Rally business, but so much more happening

On Saturday, July 11, Jaz and I first headed over to the shop to see what was going on, plus I wanted to check out the vendors. 

Before we even left the hotel we ran into an old friend and his son, JT and Jake.  They were off to have a little fun before heading to the rally site.

I made my first new friend of the day, Catt, with two t's.  She works for AT&T.

There always seems to be some type of police vehicle, so I had to have a photo.

I kind of blend in with the vehicle.

We’d already decided that rather than go on another ride, we'd go to the Rotary Botanical Gardens and spend some time.  Jaz had found it on the Internet and we figured it would be something different to do.  We had no idea. 

There's a group of volunteers called the Grumpies.  Every year they have a theme and build something for people to decorate.  This year's theme was modeled after the Little Free Library.  Each one has something different and are so very cool  We were told that last year's theme was Adirondack chairs.  It reminds me of the Wild Salmon that the IBEW sponsored for painting that were then auctioned off in Anchorage. 

It’s a 20-acre botanical garden, located only a few miles from where we were staying.  The gardens are divided up into a variety of theme gardens, and I do believe we saw nearly all of them, except maybe the prairie garden.  So this blog will be mostly flowers and the things we saw there. 

I took a lot of photos, yet couldn't really capture the beauty.

There was a children's area and you went in and out of doors, and followed a little path, which was a pretty neat thing to do.

This is a popcorn flower and I'd swear I could smell butter.

All of the gardens were beautifully manicured.

This bench had greenery so while you might not want to sit on it, it was still inviting.

Purple ones.

Yellow and red ones.

Lavender.  Every color you can imagine..

And there were even Adirondack chairs to sit in.  I crawled up and sat down, and slid back down into the seat.  It was a major effort to get out again.

There is a formal garden, a reception garden that emphasizes texture and fragrance, a Scottish garden that with only a few exceptions contains only plants that grow in Scotland, a Japanese garden, the Thomas Jefferson Collection, and many others I cannot begin to name.

There are a couple of fountains and even some ducks swimming around.  I think they need some swans.

This bridge is in the Japanese garden.

 

This little waterfall was also in the Japanese garden.

I know.  More flowers.

These statues looked real from a distance.

Yep.  More color.

I've never seen a pink pond lily, only white and yellow ones.

This is in a special touching garden.  The flower was picked and dried and then painted blue and put back into the ground for display.  No, it's not alive.

 

This is a map of the grounds and gardens.

We whiled away a few hours there and headed back to the rally site. 

I found some of the Wisconsin State Highway Patrol.  They'd been there doing demonstrations.

Their logo is pretty neat.

This guy was enjoying just sitting and people watching.

We wanted to play Bingo although not knowing that ahead of time, we’d not brought our Princess Bingo dabbers with us.  There was no cause for alarm.  These folks had it going on; they were playing with real cards, the kind where the free space can move all the little sliders back into the non-played position.  Wow.  I was impressed.  

Yep, real cards.

I won a prize first, and so headed on to do other things.  I found Smudge visiting with some folks so I joined them.  It turns out one of the people was Little Arlen, the second shortest in his family at 6-foot, 6-inches. 

Little Arlen, Smudge and me.  We look pretty short.

I also learned that Little Arlen is the ice cream connoisseur of Wisconsin.  We all enjoyed some laughs.  Then it started to rain and we moved inside. 

Little Arlen told us we'd been to the best place for ice cream when we went to the Kelley Creamery.

Crusher.  I believe he could, but he was quite nice when I asked if I could take his photo.

Another new friend, Patty Petunia, has her 6-month-old baby, Snickers.  What a sweet thing.

It was coming up on the time for the awards to be handed out.  I was sure Smudge and Rabbit Ears would walk away with another longest distance ridden to the rally award.  Yep.  They sure did.  Yahoo!  Two for two.  She’s got one more to take in Iowa in a couple of weeks.  Good luck to you both.  I expect to hear good news.

S

Smudge and Rabbit Ears, happy with their awards.  Can you tell why he got the name Rabbit Ears?

Smudge is still collecting frogs.  This one appeared on her bike and was from a friend from the WOW Ride In who also attended this rally.

 JT and his family.

And then it was over except that I met a gentleman who asked if I’d ridden the 500,000 miles that I had on the patch on my vest.  Yep.  We had quite the chat and he gave me his blog site.  I had no idea what that was about until I looked.  Dave had ridden around the world in 2009.  I’m still reading his blog as it’s a lot to read at one time, but I’m impressed.  I’ve laughed at some of the things he’s been through; I’ve commiserated as I’ve shared some of the same problems he has had.  If you want to check it out it’s at http://daverrtw2009.blogspot.com/.

Then it was back to the hotel and time to get ready to hit the road the next day.