Rolling on down the road

Well, they really did get moving on Berry Road. Yesterday they put down an undercoat or some such thing and today put on a top layer. Of course, one odd thing about it is that the newly topped part of the road goes from Birchwood, past Tom and Steve's property line and then stops. Berry Road, as I think I have mentioned before, although not all that long, lies in three jurisdictions: the Village of Lake Delton (the first quarter mile or so this side of Birchwood) the Town of Delton (from the Village portion up to the end of the Scharbach parcel) and the Town of Dellona. Dellona had fixed their end up -- that is where Jerry's farm is -- a few years back, so the new part ends at the Town line.

Town in Wisconsin (like much of the midwest) doesn't mean exactly what it does in Texas. Up here a town is a civil division smaller than a county, but excluding lands that are part of incorporated villages or cities. They provide many similar services including road maintenance. So you wind up with a stretch like ours that is partly the responsibility of a village and partly of a town -- in this case, two towns. This also means when snowplows come through, they don't necessarily do the entire road at once, unless the towns have their acts together and are cooperating. The Dellona end of Berry usually gets a better snow removal job than the Delton end. (I shouldn't say that, since I am a resident of Delton -- the Town, not the Village of Lake Delton.)

To add to the general confusion, Wisconsin Dells -- which is my mailing address, but not where I actually live -- is a city, but it is also the general term used to refer to the area as a tourist destination, which includes Lake Delton. The Dells more specifically refers to the formations along the Wisconsin River. What is now the city of Wisconsin Dells used to be Kilbourn City, but it changed its name in 1931. The fire department and the library still carry the Kilbourn name.