The Cute Town of Ripon

We found a cute town, friendly people and really great coffee. Not sure how to pronounce Ripon.

Flowers everywhere!

The tin ceiling in the coffee shop. They also have great coffee! 

Drug store, Radio Shack and Ben Franklin signs. 

Actual Radio Shack items! I thought they were out of business

We stopped by Wild Rose to fill up jugs of spring water.  Although many people drink it, I only use it for my plants. We got 9 gallons this time.

Odds and Ends

 It's been awhile, so I'll try to catch up.

I'm feeling fine, no more problems. I finished the antibiotics today, no bad effects.

We are having lovely weather, since the oppressive heat moved out. We had three days of tortuous heat and humidity. Streets were buckling and cars blowing tires. Insane! We stayed home. My annuals did not like the heat. My Johnny-Jump-Ups have gone to seed.

We have 5 months to decide where to move. Our lease ends the last day of December, so we will need to have a new apartment rented before then.

We have a new favorite place, Waupaca Chain O' Lakes, about an hour west of us. It was a sunny, breezy day when we arrived at Hartman Creek State Park. The pines were fragrant in the warm sunshine. The water sparkled, and I wanted to deep breathe all of it in and never leave. We took a walk around the lake and thankfully did not catch any ticks.

I am not going to write about the complete idiotic orange moron in the White House whose stupidity is putting our nation in harm's way.

Hubby bought me an African Violet. The flowers are deep red. I had to remove them because I found signs of thrips on the flowers. No damage to the leaves. I treated with a systemic. It's a no-name. It will grow more flowers.

We took a drive to Wild Rose and filled up 7 gallon jugs of spring water. Since it's not tested we have decided not to drink it, but it's wonderful for my plants!

I need to repot my orchids. One has bloomed continuously for nearly a year. The others have not bloomed at all. They need to do something other than occupy my limited space.

I think this is about all the news for now.

 

Updates

Catching up.

Hubby took a mini vacation. He was hoping to go to Kosovo this summer and asked for extra time (unpaid). His request was never approved, so he took half his vacation to de-stress a little.

We drove down to Indiana Saturday the 17th and stayed until Tuesday morning, the 20th. It was nice to see my daughter and her hubby (with the broken wrist). We wished him to get well soon. We also had the chance to say hi and congratulations to his son who had his high school graduation this last Sunday. 

While we were there we went to a Fur-Trade Era reenactment.

That was fun. We also went to dinner and enjoyed time with family.

The construction delays through Illinois have been horrible, both directions, no matter what time of day.  Miles and miles of stop and go. How many more years? Ugh.

We took some of hubby's time off to drive around after we came home. 

Friday, May 23rd we drove to Shawano. Nice little town with some tourist shops, but with nicer stuff than the Dells.

Saturday, May 24th, Wausau. Big difference from when we last visited. This time, we saw several vacant store fronts, not like the vibrant city center we saw the first time.

Sunday May 25th, Kohler-Andrea (Sheboygan) and Plymouth. Took a nice, but windy walk, then headed to Plymouth, which seemed to be closed for the day.

Monday, May 26th, Shamba Safari and Wild Rose. This was the best day. Shamba Safari was fun. We opted not to buy a bucket of food and feed the animals, so we kept the windows rolled up. The animals are all looking for food, and I'm glad the window was rolled up when a big, flightless bird pecked the glass looking for a handout. It was amusing.

After the Safari, hubby asked which was should we go on Eagle Road. We came from the right, so I said, "left".

It was an interesting drive. We entered a large, forested wildlife area. We think there might be places to camp in there but I haven't searched yet. There was no internet, but the GPS on our phones provided offline maps, so I wasn't worried. We drove for miles. The forests were "posted" as state wildlife area. Ever so often there was a small clearing, where one could park. We aren't sure why. We drove through a shambled town with rundown houses called Germania. Finally Eagle Road ended at highway 22, so we turned north. A few miles up the road, hubby saw a pretty park, so we stopped. We were in Wild Rose. 

A lady told us to try the water from the artesian well. I filled a water bottle. Town's people stopped by to fill jugs. Next time I will bring jugs. The internet says the water in the area is pure and known for class A trout streams. We noticed the creek running through the park was sparkling clean.

After Wild Rose we continued driving. The pines were tall. There were a few rolling hills. Suddenly I felt at home, which was sad because none of that could be my home, we were only driving through. From highway 22 we turned east and took some smaller roads to Fremont, which looked wonderful, with a lake and camping and cabins to rent. We were only a half hour from home. Suddenly I felt like there was hope for us to truly get out in nature, rent a cabin, fun stuff like that.

But we were a half hour from home.

"Fremont is near Chicago, Maddison, Appleton! Come stay, it's only $400 to $800 per night!" The ads say.

Crap. We were a day late and a dollar short, or rather, 10 years late and a million short. I haven't checked out camping yet, but we aren't set up for camping.

Hubby has been tired. He said he didn't know why. I told him he's depressed. He doesn't like the people he works with. He feels the company tells him one thing and then changes it. If he leaves he has to pay back the money they gave him to move here.

I was sad this morning. Knowing hubby is sad makes it worse. I had trouble getting one of my medications. My new provider did not write a script for it so Walmart got it filled from Britta, my PCP from Hartford. I sent her a message, apologizing for the trouble, and told her I missed her and Hartford, and was sorry we had to move. She wrote back that she missed me too.

Later my new provider's office called and said the script wasn't filled because it was for low dose estrogen (that is inserted vaginally, I have vaginal atrophy) and I have a history of breast cancer. She wanted to know if I had clearance from my oncologist to take it. What? My oncologist?? I haven't seen an oncologist since probably 2002 which was 5 years after I finished treatment. I get my mammograms. They told me if there was any change, let them know. There has never been a change.

I really hope my hubby can figure it out at work. All I can say is that mostly I feel moving here was an expensive mistake. But we are here. 

Anyway, the last update....hubby is taking a vacation day so he can drive me to my mammogram. Simply put, because of my hubby's work schedule, I don't have the truck long enough in the morning to go anywhere much past Walmart. I told him I could check out Uber but he wants to take me.

I hope I have a happier post next time. I guess today was a rant, to get it off my chest.