Arianna's Point-of-View

Arianna walked outside with the camera this afternoon . . .

Errant cone flower at the foot of the trumpet vine . . .

Morning Glory . . . 

Cornflower . . .

Cornflower opening up . . .

Cornflower and Pot Marigold . . .

Gladiolus . . .

The Reader

The Groundskeeper

Busted . . .

Earlier this Summer the refrigerator went on the fritz . . . today, the dryer. Sharon and Arianna improvised until somebody was able to come to the house and determine what's gone wrong.

92

Bruno celebrated his 92nd birthday today. 

Quietly. 

But not without a few laughs.

Spelunking . . .

. . . a word I first encountered as a kid, reading a Hardy Boys Mystery.

Cave of the Mounds was what we decided to visit before heading back home. House on the Rock looked somewhat interesting, but had a disproportionately high disappointment factor; Taliesin is very expensive - something we'd like to do, but not this year.

After we checked out of the Spring Green Motel, we headed into town for breakfast. Sharon thought the General Store sounded interesting. It reminded her of the Heartland Cafe in the Roger's Park neighborhood of Chicago, where I lived while we were dating.

Unorthodox in its approach to serving breakfast - you order from a common menu posted to a wall and then retrieve your own place setting and find a table - the food was good. Quite good, in fact. Although the weather was cool, gray, and damp we ate outside, eaves dropping on an old guy who was talking theater with the women who sat at the table next to us. While Arianna and I cleared the dishes, Sharon introduced herself to the oldster, who had studied mime with Marcel Marceau's teacher and had eventually established a school / performance space in Dodgeville.

Sharon's encounter with the mime was brief. Arianna and I looked around the general store and actually found a birthday gift for Bruno. Our business at the General Store completed, down the road we headed. 

Crossing the Wisconsin River . . .

And once again into farm country . . .

But, stopping to find available freshly picked corn at a reasonable price. Early? Just so. The abundance of rain and the sandy soil worked to our advantage.

On the drive to Blue Mounds, you can't miss the rock outcroppings along the hillside . . .

. . . or the grazing cows . . .

The Cave of the Mounds facility was actually quite nice. A wee bit too commercial, but nice nonetheless . . .

Before the tour of the cave, we had time to look around . . .

Our tour was at 1 o'clock. Our guide, a young man, college-aged, ushered us into a room where a short film explained the history of the cave. And then . . . down we went . . . at most about 70 ft, which our guide pointed out was hardly discernible . . . 

Sometime after 2pm we headed out. We encountered a familiar sign . . .

. . . but did not stop again in Mt. Horeb. In fact the next hour or so passed quietly with occasional light rain as we made our way to Beloit and the Angel Museum. Beloit, a small town on the Rock River, is just north of the Illinois state line.

The Rock River flowing behind the Angel Museum . . .

Our arrival at the Angel Museum was around 3:40. The Museum closed at 4 o'clock. Rather than pay the price of admission and rush through the exhibits we chatted a bit with the docent and decided to come back some other time.

The remainder of the drive was uneventful through the familiar environs of counties not too distant from where we live. Our arrival at home was timed to serve Bruno a quick supper, relate to him what we did and saw, and then relax for the remainder of the evening.

All in all a pleasant day.