Wisconsin Trip

We arrived in Milwaukee on time the beginning of a great time. We collected our suitcase, Sarah was able to get everything she needed into one bag and of course the bag I used was small and I carried it onto the plane. My motto has always been if you do not have it, you do not need it or you can buy it. We on the Canadian Regional style jets, they are small but I like them. We picked up the rental car at Enterprise Rental; I have used them for years and have always found them to be the least expensive, although as all the others they want to have you add insurance and other options to the daily rate.
We left the airport about 4:15 and arrived at Robert and Sarah’s about six. Milwaukee is doing some major road construction around the I-94, 894 & 43 interchange and it looked like they had repairs going on further south of the airport exit on 94 so it took a few minutes longer to get to Beloit than it would have otherwise. Robert had bought some pizza so we were able to have something to eat when we arrived. It was good to see Robert and Sarah and of course, it was good to see Mason (6) and Madyson (almost three). They have both grown a lot since we saw them in October.

We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express in Beloit. I like the hotel; we have stayed there the most of any motels in the area. This time though we had a room that was the smallest one we have had there yet. The bed was suppose to be a queen size bed, but it wasn’t as big as the queen bed we have in the camper and I didn’t sleep well but we survived it. I do like the breakfast they have although I only had the cinnamon roll once, I really like the but they have over 400 calories in them. I had yogurt and bagels with cream cheese or peanut butter on them. I suppose the cinnamon roll would not have made much difference in the total calorie count. At least I did not gain any weight on the trip.
Friday we spent the morning with Robert and Madyson. Robert made sloppy joes for lunch. In the afternoon we went to Mason’s Christmas program at school, Mason is in kindergarten. It was fun to watch the kids and how enthusiastic they are in their presentation. I have to say Mason did very well; it was a pleasure watching him. That night we went out to dinner with the kids and Sarah’s parents at Domencios Pizza & Restaurant in Beloit. We have been to this restaurant before and have liked it. They have a buffet or you can order off the menu. We all had the buffet and as usual I ate too much but it was good.
Saturday was the big day, Robert’s graduation at University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. Sarah and Robert rode with us to Whitewater, we arrived a little over and hour before the ceremony but we wanted to be early to get a good seat for the graduation. Well I believe some of those folks slept there over night, there were many people already in their seats. We did not know which way the master’s candidates would come into the building so we opted to get as close to the front as we could. We took the second row on the right and Sarah Ann chose wisely because Robert marched in right by us.

The program was not too bad, the student speaker did a commendable job and the main speaker spoke to long but overall it was good. They had about 650 graduates in all the programs so it was over in an hour and a half. We took a couple pictures outside and then went to the campus bookstore. Now remember I have a Nook eBook reader but I ended up buying three books, all less than $5 each. I still like the Nook and it is my primarily source of reading but I cannot get out of the habit of picking up a good book when I see one.
Sunday, night we went out to eat for Sarah’s birthday, we went to Olive Garden. It is interesting to watch the kids, both Mason and Madyson love the black olives, they put them on their fingers and eat them. I love that they order their own meal, macaroni, and cheese, I do not remember what everyone else had but I did not hear any complaints about them. No one had any room left for desert so we took off for home.
Sarah Ann had given me an idea for a couple of gifts for the kids, a castle for Madyson and a pirate ship for Mason. These are made out of cardboard, the kids can color the outside, and then you put it together. The castle had arrived before we got there so Madyson opened it, it is huge, so her and Mason began to color it. When they were done coloring as much as they wanted the castle was assembled and took up almost half of the family room. (Robert said the pirate ship arrived Monday and it is huge).

Sunday was Mason’s Christmas program at church he did well there also. After lunch, we all went to the Wright Museum of Art on the campus of Beloit College, http://www.beloit.deu/writht. This is a small private college with a very good reputation and a nice compact campus. Mason goes to a place called Doodles Art in Beloit; they have the kids do different types of artwork. Each year they put the kid’s drawings on the walls in the Wright Museum of Art. It was fun seeing the work of the kids, I did some touring of the Museum by myself, and they have a number of nice pieces there. So if you like art and are in the Beloit, WI area stop by and take in some very nice artwork.

Robert received a Wii for his graduation and Mason wanted to play bowling on it with me. So we played a couple of games Sunday afternoon, he had two strikes on his first two balls; I started slow but gained strength as we progressed. He ended with a 145 and I had a 175 for a while I thought he was going to beat me. I only won because I had a couple strikes in a row. I believe they will enjoy the game a lot. Robert said he played Mario brothers Friday night without feeling guilty because he did not have to study anymore.
We said our goodbyes to the kids Sunday night because they had work and school the next day.
Monday we slept in a bit but were still up by 7:30 and had our breakfast and everything by nine. So we left for the airport, our flight did not leave until 4:50 but we did not have anything else planned and I do not mind sitting at the airport. We got the rental car turned in and checked in with the airline, got our boarding passes and checked our bag, ($25) what a rip off. We did not go through security yet because I wanted to sit out in the main shop area because I figured there would be more choices to eat there. We did eat at a small local hamburger, made to order, it was very good.
About one o’clock we went through security, it was not busy which I liked. I found it interesting in Lafayette I did not have to remove my CPAP from its case but in Milwaukee I did, just goes to show security is not the same at all airports.
There was a winter storm warning for late afternoon and throughout the night so I was happy we were heading south. Those going through Minneapolis or east had some delays and cancelations. One of the Minneapolis planes boarded everyone and sat at the gate for another 45 minutes or so, I suppose they were waiting for a landing slot in Minneapolis before they took off from Milwaukee. Our plane was on time coming in and we all boarded on time, which was good because we had a 30-minute layover in Memphis, I worried about making our connection. They deiced the plane, the pilot said they had taken on a bit of ice coming in, we still departed on time. We arrived in Memphis with 35 minutes to change gates, of course, our plane was departing from A2 and we arrived at B2, they could not get much further apart. Now I have to ALWAYS stop at the restroom, but even with that, we got to the gate with about ten minutes to spare. The trip was uneventful; we arrived in Lafayette on time and got home about nine.
Yesterday was laundry day for Sarah and I spent the day trying to figure out expense and how much money we have left. Actually the trip was going to be made whether we flew or drove, I am glad we did not drive we wouldn’t be home yet, the cost for both was close but I believe flying was cheaper and we enjoyed the trip a whole lot more.
Therefore, that is all for now it was a great trip and we enjoyed ourselves immensely. We would not have missed it for anything.
Dreams Do Come True