Sentimental Journey

Sentimental Journey, Part One

For a variety of reasons, we were on the road a lot in August.  First was a visit to my brother Kevin and his wife Maureen in Connecticut, where we spent a lovely few days wandering around the waterfront, visiting my parents’ memorial bench overlooking Long Island Sound, and eating lots of fried clams and scallops. 

Shortly after our arrival back here we received an email from our dear friend Jean Knutzen telling us that the good folks who had purchased my home in Winona, MN some twenty-five years ago had recently done some remodeling.  The big, big heavy oak door that had my name carved in it was available for me to come and get if I still wanted it.  This door was part of a building project in 1976 where I added an enclosed porch to the house and it was all done by hand using local wood, stones and craftsmen.  We confirmed the generous offer of the door with Rex and Mary, the current owners of Briarwood, got the measurements, constructed a template to see if it would fit into the Explorer, and set off for Winona.

We decided that Cleveland would be a good stopping off point and we planned on spending two days there to visit the city, especially the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. We should have planned for a longer visit since we really enjoyed the city itself, the waterfront, and the restaurant scene.  We stayed in a Hyatt that was built inside a great arcade and I’ll attach some photos.  We spent almost an entire day at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which is a beautiful new building on the edge of Lake Erie.  We had a ball wandering around the exhibits, listening to lots of great music and watching engaging videos, all of which brought back lots of memories.  When we finally went outside, we were treated to live music from the US Coast Guard Dixieland Band, and man could they play. And then, to our great astonishment and surprise, we were overflown by two of the Blue Angels F-18s, about 100 feet above us!  Wow, was that cool and very loud.  They were scheduled to appear at the Air Show in two days and had arrived early to practice so we got to watch some amazing performances of exquisite precision flying, some with two jets and others with six jets.  For those of you that have never seen them or if you just want a good dose of pure adrenalin, check this out.

We left Cleveland happy as clams and maintained our excitement of the journey until we hit the outer edge of Chicago where we inched along for four long hours of frustration, heat, and magnificent examples of horrid driving.  Whereas we had thought we would pull into Beloit Wisconsin by four o’clock, allowing us to decompress and wander around, we didn’t make it until seven and we were spent.  We had planned on going to a real Wisconsin Supper Club but opted for the restaurant in the hotel, which was satisfactory.  The next morning we wandered around the town which had a huge farmer’s market, enjoyed the river walk, and had a wonderful espresso in a shop that specialized in cheese and coffee (an odd mix but they did both well!)  Our next stop was Winona which was a lovely drive except for a  stretch of about six miles that just crawled, all on account of folks slowing up to look at a dead deer on the side of the road.  Doesn’t take much to entertain folks from Wisconsin.