very nice treasures. John found a fishing rod. It is a metal pole and was square instead of round. He didn't have one in his collection so that was our first purchase.

On the road again, our next few sales we found something of interest picking up a cook book entirely of fish recipes. I think this might come in handy if we should ever really start fishing again. I also found a framed picture of the alien, from the early cartoon show. The little green guy that wears the helmet. My son-in-law, Andy, used to like this guy so I picked it up for him to hang in the barn lounge. I'm sure he will be excited!!

On the road again, we finally made it to St. Germain after about three hours on the road. Note it is actually only about an hour and a half ride from home. St. Germain was just nuts with the holiday tourist up for Memorial Day. Hence we just rode through and didn't stop anywhere in town.

On the road again, after leaving St. Germain everyone decided they were hungry again. I said 'we just ate!' but it had been five hours ago that I had breakfast. We hit a few more sales before we saw anything that resembled a restaurant. We made a few more great buys of things we had been looking for, like an old kitchen step chair, the one where the steps fold into the chair when not in use. Also on the treasure list was an old bathroom scale. I weighed myself on it and liked what I saw so we got that too. The best buy at this sale was made by Erin. She found a fur coat. It must be a good one because it has a Neiman Marcus label in it. It looks like it was never worn. It will be a great winter coat and quite the fashion statement.

On the road again, by this time we are headed into Rhinelander. John remembers a Chinese restaurant there he went to twenty years ago. Well after talking about Chinese food for ten miles we are all hungry for it. We find the road its on and lo and behold it is still there, only close for parking lot repairs. Well Hardies is just up the road on the left but wait there in the distance is a little Family Restaurant up on the right so a quick lane change and we are in the door. This little place has way too many things on the menu and it takes quite a while to decide. Needless to say today was our day for eating out and we picked really good places. The food here was excellent also.

On the road again towards home and John says 'Hey there's a bear up there". Sure. Right . Well we pull off the road and sure enough it's a bear. There was something dead on the road. I guess he found a good place to eat too! With all the traffic on the highway it was a miracle he made it off the road alive. I was quick enough to catch a picture of the little guy. He must go about 125-150 LBS.

On the road again, after we saw the bear it turned into a pretty boring ride. It was getting late so all the sales were closed down and all the treasures were safely locked up in their garages.

We got home about five and unpacked our purchases and sat in a chair that actually didn't move.

Off the Road, Again!

Riding Wisconsin!

Well today was a tour of two thirds of Wisconsin by car. Started out this morning from Green Bay after spending the night by John's mom. Saturday we had drove down for Mother's Day. When we go to Green Bay we mainly go shopping and EAT! Then eat some more and go shopping. John and I did take in some rummage sales along the way and found just the right size fridge for downstairs. We were looking for the old time round top but those seem to be few and far between. What we found was an smaller ugly harvest gold fridge with the tiniest freezer inside. Well it was only $10 so we got it and will probably paint it red. It will look ok.

Back to the road trip. We left this morning at 9:45, arrived home at 11:15, went in the house, peed and got back in the car for a trip to Minneapolis. Went to Minneapolis for Erin. She will be spending the week there. She's excited! to be back with her friends and then on Thursday Alik will be flying in from NYC. They will have a blast for Erin's Birthday on Friday. Well, we get to our destination at 3:15, pretty good time! We unload Erin's stuff, play with puppy for a few minutes go pee and and I'm off again back to Antigo. Thank goodness I have a GPS. It does need an update though. Through the Chippewa Falls area we take flight over the countryside since the thing doesn't think there is actually a road there. I don't really understand how it doesn't see the road when it is suppose to word off of satellites. Don't the satellites know where the new roads are? Anyway it works pretty good for me, I like flying every once in awhile. I get home by 7PM. Go in the house pet puppy and pee. Gee, it seems like I have a routine going!!

Opening Trout Season in Wisconsin A Day Early And a $100 Less!

Well tomorrow will be the opening day for fishing season here in the North Woods. Trout is the fish of the day! Even though we purchased our fishing license today we will not be on the water in the morning or the afternoon or the evening. Alas since we have moved north we have been fishing maybe twice the last 3 1/2 years. Before we moved North we would be fishing about every weekend. What happened? Well buying a house with lots of yard is the answer. we've done massive landscaping in the summer and in the winter did things to improve the inside. Granted the house was only four years old when we purchased it, we still had to make it our own. I think we are just about there! This winter we finished the lower level with a walkout basement. This goes directly to a fire pit area. Then a small pond area with a retaining wall.

Enough of that, back to the fishing. We did do some early season trout fishing in our small pond and that's what we had for supper tonight. John had the plan to stock 100 5"-6" trout in the pond. Sounds like a good idea. Well I talked him down to 50 I actually only wanted maybe 25, but ended up with 53 little fishies. We got them from a local fish farm not far from here. Got them home along with $30.00 of fish food and put them into their new home. Everyone seemed quite pleased with their new surroundings. Everything went very well for the first few days until the water turned from my Caribbean blue to a slimly green. I noticed that the fish mainly stayed around the aerator and seldom swam to the other end of the 22' pool. Alas, we have no fish. John filleted them. Our thought was they were not getting enough oxygen, even though the fishfarmer said we could have 100 fish in that size pond. A few minutes after John took them out of the pond and put them in a pail of water they met their demise. While John cleaned fish, I cleaned the pond out-completely! taking all the water out and cleaning the sides and bottom, then refilling with water. I now have my Caribbean blue water back. Thank God!

Our fish fry tonight only cost us $15 and some pride.

I need to be a restaurant critic!

Friday night we were having a difficult time deciding where we would go for our Friday fish. Should we try a new place or an old one? Since it was foggy out we decided to stay closer to town and retry a place we had visited when it first opened about 15 months ago. The parking lot was fairly full so we thought we were in for a good meal, The first time we were there we were not very impressed with the food but we thought we them just opening up they might have a few kinks to work out. Well we walked in and we seated immediately, in the back of the dining room by the exit door. Not impressed especially since there were plenty of tables free in the main dining room. We walked passed the buffet table on our long walk to our table and decided we would both get the buffet. There was a salad bar to start and this was pretty good, there were two types of soup so I decided to try one, the cream of potato not impressed. It tasted like a dirty potato. Absolutely no seasoning. Had two spoonfuls and that was enough. Then we set our sites on the main course. I had the crab legs, chicken, baked fish, deeped fried fish, deep fried shrimp, peel and eat shrimp, meatballs, fried clams and I think that was about it. You would think with that many options we would find one think that was good. Afraid not! It was all terrible! Absolutely no seasoning on anything. The crab legs were even bad. If I didn't soak them in butter they would have been left. The crab legs were either over boiled or old. They did not come out of the shell. I had to scrap and pull the meat out of the opened shell. Not Good! John was not any happier with his choices. The meatballs tasted like dogfood. Actually they tasted like they were boiled in water instead of panfried or baked. Again no seasoning what so ever. The only thing that was tolerable the chicken, but if the chicken isn't raw it's tolerable. Our bill was over $40 with one beer and glass of wine. I can truthfully say we will NEVER return to this restaurant again. Alas, they will never realize how bad their food is.