Taliesin and camping with little boys in Spring Green

Gram Gram with the boys at our house

Our son-in-law, a builder, has been wanting to visit Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous Taliesin in Spring Green, Wisconsin.  So when their family visited, we arranged for the little boys’ first camping trip.  After we  packed the camper the night before, we realized Levi (age 2) had disappeared.  I searched the house for him and then looked outside.  He was standing on the steps of the camper waiting to get in again.

Tara, Stephen and the boys with our new rig.  Stephen loved driving it.

Basil and Levi had a great time being in the campground in the woods.   They ran around and around and around outside the camper.  They got to roast marshmallows at night and even cook their own breakfast of bagels and sausages over the fire. 

A great playground just down the lane from our site drew them often.

 Basil learned to putt a golf ball in the miniature golf course.

 Levi would rather use the putter to dig in the wood chips.

Taliesin was fascinating.  The house and studio wrap around a hill overlooking a valley near the Wisconsin River.  Our guide was a local farmer’s wife from a bit farther away.  Her husband and mother-in-law cannot understand why she “would want to promote that awful man.”  Wright was not well liked in Spring Green due to his arrogance and scandalous divorces and mistresses, not to mention his difficulty paying his bills.  However, his genius was universally recognized; his passion for bringing nature into his structures was magical.  Stephen and I did the long tour to see everything.  Tara, Don and the little boys did a short tour.  Levi was not impressed.

The cantilevered porches on the living quarters

The barns were important to the estate.  All architecture students worked the farm too.

The Romeo and Juliet windmill was contoured to withstand winds on the hill.

 

Stephen enjoyed the tour.

Northeast Wisconsin and Door County

We camped at Shawano Lake a couple times this summer while we attended family and class reunions in Gillett.  Sunset over the lake was lovely.

Gillett High School class of ’66.

Peninsula State Park near Fish Creek in Door County is one of our favorites.

We drove to Gill’s Rock at the northern point of the Door and parked the truck while we took the tandem bike on the ferry over to Washington Island.  We biked six miles to the other side of the island and locked up the bike while we took the next ferry to Rock Island State Park, a no vehicle, no services lovely spot of wilderness in the waters of Lake Michigan.  We hiked a few miles along the shore and ate a lunch we packed in. 

 

 A Chicago industrialist of Icelandic heritage owned the island at one time and built a fabulous Icelandic boathouse with a great room above, now used as a museum.  I love this place.

We took the ferry back, rode the bike six miles back to the other ferry, and stopped for a much needed chocolate malt and turtle sundae.  We were exhausted when we got back to the camper, but we did make it to the Folklore Theater in the State Park to see one of their funny, original, Door County based plays.

 Unlike most people who visit Door County, we did not enter a single shop. Yaaaay!!!

Madison, Wisconsin's Capitol

Wisconsin’s Capitol building is one of the most beautiful in the country.   I had not toured it for a long time.  My college friend Char and I spent the day admiring the building and what it has stood for in years past.  Now it was a reminder of Wisconsin gone bad.  We let life get in the way of coming here to show support and came a day late.  The legislature passed an unbelievably draconian budget the night before.  It was sad to see the legislative chambers and think about what had happened there.

We are Wearing Red for Public Ed, of course.  It was ironic to see the statue called “Wisconsin” (upper right) which is supposed to represent the state motto of Forward when Wisconsin has become a national symbol of going backward.

We did enjoy the Solidarity Sing-along at noon, the fourteenth week people have gathered to protest in song, only 100-125 people today.  The volunteer band delighted everyone including these little guys who danced along.

The Raging Grannies

One of the songs:

This land is your land;

This land is my land,

From Lake Geneva to Madeline Island

From the rolling prairies

To our lovely dairies

Wisconsin was made for you and me.

In the squares of the city

In the shadow of the steeple

In the Capitol,

I see my people,

And some are grumblin’

And some are wonderin’

If this land’s still made for you and me.

And another:

First they came for the unions,
Saying that you should have less

Business needs more, you people aren’t poor

Stop whining; buck up like the rest.

And then they came for the children,

Hard to believe but it’s true.

Schools and good health

Might take from their wealth,

So tell me what are you gonna do?

Scotty, we’re coming for you!

For so long we’ve all been asking

How come people aren’t more upset?

They’re selling our clout and tuning us out.

They’re not treating us with respect.

So tell me, what are we gonna do?

Scotty, we’re coming for you!

Signs in and around the Capitol

Orlando in May playing nanny

We just had two wonderful weeks in Orlando babysitting Basil (nearly 4) and Levi (21 months).  I don’t know how their nanny Chris can do it alone every day; we have to double-team the boys.  They are lively, smart, and loads of fun.  Gramps is one of their favorite people; he played with them almost constantly and walked them in the double stroller on his daily two mile walks.  That usually had to be in the morning because the weather was unbearably hot much of the time.

Basil was our little helper with Levi who is entering the terrible twos.  The plants along the garage wall had been discarded, so Basil picked out new flowers and helped us plant them. 

Wekiwa Springs State Park is our home most winters when we camp-host there, so it felt like home-coming to go for a day—walking the campground, hiking trails with the boys in the jogging stroller, and swimming in the springs.  Levi loves water; he screamed “No!” when we tried to get him out.

Leu Gardens is just around the corner from Tara’s house, so we walked a couple hours there too one day.   The boys managed to get very wet in one of the fountains.  I let Basil use my camera; he took 176 pictures.  A few turned out very well.  (Levi’s scabbed nose was from one of many trips and falls.)

You just have not seen sports until you have watched a soccer game of 3 and 4 year-olds.  Sometimes there were five players in the goal watching the ball come, but most of the time the ball simply missed the goal.  Sometimes they tried to get the ball into the goal of the next game over.

Basil about to take the ball.

Tara and Stephen have always taken the boys for a walk around the neighborhood after dinner.  Basil made us line up on the white line at stop signs while he checked if a car was coming.  He took this picture.

We went on a family field trip to Sarasota our last weekend there to the Ringling Circus Museum and the beach.   Basil and his daddy both loved the big Ringling family train car named the Wisconsin.  The Ringlings  were from Baraboo after all.  Basil took the picture of Tara and me with one of the circus wagons.   It is a wonderful place—allow a whole day if you go.

Banyon trees are amazing with the roots coming down from the lateral branches.

The boys loved the surf on the beach.

I have a new name:  Jeamma.  Levi couldn’t say Grandma, but one day Jeamma came out of his mouth.  Maybe he heard Don and Stephen calling me Jean.  Jeamma stuck; they both call me that now.  Next winter we will work on Gramps.  That one is harder to say.

We miss them already.