Coolest field trip, ever!

Late in February, I had the pleasure of chaperoning a field trip to Pop's Cave near Richland Center, WI, with Sparkly Seacow's 7th grade class. I've been meaning to get to putting these pictures up for some time, but, for some reason, I haven't had energy for blogging, or much else, in recent months.

First we had a 90 minute bus ride. Then it was over the "river"...

... and through the woods.
I got the sense that some of the kids on the trip had never been out of the city before. Several of them seemed a bit scared. Our family has done a lot of camping, hiking and things of that sort, so it was odd to witness the reactions of people that don't have that opportunity.

Down a hole into the cave.

This is a view of the hole as seen from the inside. Since I had to use a flash, most of the pictures won't actually show what it looked like while we were inside. Once we got away from the entrance, it was much darker with the only light coming from our flashlights and headlamps.

One of the walls in the first chamber.

More of the first chamber. Most of the parts of the cave had names, but I don't remember all of them.

A wee bat. We tried not to disturb them, but just imagine a bus-load of middle school kids coming into your bedroom while you're trying to sleep. Poor bats.

Some of the kids taking a rest. That's Sparkly Seacow in the green jacket.


One of the teachers waiting for the mob to pass through a part of the cave called "The Birth Canal." We had a couple of adults go first, then some kids, more adults, more kids, ending with adults.


That's me waiting for the mob to pass through the birth canal. I got to be last. Those helmets sure look dorky, but I would bet that there wasn't a single person who didn't clonk their head in that cave at least a few times.


The tail end of the mob heading for "The Birth Canal."


This is probably my favorite picture of the bunch. I think you know the name of this passage.


Some of the rocks were translucent and would glow if you put a light on them.


Sparkly Seacow crawling through "The Mole Hole." It leads into a small chamber big enough to seat about five people.


One of the other adult volunteers squeezing through a tight space.


What a great trip! It's not often one has the opportunity to see a cave like this. The cave is on private property and it's pretty amazing that the owners of the property allow schools to visit. I hope the kids appreciated it as much as I did.

Wisconsin Film Festival

Ms. Geranium, Sparkly Seacow and I went to see a collection of short films as part of the Wisconsin Film Festival. The films were of varying lengths, but most were under ten minutes. I thought some were very good, some not so good, and some were just weird. We ended up sitting next to Hannah Dallman, the director, writer and producer of one of the films, "Small Comforts." She was there with her young daughter and other family members. I enjoyed her film.

Here's another good one that we saw called "This is Umberto" by Anna Krutzik.

A few more from SXSW

The "Artist Pass" that allowed me to, umm..., wear an "Artist Pass", I guess. I'm not entirely sure that it gave me any special privileges beyond the ability to say I have a pass and you don't.

The only live shot I've seen of us playing at the festival. Photo courtesy of Wendy Lynn Staats of the band Sunspot. Note the Artist Pass on my left leg. Really glad I had that pass.

Here's Jeff and me doing the stupid rock pose with the hired young women, just like you see in Billboard Magazine! They were good sports about posing with us middle-aged rockers.
I would guess they weren't much older than my oldest daughter. Note that the woman in the middle is holding a picture of.... The Motor Primitives! In case you're wondering why everyone is wearing a Broadjam shirt but me, Broadjam is the company that sponsored the stage we played on and they gave us all shirts, but I had worn mine the day before. Besides, I generally don't like being an advertisement while on stage. I guess I'm just funny that way.

Photo by Robin Davies.

Still more...

This is Sarah, at whose house Pam, Mike and I stayed. She was a wonderful hostess and her house is only a mile and a half from where all the action was, and on a bus line, to boot. Sure beat staying in a motel 7 miles from downtown, like poor Jeff and Robin had to do.

Here's another band we saw whilst out and about.
Economy Team from Minneapolis.
They were a hoot.

One day, I was feeling a little overwhelmed by all the craziness, so I took a few hours to go to McKinney Falls State Park. Following are some photos from that excursion.






Of course, there was no way I was going to drive all the way to Austin and not make the pilgrimage to the Bat Bridge. Since the bats come out at dusk, it was difficult to get any good photos, but here is the best of what I took. Every night at dusk, people gather at the Congress Street Bridge to watch. It takes about 45 minutes for the bats to finish leaving the bridge in a constant stream. Apparently, when the city of Austin renovated the bridge in 1980, they had no idea that the design would appeal to Mexican Free-Tailed bats. It took the bats a few years to discover it, but when they did, it became a popular roosting site. Initially, many Austin residents clamored to have them exterminated, but thanks to the efforts of Merlin Tuttle of Bat Conservation International, the bats were spared and the bridge is now a popular tourist destination.

This sign seems to me to be a sad commentary on the state of public education in Texas. Thank you George W. "Quite-a-few-children-left-behind" Bush. In case you can't read it, it says
"Want to teach? When can you start?"

On the way home, somewhere in Oklahoma.

Oil wells.

Jesus Christ delivers.... bread!
Funny, I never really pegged Jesus as a mini-van kind of guy.

Another one that's hard to read. The water tower reads "Moore, Home of Toby Keith."
Hell, yeah!

Hmm...

The "Low Water Bridge" in Joplin, MO.

Driving past the majestic Gateway Arch in St. Louis.

That's all I've got. I hope you enjoyed them. The life of a rock star. Pretty exciting, eh?

More from Austin

Today is our daughter Sophie's birthday. Anyone who reads this blog or Ms. Geranium's blog probably knows that Sophie died as an infant. She would be 15 years old today. It doesn't feel right not to be home with my family today. Oh, well. Here are some more photos of the Austin Adventure™.

At a coffee shop, Venice is Sinking from Athens, GA. They were pretty interesting.

Pam is encouraging people to come hear us.

This dude had trouble spreading sunscreen on his back. Looked pretty painful to me.

That's where we played, on the roof of the Blind Pig Pub.

Robin getting set up.

Pam getting set up.

I don't have any photos of us while we were playing, but if I get some I'll post them.

Road trip!

Here are some photos from our trip so far.

Crossing the Mississippi River into Iowa.

St. Patrick's Day in Des Moines.

In the Arbuckle Mountains, Oklahoma.

The place we are staying in Austin. Sarah's place. That's Pam and her husband, Mr. Pam, sitting out front. It's a good half-hour walk from the center of the action, but it's nice to be able to get away from the noise. Sarah is very nice. I'll try to get a picture of her before we leave. There are these really noisy birds all over the place. I think they might be mockingbirds. They have this call (one of many that they seem to have) that sounds kind of like a car alarm. I think they're mocking me.

The capitol building and a church reflected in the glass.

There is music happening everywhere. Everywhere. Did I mention everywhere? Here's some band playing in a hair salon.

I kept seeing these people on their Segways. I assume they're members of some religious cult.



Last night, Jeff, our keyboardist, sat in with The Silos. You can see just a little bit of him behind the bassist. They were very good. The best band I've seen so far in the festival.



This is the area where we will be playing later today, as it looked last night. Hope to see some familiar faces!



Well, that's it for now. I hope to post some more before we leave, but I've had some difficulty finding access to the intertubes, so we'll see.