Fish Fry & Football

More vacation non-fun -- once we finally made it to a bed, we had to get up at 5:30am to take a shuttle back to O'Hare to catch our rescheduled flight. Bleary-eyed we stumble through security, only to discover, the flight is delayed and delayed and delayed and delayed. When the plane finally shows up at our gate, all the CWA-bound travelers break out into cheers.

We FINALLY get to the Central Wisconsin Airport and celebrate with my parents by drinking bloody marys with Fat Squirrel chasers (served at the airport cafe). No luggage yet. The word is that three canceled flights worth of luggage is arriving via a big truck. It's in Appleton!

We hang out with the rest of the sad delayed travelers waiting for our stuff. (note: there are two students from Tunis also eating lunch in the cafe with their hosts -- one of whom is an elderly women who pulls out a harmonica and starts playing it AFTER my dad has drawn a cartoon portrait of her on his place mat. Later, I tell her that we are quite impressed with her harmonica playing == it's good!== and she says "How else am I going to entertain those boys?") It's then we hear over the loudspeaker "The truck carrying the luggage has just been in AN ACCIDENT ON THE HIGHWAY." My mother and I break into hysterical laughter -- which is the kind of coping mechanism that has gotten me this far through life. (thanks Mom!) We fill out forms and head to a Fish Fry @ the Hiawatha --- it's no Norwood Pines, but it'll do.

Later, we show up at Thom Field (football field of my youth) to watch a high school football game and hang out with my sister and her husband in the bleachers. It's great fun to cheer for my nephew every time his name is said over the loudspeaker. I would insert a picture of the new Lumberjack mascot here -- but dammit, I forgot my camera. However, thanks to the series of tubes called the internet -- I found him (or rumored LumberJILL) online:

Go Lumberjacks!