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Wausau, WI in January 2011
Let me tell you, mid-January in Wausau, WI, is COLD! But I wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity to visit with my Aunt Margey and cousin Kay, so off I went.
Kay’s from Eureka, CA. She was on one of her regular trips to visit her mom. These are good times for us to catch up, too. Last time I did a quick 3-day trip. This time I added an extra day so I’d be able to spend a good, full two-days visiting, and it was wonderful.
It was cold and dreary in Texas when I left. Well, cold for Texas–in the 30’s and 40’s. We’d been having a cold snap. But arriving in Minneapolis was beautiful with so much snow that I didn’t realize we were so close to landing. It was just all white! The short wait at the airport was fun, watching the snow plows trying to scrape the white stuff away from runways and walk-ways. Of course, I didn’t have to go outside there!
Wausau was another matter. The whole 4 days, it didn’t get above 19 degrees (yes, I’m talking about the highs!). And it snowed continuously for the first two days, Thursday and Friday. It was so cold, though, that it was a fluffy snow, not wet or mushy. When Saturday morning cleared, we took a picture break in a local park. It was beautiful, with the wind occasionally blowing snow off the tree limbs. There’s one really cool picture when that happened just as I was lining up a shot toward the sun.
You can see that the sky was really blue in another picture where I caught Kay in her blue coat. (She doesn’t like having her picture taken, so I had to be sneaky.) The trees were beautiful and the snow not only made everything pretty but also dampened the overall noise level. It was quite peaceful. But did I mention it was COLD?!?!?!
We drove around the park and the recreational complex a bit. Seeing a sign for the curling building, Kay wanted to investigate. After passing the hockey rinks (yes, more than one), we found the curling rink, with some competitions in progress. It looked like a high school league, so we were happy to see that yes indeed, there are young people taking up the sport. Not something Kay or I think about in California or Texas!
Later that day Kay took me to a really nice local museum, the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum. Their specialty is birds, but they have other exhibits, too. We had fun checking out inside, but I couldn’t take any pictures there. We did take a stroll through an outside sculpture garden, where sneaky me got another picture of Kay with a fabulous horse sculpture. Seemed fitting, since Kay is a horsewoman herself. She looked very natural there, with the horse obviously wanting to make her acquaintance.
Overall the trip was just right. It was great getting to see Aunt Marge over several days. She and Kay were great sports as I did my travelogue of my Holy Land trip–all 1200-some pictures! (It did take a couple of days.) I didn’t even mind watching the Packer game because the company was fun. Aunt Margey is really a fan and kept up a lively commentary. It helped, too, that they won. On to the SuperBowl!
On Sunday morning as Kay took me to the airport, it was 6 degrees. I’m not sure I’ve ever been in single digit temperatures before. But with de-icing before every takeoff, the trip home was uneventful. The planes were on time, the transfer smooth, and it was in the 50s when I got home that afternoon. The tropics, almost…. ha!
