Meanderings & Mind Munchies

Blue Mounds State Park

This morning, Greg and I took the Prairie and Bison Bus Tour at Blue Mounds State Park.

We got to see the bison herd almost as soon as the tour started.

The prairie was beautiful and so different from anything I’ve seen before.

I learned some pretty cool facts on the tour:

The prairie needs to be burned every few years to keep it healthy and prevent it from evolving. People have been burning prairies for thousands of years.
No bison currently living in the US is purebred due to cattle/bison inbreeding many years ago by ranchers.
Only 4% of the original long grass prairie remains in the U.S.
The soil that makes up the prairie of Blue Mounds State Park is at most 3 ft. deep. Underneath the soil is up to 350 ft of Sioux quartzsite. Because of that, the root system goes sideways rather than down.
Bison like to hang out together, so it is rare to find one on its own.
The various parks that breed bison swap the bulls between them in order to prevent too much inbreeding.

We saw some cool wildlife on our tour, too. Thanks to another woman on the tour, who had a powerful set of binoculars, we got to see a red tail hawk and a falcon. We also got to see some pheasants.

Palisades State Park

Next, we headed to Palisades State Park. This was a cute park with some beautiful quartzsite cliffs along Split Rock Creek.

I could post about 20 pictures from this park. I thought it was beautiful.

I really wanted to be one of those kayakers!

One more photo, just because.

Falls Park

Next, we headed to Falls Park in downtown Sioux Falls.

The feels-like temp today was between 100 and 103 degrees, despite the cloud cover (humidity over 70 percent), and Greg was beat by this point, so he took a little convincing to keep going. But after a short stint in the air-conditioned camper, he was game.

And in the end, we were both glad that we went. Wow. Falls Park was a pleasant surprise!

It’s a wonderful community park with a water playground for kids, shops, picnic areas, and restaurants. But the highlight of the park is the falls.

You don’t see something like this right in the heart of a city very often. It was very cool. (By the way, that building is a cafe.)

Miscellany

Some observations about Wisconsin and South Dakota:

The names of county roads in Wisconsin are letters of the alphabet (e.g. County Road V, County Road E). In South Dakota, the names of county roads are numbers (e.g. County Road 478, County Road 452).
The roads are so straight!
The fields of crops (corn or soybeans) are so vast that they disappear into the horizon. It’s all farmland here.

People in South Dakota say hi to you when walking past you.
The roads in Wisconsin are in terrible condition. So are a lot of the roads in South Dakota. Even I-90, which is a major highway!
The roads in South Dakota are sparsely traveled. We went nearly 20 miles today and only passed one other car.

We’ve been feeling a bit like we’re driving across the top of the world, even though our elevation is only 1200 ft. above sea level. I think it’s because the landscape is so flat that the horizon is very far away.

SPAM Museum

There’s a museum for everything, apparently. Today, after setting up camp near Austin, Minnesota, Greg and I headed to the SPAM Museum.

It was fun. I learned about how SPAM is made, its use by the military, and all the ways people around the world eat it.

Greg tried a sample. He said it was very salty. I couldn’t bring myself to try it.

Tomorrow, we’re headed to Sioux Falls.

Cave of the Mounds

Yesterday, we visited Cave of the Mounds in Blue Mounds, Wisconsin. Before our tour of the actual cave, we walked the Karst View Trail. It took us past a number of sinkholes in the ground. (A karst is another word for sinkhole. More or less. I think.)

The sinkholes were not particularly interesting

But the wildflowers along the trail were beautiful!

Afterwards, we took a self-guided tour of Cave of the Mounds. This is the first time we’ve been in a cave where we did not have a guide. It was nice because we were able to linger over things that interested us and take pictures without feeling rushed.

Unfortunately, cave pictures never come out well. The contrast between light and dark is too extreme.

Therefore, I will not bore you with a bunch of crappy cave pictures. Just trust me when I say that this was a fun and different cave experience.

Lake Farm Heritage Trail

The weather was actually gorgeous today, so we decided to take a hike.

Wisconsin has been experiencing a lot of flooding in the last week. Consequently, the trail was flooded in a number of places, and we had to turn around and try different routes.

Despite the challenges, we got to see some pretty scenery.

And wildlife!

National Mustard Museum

Next, we headed to the National Mustard Museum in Middleton, Wisconsin.

Middleton is one of the cutest towns I’ve ever seen. I loved it.

We tried a slew of different-flavored mustards, toured the museum, and watched a film about the making of mustard around the world.

The Pink Elephant

Apparently, no visit to Madison would be complete without a visit to see the Pink Elephant. So we did that, too!

The pink elephant has been standing on the site of this gas station since the 1960s. It is not the only pink elephant in the country, but it is the only one wearing glasses.

Drumlin Ridge Winery

We finished the day at Drumlin Ridge Winery, where we tasted some wines and enjoyed some snacks.

