As a kid, my dad would take me to Tomahawk, WI quite a bit. He worked for a tractor company that had a proving grounds up there. "Proving grounds" is just a fancy way of saying a big open, dirt area where they'd test out tractors.

Many hours spent on dad's lap as he used loaders backhoes and a bunch of other kinds tractors that do the world's heavy lifting. Though if I'm sure if you asked him today, the backhoes still have most of his heart.

Anyway, I can't remember much of what we did in Tomahawk back then other than ride the tractors and sit in the hotel and zone out to MTV (weren't allowed to have it at home, so it was always a treat).

This weekend, I went back to hang out my best friends' folks' cabin. Lots of beer, swimming around the lake, and fries and root beer at Dog N Suds drive-in. Oh, and the capstone: the dazzling Saturday night show by the Kwahamot Water Ski Club. (Yes, Kwahamot is a palindrome for Tomahawk.)

In other words, tons of shit that make coming back to the workweek feel like one giant paper cut.

(View the entire photo set)

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Flatlanders (the Illini) would come up to help mine the southern part of Wisconsin. This was early on, the days of roadhouses, rolling uninterrupted farmland, ghosts, and trees grasping for the clouds.

Being of less hardy stock than those indigenous to our counties and towns, these feeble flatlanders would head back to where they were from at the peep of cold.

Our people, solid as steel and with icicles suspended in our blood, would rush in and take over the dwellings left abandoned by our southern neighbors. We'd inhabit them like badgers and continue mining throughout the brutality of winter. It had to be done. And we did it. Deep freeze or not.

That's how we became The Badger State.

Have you heard that story?

I love, love, love this land. How could you not?

(More photos from my weekend trip.)

snowshoes and eagles

Seam-bursting with excitement for next weekend snowshoeing and what not up at Wild Eagle Lodge in Eagle River, WI. It's a place much fancier than what we'd normally do, but it's free (such are the powers of journalism) and, hell, Klondike Days are happening!

May there be icicle beards, fire warmed toes, the roar of angry snowmobiles.

bargain hut

Ashland, WI is resplendent, with just the right amount of decay scarfing it. Chapple Avenue. There's a co-op manned by women with thick dreads. And the Ashland Baking Company, across the street, has the best bread that's ever been baked.

All streets cast off to the north, into Lake Superior. Even as the days gather lumbering speed toward spring, people in pick-up trucks drive onto the ice (you can see this from the cuff of the massive factory that sits out in the water or from the parking lot of the Bay Area Pawn Shop, which has more military paraphernalia than the Army/Navy store a few blocks away) to use up the last of the fishing-through-a-hole for the year. A few yards away, the water has lost its iciness. The fishers don't seem to notice or care.

It's great.

What I Did On My Late Autumn Vacation

Seems doubtful that the kids latched onto the earnestness of my threats of making them pen their "What I Did On My Late Autumn Vacation" essays, which I guess makes me an unsatisfactory dole-r out-er of things. I'm use to disrespect. It costs nothing but hurt feelings.

So, between sniffles and snobs, I'll tell you, dearest, gentlest reader, that our little ensemble makes some horrific music. We lack mastery of our instruments and firelight does nothing to illuminate vocal talent of any stripe. But that didn't stop of from blanching the the hell out of the blues; it was so bad that I swore that I could almost see the genre's ghost flutter away, high over the forest, far past the lake. But during our disservice, we laughed and drank, and then fell asleep before the the new day got its bearings.

Of course this gave way to rising with the sun. A slow, rain-slogged morning. Lots of coffee, then tossing soggy tennis balls as far into the lake as the dogs' leashes would allow.

Once we got going, we mostly spent the day terrorizing the small town thrift stores. We tend to prefer the ones brimming with things, the ones with a woozy lack of order.

And so, with the car newly packed, we went cabin-bound. Soon, we were greeted by W&J. Then we began assembling a meal, a process during which I feel inordinately in love with how easy it so to make bread sticks. Bread sticks! Oh my fuck.

Lots of American music. Trivia from the 1990s. Beer, beer, beer. Bed, eventually. Haze entered the picture at some point, but I can't pinpoint where it crept in or how it managed to escape. Next thing I remembered was daylight, revitalized.

First thing that happened was that W&J were called away on a domestic emergency. Those of us left started early, tracking food and brewpubs. A lunch of Pizza, washed down samples at Old Hayward Eatery & Brew Pub. Their alt was great, so we had a pint.

After, we modeled our red and black flannel jackets in photos on the site of the Lumberjack World Championships, which was understandably shuttered for the season. But here's a photo of Amy and me, with the rest of our bunch filling the background:


Then, after turning down the exorbitant cost of getting within kissing distance of the world's largest muskie (one half-a-city- block long and four stories tall), we decided to stand in front of the "electric" fence that portioned off the behemoth and instead burn film at a distance.

Thirsty, and wanting to continue the aquatic theme, we stopped at the wonderfully well-restored Angry Minnow brewery for more samplers. The Imperial IPA was the standout for me, but everything was nurseable, so we did. We nursed under a bold stamp of late afternoon sunlight until there was nothing left.

Again, the haze entered. A good dose of haze should be the ubiquitous theme of the any good weekend, I'd argue.

Anyway, under the haze, we ran like banshees in the lakefront acreage. The dogs bounded every which way. Then we dumped damp leaves and twigs in the fire pit and kept waving the lighter over them until a fire took hold. The haze lifted a touch. Eventually, four of were us piled on a queen-sized bed for some (very platonic, thank you very much) atrocious misuse of Hollywood's bankroll.

In the middle of the night, I woke up to a tightness in the old growth forest above my...nethers. Apparently, the tone and timbre of my flesh appealed to a tick, who decided to seek asylum there. Amy, drowsy and squinting out the lamplight, clasped its body between her nails and tugged it out. I slept fitfully for the rest of the night, sore from the pickpick. I'm still nervous of a that a Lyme target might show up, but at the same time curious how the shape would manifest in that assemblage of parts. Uh-huh.

Anyway, I could tell you about Taco Juan's and the hours stuffed with talk radio on the way home, but I'll spare you that. You're likely already a cyber expat, camping out on some other digital continent by this time as it is.

But no harm. I just wanted to get this all down; to explain how it all went down. I aim to live by example, to keep my end of promises. This is what we saw & these are the things we did during our late autumn vacation.

In summary: Fuck the summertime. Viva Wisconsin!