Rain Checks and Jello

What did the Jello say for our Sunday plans?  Read on....

The overnight rain began again around 5 am Sunday, and continued on and off for most of the day.  Our plan, prior to reading the Jello, was to drive over to West Salem in the T-Bird to check our Veterans Memorial Park to see if our rig would fit.  When we left Sparta the rain had stopped, but as we approached West Salem it began to come down torrentially.  We drove into this lovely park.....well, I'm sure it is lovely when the sky is not falling.....and found several spaces that would be suitable for us for a few days, but all the sites are grass, and the thought of  "moving in" during the downpour, and then setting up on wet, soggy, spongy grass did not appeal to either of us so we decided to take a "rain check", and try again on Monday.  The Walmart we are staying in is very quiet at night, and actually has a view, so another night there seemed in order.

Okay, so now what to do?  We were already two thirds of the way to La Crosse where there was a movie theater showing the new Star Trek - Into Darkness movie, but it was already 10:30 am  meaning we had missed the start of the first Sunday showing, and the next movie time was 1:35.  So, we needed to kill 3 hours, and we have become experts on killing time, or filling time, if you will.  We decided to drive into La Crosse to locate the theater, then find a local brew pub to have lunch at.  On the way down State Route 16 I spied a Verizon store that was open, made a mental note of where it was, then continued on to the theater.  By the time we verified the location of the theater......sometimes Google Maps will take you to places that don't exist....we headed back to the Verizon store for some customer service.

TLE's iPhone had a couple of issues she had not been able to resolve for about 45 days.  Her phone would not ring when she was called......personally, I think she liked that malfunction.....if your phone doesn't ring, and you don't feel it vibrating you don't have to answer it....I'm just sayin'.  The second issue is her Gmail account would not work on her phone....it worked on her iPad, but not the phone.  We found a Verizon Wireless store open and went inside.  Brad greeted us at the door, and fixed TLE's ringing issue in 3.1 seconds....a simple press of a recessed button on the side of the phone turned her ringer back on.....she acted surprised, but you know women......they are good actresses.....:-)  The second issue, Gmail, required the presence of her iPad, but it was "home" so Brad gave us instructions about how to correct the e-mail issue.  Let me just say this about Verizon.....we have had nothing but stellar service for the decade plus we have been with them.....even more so since we have been on the road.  When we were in Coupeville, WA last July I was having an issue with NO broadband.  I went to the local store, and the technician diagnosed my problem as a bad "SIM" chip within 3 minutes....in less than 10 minutes I was on my way.  The same again Sunday, only it took 5 minutes.

By this time it was 11:30, and closer to lunch time.  I checked Yelp.com, Urbanspoon.com and tripadvisor.com and all gave the Bodega Brew Pub 4.5 stars......that is rare......so we headed over to 4th street.  The pub is located in the Old Town area of  La Crosse, and is surrounded by numerous interesting restaurants, antique shops, bars, etc.  We quickly found seating and by the time I returned from the little boys room TLE was already into her first Bells Porter.  I asked our server for a duplicate, and then dove into the menu.  TLE and I quickly decided on just one appetizer.....we weren't that hungry......Bacon Bleu Cheese Brushetta, which is pictured below.

From the outside......below Bacon Bleu Cheese Bruschetta....yummy!

We finished our brews and Brushetta by 12:30 and decided to take a walk around the old town in the light drizzle.  We stumbled across this cool 3 story antique shop, which was aptly named "Antique Center of La Crosse".  We had about 30 minutes to peruse the store, and only got through the first floor, and part of the 2nd....we never got to the basement.  I found 3 license plates (Indiana, Iowa, and Wisconsin) to add to my growing collection.  I hope eventually to have plates from every state we have visited, but I have got a long way to go to catch up.  

Before we knew it my watch said 1:10 pm....25 minutes to get to the theater and into our seats for the movie.  Apparently many people in La Crosse had the same idea we did on this rainy day, and the theater was jammed.  Fortunately we secured good seats in theater #8 for our feature presentation.  We both thoroughly enjoyed this new take on the Star Trek series.  The director, J.J. Abrams, has changed the time line, and, therefore, has expanded the possibilities for this popular movie franchise from "limited" to "infinity".  I won't say anymore in case you haven't yet seen it, but if you liked "Wrath of Kahn" you will like this current installment.

The movie let out a little after 4 pm, and we we drove the 30 miles "home" with smiles of contentment on our faces.....the result of a Sunday well lived.  By the time we reached "home" it was raining again, just as it had while we were in the theater....it was just before 5.  Our house batteries were down to 80%.....no sun Sunday, so I hooked up the small generator to run for a few hours while I napped, and read a few blogs.  Around 7 I turned on the Heat vs. Spurs game.  It was competitive late into the 3rd quarter, but ultimately the Spurs collapsed, and the Heat ran away with game 2.  That ties the series at 1-1, and now the series switches to San Antonio with the Spurs in control of home court advantage, and the next 3 games on their home court.

We'll see what Monday's Jello has in store for us....the forecast is for clearing skies.....if that weather guess turns out to be accurate we will move 14 miles west to Veterans Memorial Park where we will stay for 2, or 3 days doing some bicycle riding on the La Cross River Trail.

Thanks for stopping by!