It was lovely!

In between all of those activities, we managed to make time to see the new Superman movie (it was good but not great), did laundry, went grocery shopping, and did some maintenance on the travel trailer.

This trip has been different from previous trips with the travel trailer because of the amount of maintenance we’ve had to do while traveling.

Greg ended up ordering a new weight distributing hitch for the trailer. It will be delivered to our campground in Sioux Falls and installed before we leave. Not ideal, but hopefully, the new hitch will fix the sway problem.

We’re also having a problem with water backing up into the fresh water tank, so Greg spent some time trying to solve that problem, too.

On to Minnesota!

Indiana Dunes National Park

Ugh. South Dakota is very far away. Greg and I have now passed the 1000-mile mark on our drive out west.

Yesterday, we were in Indiana, so we decided to check out Indiana Dunes National Park. (There is also an Indiana Dunes State Park, but we chose the national park because we wanted to get our national parks passport book stamped.)

It was 90° and humid, so we went in the morning and kept our visit brief. We hiked the Succession Trail off of West Beach. It involved lots of steps and slogs through soft sand. (Not a great thing for Greg’s weak ankle, but he made it.)

Thankfully, a brisk breeze made the heat more bearable

Part of the trail was in shade, which we appreciated!

The reward for our effort was seeing the beautiful blue waters of Lake Michigan

On to Wisconsin!

Paintings and a Park

Before we left for our trip, I managed to complete two assignments for my negative painting class with Rick Surowitz.

Although I don’t hate either one, I’d like to give them another try once I get back home.

Maumee Bay State Park

Yesterday was a weird day. One of my medications, either the Propranolol or the Viibryd (or I guess it could have been the lack of caffeine in the morning), made me extremely tired. I finally dragged myself out of bed around 3:00 p.m., but even then I felt like a zombie.

In a desire to not completely waste the day, Greg and I headed off to Maumee Bay State Park to see if we could do a little hiking.

This is a cute little park right on Lake Erie. It has a fancy lodge, a marina, a golf course, a small inland lake, two beaches, a campground, and a couple of hiking trails.

Greg and I managed to get our steps in, but I felt like my body was still asleep the entire walk. I was glad when we finally headed back to our campsite.

Some lucky home owner has his own personal lighthouse!

A prettier view of the marina looking toward the lodge

On to Indiana!

Flight 93 Memorial

After a relaxing morning in which I napped and Greg read, we headed to the Flight 93 Memorial.

I had mixed feelings about touring this site. My memories of 9/11 are still vivid in my mind, and I was reluctant to re-traumatize myself.

The walkway to the visitor’s center mimics the flight path of Flight 93.

That said, I’m glad we went. The site is in a naturally beautiful location. I felt like I was standing on top of the world. There were mountains and meadows as far as I could see.

The visitor’s center did a wonderful job of telling the story of that day. I was both moved and informed. I was reminded again of the heroism of Flight 93’s passengers and how many lives they saved through their actions.

After our tour of the visitor center, Greg and I hiked down to Memorial Plaza and the crash site.

I was surprised to learn that there were only about 40 people on the plane, and they took a vote before storming the pilot’s cabin.

A boulder now marks the spot where the plane crashed, but I did not take a picture of it. It seemed disrespectful somehow.

Another view of the visitor’s center, walking back from Memorial Plaza

On our way out of the memorial site, we stopped at the Tower of Voices, where 40 chimes represent the 40 people who lost their lives that day. The wind has to blow at 12 to 15 mph in order for the chimes to ring. We got to hear them briefly as we were walking toward the tower.

Greg made a friend at the base of the tower. This little kitten was basically a skeleton covered in fur, but my, did he have a pair of lungs! I was seriously tempted to take him back to our campsite.

Luckily, another tourist gave him some water and called the Rangers. I like to think that he is in good hands tonight.

Hitch woes…cooking up a solution

In preparation for our epic Western camping trip, Greg decided to change out the friction cone in our hitch. We had been having trouble with the back end of the trailer swaying. Greg thought replacing the friction cone might help.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t get the darn thing out. He tried everything, including all of the suggestions people had on YouTube. Finally, he called the manufacturer for help, and they told him to boil the hitch for 30 minutes.

Weirdly, it worked!

Empty nesters at last

On Saturday we moved Galen to Pittsburgh. He will be sharing an apartment with Neal and Lily and working for Westinghouse, where Neal also works.

It was a grueling day. We had just enough time to unload his stuff before we had to turn around and head for home.

I’m glad for Galen. (At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.) This is a wonderful opportunity for him.

But I’m sad for me. The house feels very empty and strange without him.

And…we’re off!

As I write this, Greg and I are relaxing at our first campground on our epic Western camping trip. We’re in Bedford, PA, to see the Flight 93 Memorial.

It’s hard for me to believe that the big day has finally arrived. I feel like we’ve been planning it forever.

