Wisconsin Navigation

 Since I last wrote, here's an update:

We got the "credenza" for the TV, assembled it, and put the TV on it.  We think it looks good.  

To me, it looks a little "fat guy in a little boat" because the TV wider than the table.  But we liked this one.  It's actually a coffee table.  We wanted a longer one, but the price of tables went up considerably as they got longer.  So, this is what we ended up with.  I like it.  It goes with our mismatched farmhouse chic!  We decided to place the TV there because that's where the cable ended up for the internet.  So...that's where it goes for now.  

And now for the BIG NEWS!

We are done with Tomah!  We got the storage unit emptied out and swept on Saturday.  Ya, we know, we should have gotten it done before May 1, so we didn't have to pay rental for May.  But we just didn't have it in us.  Remember, we are old, and at times have been sickly.  And because we haven't been under any other deadlines like we were when we moved out of our house, we have been more leisurely about moving stuff.  We have worked so hard for so long.  It's nice to relax a little.  So, we paid for May, were happy to do so, and now we are out.  

And by the way, ALL other times we went to Tomah to drop off or pick up loads, the weather was lovely and very cooperative.  But, of course, NOT SATURDAY!  It thunderstormed with close crashing lightning.  Ya, we were soaking wet (filthy dirty and freezing cold, as my mom used to say) going between a wet metal building and a wet metal trailer.  Just a tiny bit scary!

Here we are as drowned rats after we were done.  But we treated ourselves to Taco Bell, so all was well.  We have no pictures of the rain storm because our phones were in the cab of the truck, and we were TRYING to stay dry.  The problem was that the water was Niagara Falls off the roof, right onto our trailer door/ramp.  So we got really wet anyway.  Had I known I was going to get soaked, I would have gone to the cab for the camera.  Oh well.  We got home and had super hot showers and put on dry clothing, and that counteracted our hypothermic tendencies.

In Colorado, thunderstorms build up, do their thing, and blow on east 20 minutes later.  In Wisconsin, it took hours for this thing to build, and then it sat there are soaked and soaked and soaked.  It rained like that for at least an hour, and I think it finally blew over around 5pm.  In one of our favorite YouTube videos (Pole Barn Garage) the guy says, "It's raining its ass off."  Now I know what that means.    

And now a word about navigating around Wisconsin.  In Colorado, you can jump on an East-West road, or a North-South road, and you can pretty much traverse the state.  If you get on Highway 14 in Sterling, you can go clear to Muddy Pass (with a few minor zigs and zags, but it's always 14).  There are no roads in Wisconsin, the northern part anyway, that go all the way.  They end.  11 mile, 16 mile, 21 mile sections.  You aren't on one road all day.  You zig and you zag.  The roads are, for the most part, paved and nice, but they don't go beyond 30 miles or so.  So, to go to Tomah, it's 7 or 8 turns.  (Last week's trip to Tomah took us between the cranberry bogs, a treacherous 1.5 lane dirt path!  Yikes!)  We found that pretty strange, but there again, Colorado was settled well after the Homestead Act of 1863 and most of the roads were laid out per the section lines, one mile apart, going toward the major markings on the compass.  Wisconsin was made a state in 1848.  Roads went wherever between farms and towns.  If you wanted a road from point A to point B, you made one.  Didn't matter if it was to go on from your original destination.

Anyway, when we first got here, in fact, on our way here, we found a tricky deal that Google Maps did.  You would choose your route, and start driving it.  Then 15-20 minutes into it, Google would pipe up and tell you to turn on some obscure county road.  And you would be like, I thought I was going all the way to Ladysmith on State Highway 10?  You would stay on 10 instead of turning, and Google would say, stay on Highway 10 for 30 miles.  Then 10 minutes later, it would do it again.  Turns out, there's literally dozens of ways to get where you want to go because of all these zig zag roads, and Google inadvertently tries to go the shortest route, but without warning you.  I think also, losing and re-acquiring signal out in the middle of nowhere jacks it up a little.  That might be part of the problem.   

Poor Bryan was in the lead with the truck and trailer, and I was behind in the car.  His GPS said to go Right, and mine said to go Left,  We ended up on a little cottage lane by a lake that went nowhere.  So we decided I should lead.  I ignored all the little crazy turn decisions made by Google and stayed on the main road, and we made it to Phillips.  But Bryan's version of Google Maps continues to try to take him down Bob's Road all the time.  And we are finding that all the roads here are Bob's Road.  I'm not sure we've been anywhere (except from Park Falls to Phillips and back but that's just 15 miles on a State Highway 13) where we've gone and come back the same way.  We would be totally lost without the GPS, just saying.  Hard to plot any kind of course ourselves and not get somewhere with the truck and trailer that we can't get out of.  

So, when you come visit, please be aware that you will zig zag across Norther Wisconsin, and that there's no road that comes straight here!  It's beautiful country, so enjoy the scenery and see a new place every time you get in the car!  Maybe that's what Google is trying to tell us!   

Anyway, please comment and share!  Thanks for reading!