Not exactly vacation

We risked travel while Wisconsin is the Corona virus hotspot of the country.

We left Madison Monday afternoon. This is Tuesday morning in Door County. Supposed to be vacation, but I had a meeting and 2 online classes on Tuesday and another meeting on Wednesday.

I’m happy to report that people are being very good about masking up in Door County. I didn’t see any business that didn’t have a masks required sign, and a bunch of restaurants had pretty slick order and grab and go set-ups. The main downside was a trashcan full of carry out clamshells at the airbnb – 2 foam, one something that looked compostable. And a pizza box.

We were going to take bikes but it was rainy when we left and looked like it’d continue so we left them in the garage.

The pizza box was from our first night – there’s a good wood fired pizza place right by the entrance to Peninsula State Park. It has a cute logo. We just didn’t stop on the drive there (or the drive back – more on that in a minute). So, we arrived, after 3½ hours in the car, checked into the airbnb, and then took a walk in the Park with our umbrellas, and stopped to order the pizza by phone. While I was calling, the clouds lifted enough so that we could see the sunset, which was nice until the people with the noisy white pick-up spewing diesel fumes arrived to take their picture of the sunset, with the truck idling.

The other food that came in all those clamshells was barbecue on Tuesday, Cookery breakfast on Wednesday (that was the compostable clamshell, and we decided tied for the best meal with the pizza. We split an egg sandwich and a cinnamon roll that came with a nice handful of salad on the side, add your own vinaigrette), and Mexican on Wednesday night.

Tuesday in between my meetings we walked in Peninsula again – no umbrellas required. We watched the Great British Baking Show instead of the debate, but heard plenty about it later. I think my favorite part is all the reactions by women, like they should have the next debate moderated by a panel of moms and kindergarten teachers.  I think they should just cancel the rest of the debates, and now with Trump’s Covid diagnosis, that just might happen.

Wednesday was our longest walk when we went up to Newport Beach. We thought about renting bikes but turned out to be wise when we didn’t – it rained off and on. I forgot my rain coat with the hood, and bought a hat.

Thursday we packed up and got coffee at our favorite place, sitting under their 10×20 tent, thinking about buying same to do an outdoor Thanksgiving dinner in our driveway. Then we drove home – no stopping – the bakery in Egg Harbor where we thought we might stop and grab a sandwich has a note on their website that they’re closed till further notice due to “significant community spread of Covid 19”.

I will schedule myself for another Covid test some time late next week, when I’m about a week back from travel.

When we got home I unpacked quick, toasted some of the apple challah and ate it with peanut butter, then went directly into a meeting. Mark went for a run. We turned the heat on because it was 61° upstairs and 64° down here.

So here we are back again – a week ago Friday was Mark’s birthday – we ate the last slices of his pie last night – and last Saturday was the SCOTUS candidate announcement in the Rose Garden that seems to be turning out to be a super spreader event. The debate seems way old news in the face of Trump et. al. testing positive. Since he tweeted late at night Thursday, Eastern time, I got the headline as I was getting into bed Central time. I’d never wish anyone dead, but the part I liked the best was imagining Trump boiling mad Friday morning when every news headline said he was old and fat, as in, “the President is in a higher risk category for severe illness from the virus because he is in his mid-70s and obese”.

I have something like 56 assignments to grade and more coming in Monday. I’m feeling behind in just about everything, especially blogging.

So, here’re a few catch up food pics:

We bought a couple of jars of cherry pie filling while we were in Door County. There was one old jar, opened, in the back for my fridge, from Seaquist (who are Trump supporters, but they are asking customers to mask – still, we got this year’s at Koepsel’s). Seaquist doesn’t provide a use-by date, and the filling had darkened but still tasted OK. Anyways, I thought I’d pitch it now that we have more, and had to move my jar of sourdough to get to it. To find a sticky ring under the sourdough jar, making me wonder if it was cracked. I’d had a jar of fridge pickles that was cracked earlier in the summer, with similar seepage. I rinsed the same-size jar from the cherry pie filling, preparing to transfer the sourdough, and when I picked it up to pour, the bottom dropped off of the sourdough jar. So, I scooped what I could of the sourdough out of the sink – fortunately clean! And transferred it to a bowl, and fed it some pumpernickel flour, which it really seems to like. It was looking good by Friday – here it is with a dose of unbleached flour. I’m going to make sourdough corn muffins tonight, to go with chili, and pancakes Sunday morning, then I think it’ll go back in the fridge in a [I hope!] not-cracked jar.

Time for virtual yoga class – having successfully avoided grading till now! There’s all afternoon for that.

PS 5:45 PM – git a lot of grading done, that’s good, and just wanted to say I forgot to look for the Harvest Moon on Thursday (Oct. 1) and I tried to see the 98% full one last night but it was either too cloudy or I was looking at the wrong time … I’ll have to be sure to look for the Blue Moon on Halloween.