Mineral Point, WI

Sarah's brother and his wife own a nice second home in Mineral Point, WI just a block north of the down town.  Mineral Point is an old town with some great limestone buildings, other historic structures, lots of arts and crafts galleries, and other interesting places to visit.

David and Donna were kind enough to invite us up for the weekend and my mom too.  We drove up on Friday afternoon.  Mom checked into a modest old motel half a mile from David and Donna's.  There is only sleeping room for four people and also Sarah was concerned the the stairs up to the bathroom and the odd two inch height difference between the bedrooms and hallway might make it dangerous for my mom.

As it turned out Mom went up and down the stairs several times and was careful and did fine.  I don't know if I would have Mom stay at the motel next time.  It was cheap, about $47 per night but that still adds $100 on to the weekend.  Also, I wonder if Mom felt at all slighted.  I could have slept on David and Donna's blow up mattress and let mom have the bed in the third bedroom.

 Mom brought food and Sarah and I brought some too.  We only ate one meal at a restaurant which was nice in some ways.  We visited the farmers market at the park on Saturday morning.  On Saturday night we went to the newly restored but old opera house in Mineral Point to see a comedy troupe from Chicago.

They were terrible.  It was seven people each doing a comic monologue about some aspect of their life.  One guy did his on his dog that bit him and made him bleed. A woman did hers on a tornado that swept through her town when she was a little girl. 

I felt bad for the performers.  There were only about 40 people in the audience, they must have worked hard to memorize their stories and there were few laughs.  I left after the third performer and went down the block and had a beer in a dive bar.  That wasn't very entertaining but I felt good to be liberated.

I spent part of Sunday under the van adding grease to a leaky cv joint boot and then patching the leak.  I could write more about the van but the whole thing is rather discouraging.  For now let me just say that the van worked fine, the patch seems to be working and we drove home Sunday afternoon in the rain and had not problems.

How generous of David and Donna to have us for the weekend.  We had fun.

work work work

I have pride myself on the fact that I can fix a car, lead a Great Books discussion on Hamlet and play competitive table tennis.  My ideal is the well-rounded person.

This week I replaced the front struts on the wife's Toyota van.  Both sides were a disaster.  I inadvertently pulled the inner boot off the inner cv joint, twice, on the passenger side spilling grease on the driveway and greatly increasing the time to finish the job.

On the driver's side I fought rusted-on bolts and because of said rusted-on bolts, had to replace the stabilizer bar end link.

I have concluded that one large problem with my approach to auto repair, which I have done on my own cars for years, is that I lack certain tools.  The list is long but includes large size wrenches, die cutter and breaker bar.  Getting work done with minimal tools is another thing that I have prided myself on.

I recall that pride commeth before a fall.  I have fallen and I resolve to invest in enough tools to do work without so much pain.

Eric goes to college

 Saturday 9/3/11

Sarah, Mom, Debbie and I drove out to Jeff and Grace's last Sunday.  Eric was leaving for college in Wisconsin on Wednesday.  We wanted to say good-bye and also hear about the trip to Yellowstone National Park that Jeff and Eric had enjoyed.

They had hired a guide and hiked and camped for 3 or 4 days.  We talked about bears and moose and camping. 

Sarah and I had brought a few things to give to Eric.  Things that he could use in his dorm room.  Mom baked cookies for him.

Grace made a wonderful dinner.  We had a very nice time.  Eric is a fine young man.