Day 5: Rochester, MN (and more about Day 4)

So in Madison the night before we did in fact play Dominion, and Kiddo wanted to play with a cursing attack. So we did (although I coaxed her into doing a different specific card), and at one point my cursing attack actually made her cry. Not in a bratty tantrum way, but in a really sad pathetic, turning away with tears in her eyes (the particular attack involves discarding the top card in your deck and then adding a curse to the top of the deck... that time she had to discard one of her best cards and put a curse there instead). That was kinda tough.

Anyway, Kiddo wanted to share the bed with me this time, and she's way too squirmy, so we built a wall in the middle out of spare pillows. Victory!
As a somewhat aside: bedtime goes way better when her bed is something like a fort or "little house". I need to try to figure out good little forts as often as possible for her.

I enjoyed the stay in Madison, which was with a Philly expatriate friend of ours. He's always nice to see. Definitely a stop I wish had been for more than one day.

We drove to Rochester and stopped in Viroqua on the way (see earlier post for details).

Our couchsurfing host in Rochester lives with her parents, and all three of them were really nice. I talked to her parents a lot more, because Kiddo kept wanting to go outside (neighbors had a swing set) and our host kept volunteering to go with. I trusted them, which was a nice feeling. I had two beers, one home brewed (so weird, right? I never drink beer... maybe traveling me is different me). I enjoyed the conversations, but I didn't click with any of them as completely as I clicked with my previous hosts on this trip.

So far across two trips I've had 5 couchsurfing stays... 3 of them I walked away feeling like the people could/would be my friends, at least if we lived close. The other 2 were positive but didn't click in like that (although honestly this time could have felt like that, we have a lot in common, we just didn't get enough time for conversation and/or find that groove).

Most of the time Kiddo seems a little less independent, a little more clingy on this trip than when we're at home. Which makes sense... it's interesting to watch her decide she trusts someone, letting loose and/or making a new friend. Then once she has a new friend, I'm not all that interesting anymore. That's ok, I like watching her make friends.
She's also getting a tad bit brattier each day. Hopefully she has fun camping this weekend.

My Ancestral Homeland of Viroqua, Wisconsin

Note: while transferring these over to the new blog, I'm trying to leave this blog in its original state.
However, I screwed up and saved the new version of these first few paragraphs here... not a big change, but still. 

On the way from Madison to Rochester, Minnesota, we took a detour to Viroqua, the small Wisconsin town that my dad's side of the family is from. I had been to Viroqua 3 times before: my family took a road trip that culminated there one summer; I flew there to visit my grandmother by myself for a week when I was 14, and I flew there in 2000 for her funeral.

Kiddo fell asleep in the car. I usually try to keep her from sleeping in the car, because it can mess up her sleep schedule, but she was up too late in Madison. This later proved to be the only car nap of the trip. About 10 miles away from Viroqua we passed a little town called Kickapoo. I did a double take at an intersection... I recognized a restaurant from eating there almost 17 years before.

We pulled into town and went to the cemetery first. I wanted to see my grandmother's grave. I drove around a bit on my own while kiddo was napping, and I found my great great great great grandfather's grave first. I got out and took a picture. The stopping and getting out woke up the kiddo, and so I just called my parents and got advice on finding the (more immediate) family plot. So I visited that for the first time since my grandmother's funeral.

The aforementioned great great great great grandfather and his family came to America and settled in Wisconsin. I think several of his sons became rich... one of them stayed in Viroqua and had a large house built for himself in the late 19th century. It passed through the family for awhile, but eventually it became a bed and breakfast. We went to visit it... snapped a few pictures, then went inside. It's pretty cool in there. We looked around a tiny bit on the ground floor, but didn't see anybody, so we went back outside. The front door is amazingly loud (in a bad way), and I guess the owner heard us on the way out. On our way down the stairs she poked her head out and asked if she could help us. So we introduced ourselves and went back in for a few minutes.

She wanted to know all about the family tree, and she talked about wanting to have pictures of great great great grandfather and his family on the wall. She offered to put us up for free that night... I hesitated but said no because we already had a couchsurfing host lined up, plus it would mean a 6 hour drive to Sioux Falls instead of spacing the drive out across days. But I told her I will take her up on it someday, years from now or whatever.
My parents have been doing the genealogy thing recently, so I gave their number to her. The green love seat and matching chair (basically the old-looking furniture I have that desperately needs to be re-upholstered) is from that house. We've been talking about getting rid of the chair, so I wonder if I can somehow get it to her.

Then we played in a park also named for the great great great grandfather, who donated the land to the city.

Day 4: Madison

I'm writing this on paper in a park in Madison! (note: on 6/18)


I didn't write last night in South Bend. I was mostly talking to my couchsurfing friends. The little computer time I had was devoted to a relationship maintenance talk with Michelle (this is not code for an argument or anything, everything is great). Good chance I'll hang out with Karl late too, so I wanted to put some thoughts down when I had a chance. 


Wisconsin should change their state motto to "windy as shit".


We made it to Madison in good time - especially helped by the crossover to Central time (it occurs to me now that on the way back east we may need to leave pretty early to avoid being crappy late-arriving guests on timezone change days - but that's something to worry about in July). Kiddo has done very well in the car each day, but I think I'm starting to see a cumulative effect of all the driving now - she's starting to get antsy earlier in the drive. Yet another reason I can't wait to get to Boulder - we're going to stay there a few days.


We'll probably play Dominion tonight. Kiddo is such a big kid. Random big kid story: I downloaded "There's a Zombie on Your Lawn", the song from the Plants vs Zombies end credits / music video. I thought it would be a fun surprise for her to have it on her ipod since she's always wanting to watch it on youtube and "have a dance party". I loaded it on her ipod in front of her without thinking, and she read the title and knew exactly what I was doing. So much for the surprise. Anyway, she might have listened to that song 50 times today.


But for now she's happily playing in the park, mostly with another little girl.


Below: at a rest stop, while I pumped gas, she enjoyed the crazy gusts of Wisconsin wind.