On The Road Again. (Seriously?)

Whee!

So what does a pack of Schoenies do when they find themselves without a houseguest and/or crazy weekend plans? They get outta Dodge. For 24 hours. (Which, some folks might speculate would create a ton of work on the part of the two people packing/planning/toting the toddler...but any time I don't have to clean the kitchen after a meal is a good excuse for a trip. Unless you count the mad dash cleaning immediately prior and the post-return explosion of last night. Saving me...a lunch cleanup, I guess. Sigh.)

Best behaviors. 

Anyway, we jaunted up to Oconomowoc, WI (land of many summering Schoenies) and stayed at The Inn At Pine Terrace. Gorgeous. Also, they don't take children- ha ha. But somehow P.J. worked his P.J. Magic (not at all like P.J. Sparkles, mind you) and convinced them that our mannerly beastie would be a better guest than his cranky hippo of a wife.

Royalty.

Obviously, we stopped at the Mars Cheese Castle. (I cannot resist dill and garlic cheese curds. Nor their recently completed castle with actual turrets.) And sure, we may have stopped at an antique emporium. Which- if you've never attempted with a toddler in tow- I highly encourage!

Nora napped on the short drive up and thusly allowed us to skip the whole "waiting in the hotel room for your kid to awaken" part of the journey. Which was great because, as I said, we only had 24 hours. Like that show. Only there were definite bathroom breaks in our program.

Serious bear puzzle action.

We had lunch at The Depot, which had the perk of humongo train cars blazing by the windows every so often. P.J. and Nora thought that was great. Also, the chocolate chip cookies. But there was no time to dawdle, so we went to the public beach (and had more snacks.) Now, being from MA, I had always found the idea of lakes "charming," read: "where's the salt?" (Actually, that's pretty much how I view everything.) But since I married a Midwestern boy, I've truly come to appreciate a nice lake. Or a Great Lake. The small one we visited was super clean, warm as anything, and even came with a set of ridiculously strict lifeguards. Actual mega-phoned directives: "Please only front crawl to the floating pier," "No piggy back rides," "The ladder is only for climbing up," "Get the seaweed off of the pier," and "Beach balls are for beyond the rope only." Seriously. Now, the drunken teens smashing volleyballs into Nora's beach blanket...carry on. Because they were friends with the lifeguards. But whatever.

Ruffle bum.

And there was a playground mere feet from where we had been swimming. Which is always cool. Unless you have any desire to remain in the water with your toddler, in which case- sorry 'bout your luck. Because the chorus of "IclimbIclimbIclimbIclimbIclimb" will soon start up like you've got your very own Rain Main/acrobat/Rhesus monkey amalgamation in a ruffled swimmie.

Eventually we had to head back to the Inn to remove some of the sand from Nora's body (and it was mostly successful) so we could have a nice din at Spinnaker's in the center of town. And aside from the fact that Nora was completely exhausted and only ate half of one mozzarella stick alongside the tomatoes from my salad, we all had a fine meal. The server warned me, however, that the lid from Nora's milk might fall off so I'd want to "watch her" and that the mozz sticks were really hot so I'd want to cut them and wait a minute. Which was nice, considering I'd just met Nora. (But, as P.J. pointed out, it's better than having a server not give a damn.)

When we got back to the room, N.J. fell asleep [mostly] without incident, although she did question the Inn's playpen in the corner of our room as sleeping quarters. I told her it was just like a Pack n' Play but BIGGER! It also made me seriously miss the days of playpens. And once N was asleep, Peej and I were free to...play cards in the solarium. Have tea on wicker chairs. Name two constellations before agreeing that it would be rad to fall asleep. Which we did- happily- until Nora woke up freaked out about something or other and climbed into bed with us. And then she happily slept while her parents slept the sleep of having a shifting boulder between themselves.

Terabithia.

The next morning was a little rainy, so we drove over to the Honeybee Museum (obvie)- which...was closed until noon. Ha ha! But they had some sweet trails that we explored for a few as the sun began to come out. There was even a bridge, so Nora was ecstatic.

And yes, maybe we stopped at another antique store on the way out of town.

Lunch was a mandatory stop by The Kiltie, a carhop diner, where- if I hadn't been a newly diagnosed diabetic- I would have given myself sugar shock with their lime malt. After which I named my old, beloved, and stolen bike Limey. (That's right, I named my bike after a malt. Take a sec to let all of those facts sink in.)

Donesville.

And then Nora dozed on the drive back. It was a good time. A quick time. But sometimes you've really just got to spend an overnight in Wisconsin.

Sometimes, when I hear the things I say, I even shock myself.