Plan plans, not outcomes

This weekend is the ginormous Cranberry Festival in Warren, Wisconsin. It is promoted as the World's Largest Festival. 

One site says largest cranberry festival; another says largest festival. Whatever. It's big. 

We have never gone but recently thought we might give it a shot. I printed out a map and instructions on where to catch a shuttle bus so that we would not have to fight the crazy traffic near the actual site. Tom got information loaded into the GPS. And we went to bed, assuming Warrens would be our destination, after I returned from my stint at the library.

This morning we both woke up thinking that maybe this was going to be more trouble than necessary. Probably the big attraction of the Festival for us, besides the opportunity to eat a gazillion things made with cranberries, is a huge arts and crafts fair with 850 booths. And as much as we enjoy those, we realize that because of our planned move to Madison, we are not buying anything that we will have to pack or just donate to St. Vinnie's in a few months. And the thought of driving an hour to Tomah, waiting to catch a shuttle bus that runs every twenty minutes (not bad in itself) and then riding a bus to the festival, then plowing through the mobs  to look at things in booths we probably won't be able to get near because 120,000 people are expected  ... well, you get the idea. 

So change of plans: I will go to the library and do my volunteer schtick without feeling rushed to get home. Tom will go to the little railroad and do whatever to help get things in shape for the annual membership meeting this weekend. As for the Cranberry Festival, we will be satisfied with the fact that for dinner last night I made a slow cooker full of a sort of beef stew cooked with whole cranberry sauce, onion soup mix, a splash of Western salad dressing and a bit of Marsala wine.

And today suddenly got more relaxed. Or I did, anyway.