Some Beautiful Scenery up in Wisconsin

The wife and I got back from a long weekend trip up to Rhinelander, WI, where my parents grew up and my grandmothers live. We met up with my parents and celebrated one of my grandmother's birthdays.

On the lead up to the trip, people kept on telling me how pretty it is up there. I didn't believe them, though, because after all the years I've gone there, I didn't see much prettiness. Rather, I saw only tall tree trunks and branches, snow, ice, gray skies and swampy marshlands. No leaves or any color. Just dreariness.

I, after all, only really visited Rhinelander, WI during the late fall and winter. I can only remember visiting that very small city during the spring, summer or early fall once, maybe twice. Even worse, those memories are circumstantial and not for certain.

Summer and Rhinelander, WI actually stick in my mind with sentiments of disappointment. One summer, my family had plans to visit relatives in Rhinelander. I got pretty damn excited about going there to have a lot of fun. My brother, unfortunately, came down with appendecitis, sending the whole trip right down the tubes.

That was then, and this is now, though. Holding onto resentment from the past, especially arbitrary reasons for that resentment, doesn't accomplish anything. I realized that fact and the benefit of that realization while in the elevatr of Emerson Hospital in Concord, MA years and years ago, on the way home from visiting my brother there when he suffered from the infection of his appendix.

But screw all that. Rhinelander during the summer looks quite enchanting during the summertime.



The wife and I arrived in Rhinelander at about 5:30 Friday evening. Soon as we get there, my mom and dad mention some kind of surprise. They had been alluding to some kind of surprise in the e-mails leading up to the whole weekend event. My mom had been mentioning something about a river tour. And lo and behold, my dad drives me, the wife and my two grandmothers to a dock where we board something akin to a ferry boat. We then disembark to take a little river tour on the Wisconsin River.



They didn't so much take us on a tour. Other than the captain saying hello and letting us know about the drinks and pizza below decks, the crew didn't have so much to say about the scenery. I learned more about the river, the dams, the backwash and speculations about the trees hiding peoples' homes from my dad and grandmothers. It was more like a mini cruise on a river with pizza and drinks. . .just a good chance for people to sit, check out the nature and just chill with some friends and family.

I guess Rhinelander, WI
really is quite pretty.