Filed Under diane
This is from back in July, but I think it’s pretty snazzy. We live right across the Interstate from downtown Saint Paul, so when NPR ran a story on urban demographics and the “end of White Flight” in US cities, my wife Diane called in to share her observations. She’s the very last caller, right after the 29:00 mark.
Filed Under david, diane, vacation
Diane had the day off on Wednesday and wanted to spend it hanging out in Baraboo. We found a park with a small zoo attached and had a good time wandering around the town square where we ate lunch, bought some candy, and I found an old copy of Porto Bello Gold at a cool, little bookstore.
We also tried visiting the Circus World Museum that’s located on the grounds where the Ringling Bros. used to winter their show. Why anyone would want to winter in Wisconsin when they’ve already got a headquarters in Sarasota, Florida is something I hoped to learn, but unfortunately the museum was closed. Remember Lake Delton’s emptying out on Monday? The waters had reached Baraboo and were threatening the outdoor parts of the circus museum. You can click on Hugo Zacchini above to see what it looked like.
(Incidentally, some Googling tells me that Baraboo was the home of the Ringlings and starting in 1884 was the first winter headquarters for the show. John Ringling moved the HQ to Sarasota in 1927 with at least one other HQ location – Bridgeport, Connecticut – in between.)
Filed Under david, diane, vacation
Okay, truly, I’ll have some honest-to-goodness content later today. Just want to make sure I stay on top of posting these.
On Monday, Diane had the morning off so we went to the International Crane Foundation near Baraboo. We actually did most of our sight-seeing in Baraboo this trip. I sort of hate the Dells themselves (except for a couple of attractions I’ll talk about later in the week) and small town Baraboo is a wonderful get-away from the kitschy, tourist-trap madness of the Dells.
So anyway, click on David and the crane for more pics from the Crane Foundation.
I should also mention – as long as I’m talking about last Monday – that the weather adventures started on Saturday as we drove to the area. We got caught in a thunderstorm, but I’ve driven through those before and it didn’t worry me. When we stopped at a truckstop for a bathroom break though, we were told that there was a tornado warning in the area, so we hung out for a while drinking coffee and eating pie.
Eventually the weather cleared enough that we got back on the road even though the warning was still in effect. We raced the weather to the Dells and got caught in the thunderstorm again. No twisters though.
I tell you all that to say that on Monday the Dells’ big, man-made, recreational Lake Delton overflowed its banks, washed away a small dam and a nearby road, and cut a new channel to the Wisconsin River, completely emptying out the former lake. I’ll show you pictures from that and tell you how it affected our trip later in the week.