We are both exhausted. The last few weeks have been frenetic. Hopefully, over the next few days we can begin to recover.

Not done after all

Apparently I lied when I said that I was giving up on this painting.

After staring at it on my painting table for a week, I broke down and decided to finish it. I was feeling guilty at wasting a perfectly good sheet of watercolor paper (that stuff isn’t cheap!)

Plus, the pumpkin painting was keeping me from tackling any new painting projects…or that’s what I told myself. (I suspect I was using it as an excuse not to start any new projects. My creative resistance is as strong as ever.)

I decided that I would not try to make this painting a masterpiece. Instead, I’d use it as an opportunity to try some new techniques. I failed at practicing new techniques, but I succeeded at not taking the painting too seriously. And I like the way it turned out.

I learned that creating attractive-looking shadows on orange objects is difficult. Consequently, I’ve decided that learning about shadows and how to paint them needs to be added to my “topics to study in depth” list.

Once I finished my pumpkin painting, I decided to focus on negative painting. Negative painting is when you paint around the outside of a subject in order to define it. It’s a particularly useful skill for watercolor painting because of watercolor’s transparency. (You can’t paint light-colored objects on top of a dark-colored background in watercolor. Instead, you have to paint around the light-colored object.)

Practicing negative painting can be a lot of fun. It takes a certain way of thinking and seeing that doesn’t come naturally to me.

This is the first negative painting I ever did, back in 2020, and it is still my favorite.

To practice my negative painting skills, I am using a course by Rick Surowicz called, not surprisingly, Negative Painting. Here is one of the exercises from the course.

I am currently working on my first official painting in the course and will post it once it’s done.

We need societal collapse

Today I’m going to write to my representatives in Congress and tell them to vote for the Big Beautiful Bill.

Why? Because the MAGA voter is hard-headed, and nothing but complete disaster is going to wake them up from their Trump-loving fever dream.

If economists and the CBO are to be believed, the Big Beautiful Bill will be devastating for the very people who voted Republicans into office. People will lose their healthcare. They’ll lose their jobs. Mortgage rates will go up. Prices for everyday items will rise. Rural hospitals will close. People will die.

A little bit of pain isn’t going to be enough. The MAGA base is really good at giving Trump a pass on every nutty thing he says and does. No, it needs to be total devastation, which, given enough time, the provisions of this bill should accomplish.

The Big Beautiful Bill probably won’t be enough to make them reconsider their membership in the MAGA cult, though. Therefore, I think it’s important for Republicans to retain control of the House and Senate in 2026.

We need four full years of unfettered GOP control and all the insanity that goes along with it. Maybe then MAGA voters will finally wake up and realize that voting for a monumentally corrupt TV personality and a bunch of corporate billionaires wasn’t the best move.

With that in mind, I’m thinking of voting for Republicans in 2026 — at least for all of the federal offices on the ballot.

Four full years of GOP control might be enough to wake people up. (I’m not counting on it. We seem to be a nation of complete idiots.)

Of course, after four years of Trump and the Heritage Foundation doing everything they can to turn America into an oppressive white supremacist theocracy, America as a democratic republic will be well and truly over.

But maybe you need to lose something in order to learn how much you value it.

What do I value?

The more social media I consume, the more confused I become.

Democrats seem to be all over the board these days. Liberal voters around the country are criticizing Democratic politicians for being ineffectual and/or too mainstream establishment. Traditional left-leaning media is criticizing politicians and voters alike for being either too extreme or flat-out wrong. And liberals on social media are fighting amongst themselves over the best ways to resist creeping authoritarianism.

I finally realized that I was in danger of becoming a leftist sheeple — in other words, someone who emotionally reacts to every outrage du jour even when it conflicts with a previous outrage du jour, simply because one of “my people” said it.

In an effort to ground myself, I decided that I needed to determine what I actually believe in and articulate it to myself at the very least.

It turned out not to be all that hard.

First of all, I believe in freedom. I believe that every person should be free to live their lives in whatever way they choose without interference from me or the government, as long as their choices aren’t harmful to others and don’t impinge on someone else’s freedom.

And second, I believe in equity.

Not all of us are created equal. Some of us have significantly greater challenges in life than others, and I don’t think those challenges should prevent people from having an opportunity to lead successful lives. Equity occurs when everyone gets whatever support they need from the government so that they can have an equal chance at success as everybody else.

Third, I believe in equal justice. Laws should be fair. They shouldn’t discriminate against one group of people or benefit another. And they should be evenly enforced.

And finally, I believe everyone deserves due process. If you are in the United States and are accused of a crime, regardless of your citizenship status, you should have the right to legal representation and to defend yourself in court (or the equivalent).

These are the principles I believe in. Would you add or change anything?

P.S. I also believe that I need to rely on facts when determining whether our government is violating any of the above four principles.