Sunday, August 26, 2007

Madeline Island

On Saturday, Warren and Karen Starkebaum and Carolie and I headed to the ferry in Bayfield for a trip to Madeline Island, about a 20 minute trip. On the way over -- although you can't really see it here -- I noticed an ore boat was coming down the harbor, apparently heading for Ashland, Wisconsin. The Apostle Islands shelter this area, the big, open, this-is-where-storms-sink-boats part of Lake Superior is north. We found -- I found -- that the '60s are alive and well on Madelaine Island. I've always been intrigued that people are able to make a living -- sort of, I guess -- in ways other than schlepping into a building somewhere and sitting in a cubible. Carolie reminds me that it's not unlike where we lived in Sheffield, Massachusetts, but I reminded her that it was probably easier to keep the '60s alive in the '80s than in the '00s. After a nice lunch we walked up the road apiece when we stumbled on a woman standing in the driveway of her shop, ummm, hula hooping. First Karen... Then Warren, shown here explaining the principles of quantum physics at the same time... And, finally, Carolie... Warren and Karen are now proud owners of a very large hula hoop. We walked up to the marina to check to make sure the other half is still living well (it is) and then back to the ferry, stopping along the beach where a couple of small amphibian planes (one a butt-ugly Zenair were tied up. Later, we saw them take off. It seems like a fun way to travel although, as I understand it, the price of the floats is prohibitive. I hadn't seen a small plane all weekend but in a space of about 20 minutes, a ton of them took off from the airport on the island... Mooneys, Cirrus, 170s. I've got to fly up here sometime! In the evening, Karen wanted to go to the Garrison Keillor show up the street (same place we saw America on Friday night), but as it turned out we sat around outside with some drinks and hot salsa, watched a gorgeous near-full moon rise over the water until it got so cold that it chased us inside. Prior to that, I'm happy to report, we successfull determined that, yes, it is possible to slow the rotation of the earth by running in the same direction as the rotation.

No comments: