Books and stuff

Tom and I went into Madison today and hit bookstores etc. I bought three mysteries at Half-Price Books and he got a stack of things. Then we found a display stand for a piece of sedimentary rock that he found down by the Wisconsin River. (He insists on calling it igneous, which is totally wrong and done only to annoy me.) It is very colorful and looks like it could have been sliced from the Utah sandstone in the picture.

Then he bought nine (count them, 9) pink flamingos to put out in the yard and in various places that he hopes will annoy Peggy. I am not the only target of his strange idea of humor.

We ate Chinese at a place we hadn't tried -- the Flaming Wok -- and decided it is our new lunch place when we are in Madison. Tom actually likes a Japanese place in the food court at the East Towne Mall, but it is such a chaotic place that he thinks no matter what you think you are ordering, what you get is purely arbitrary. Even though he is satisfied with whatever it is he winds up eating, I guess the uncertainty is too stressful. My favorite Chinese place is still the little take-out joint in Hyde Park, Wok-n-Roll. Bad pun for a name, but the lunch special was ample and cheap and the General Tso's chicken was great. (And just about the worst thing health-wise to eat at a Chinese restaurant.)


We came back to the Dells by a side road up through Portage instead of the interstate. The town motto is "Where the North Begins", which means, if you are going in the other direction, I suppose it is also "Where the South Begins." Pretty improbable to me. Portage gets its name from being the portage spot to link the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers, and I guess the 17th-century French fur traders said it was the way into the north by the river. Hence, where the north begins.