As is usually the case, I had the road to myself so early on a weekend morning. As I headed north on the interstate, the blinking lights of the wind farm turbines pointed the way for me. Temperatures were cool, in the low 50's and stayed that way for much of the morning.
While heading south to hunt hogs, I've seen many sunrises near the Kentucky/Tennessee border. On this day, I saw the sunrise on the Illinois/Wisconsin border. The area may not be quite as picturesque, but it was still pretty.
Traffic remained tolerable - even around Madison as I made my way north. When I exited the interstate at Eau Claire, I stopped at Walmart. I wasn't terribly thrilled with the strap I was using to secure my coolers in the bed of the truck, but the options that Wally World that had looked good online were far too ricky once I looked at them in the store; I decided that what I had was a better option.
Back on the road, I was getting fantastic gas mileage. It rose up and trailed down through the day, but many times I got near or reached and indicated 29MPG. Granted the actual is usually a little lower, but for an AWD truck, that is fantastic. At my second gas stop for the day I averaged just under this level.
The scenery got better as I headed north and cars began to peel off in other directions, lightening traffic. I had made great time and since the distance was lessened from the previous day's drive after work, I enjoyed the drive without any time pressures. The view from some of the higher elevations was pretty.
I finished listening to All But My Life by Gerda Weissmann Klein. The end of the book was riveting; the senseless waste, violence and death shortly before and after the end of the war is absolutely tragic. The epilogue may have given a glimpse of what it was like for my mom's family to come to Canada after the war.
I wanted to start another book, but didn't want to leave it unfinished before getting to camp, so I listened to podcasts the rest of the day. Some were good, a few not so much. Although I did really enjoy hearing the origins of the Teddy Bear:
Apparently Theodore Roosevelt was bear hunting and not having much luck, headed back to camp for lunch. Meanwhile his guide and dogs cornered a bear - his guide wacking the thing over the head with his gun. Then the guide tied it to a tree to give TR the "honor" of shooting it. When TR got there, he looked at the small bear which was malnourished and in a very sad state, and refused to shoot it (the world of 1902 was a different place - but it would be hard to call that sporting at any time). A political cartoonist (Clifford Berryman) made a cartoon of this event which sparked the idea to create the "Teddy Bear."
This story would be cute and cuddly if the bear was released, but apparently the guide killed the bear and it was eaten that night. So it goes.
Related, William Howard Taft was associated with "Billy Possums" for a short while, but that idea never took off the way the Teddy Bear has...
As I continued north, the scenery got really "northy" with granite and sandy-looking soil, birch and aspen trees. Absolutely magical.
Soon enough, I was at International Falls. I had been munching on junk food much of the day so I'm not sure why I felt compelled to walk down to a gas station for more after getting my hotel room, but that is just what I did. Perhaps I just really wanted to walk after driving for much of the day.
I rested in the room for a bit, watching TV and looking at what the weather was forecast to be for a week of fishing and bear hunting.
I wasn't terribly hungry, but did want some real food so I headed down to the Chocolate Moose to eat. The bacon cheeseburger was good and the wait staff could have come straight out of Lake Wobegon.
My GPS had been acting odd, and after searching a bit I realized it was affected by the GPS Week Number Rollover. Thankfully, it looked like Garmin had (perhaps surprisingly, given Garmin's unusual support model combined with the unit's age) created an update for this. A quick download and install fixed the unit - at least I think. I'll see for sure on the drive in the morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment