The empty city

The abandoned lakefront

You can walks for miles here and not see another human. Life is like a post- apocalyptic movie, maybe "On The Beach." Even lone pedestrians and dog-walkers are rare, though, as Ms. V says, in this scenario, "pups win!" with owners home all day and itching to get out.

Stay well. Stay in. Wash your grimy hands!

The Riverwalk

Two lone souls, plus dog

Keeping my social distance

Every day is a winding road
(was it Sheryl Crow?) 

How are you all out there in cyberland? Hope you are safely ensconced in your hermetically sealed house with, say, just one friend you don't mind getting sick with. If you can get by without the illness part, congratulations, you're doing better than Tom Hanks.

We've been washing our hands many times a day and trying not to touch our faces. But when you remember that you shouldn't touch your face, what do you do? Touch your face. Then you have to wash your hands again.

We made a plan to escape the winter blahs some months ago. We thought we'd fly to Atlanta and ride with Sister S and b-i-l J to the artsy little mountain town of Asheville, NC, for some walking and light shopping. But when it came to it, us over-60 old fogies, and me with gimp health, we cashed in our tickets and drove. It was 12 hours in the car each way -- Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina -- but it was the right decision. Ms. V heroically drove every mile both ways, not so much because I'm a bad driver but, the way I see it, because she's a bad passenger.

We stayed in a little hillside house in the woods, had one eat-out brunch, and ate take-out Thai. In town we checked out the art shops along the river -- virtually deserted, because of the damp weather, or the coronavirus, one. I chatted with a woman in a shop laboring over a 3-D found-object piece, and watched a veteran glass artist working her torch about a tube of glass, instructing an apprentice, and I wanted to say to the young woman, "Maybe a career in IT is a better choice?"

So now we're home, picking up the pieces.

*

I did 100 miles in my first new-bike week, then the weather went punk, my spirits sagged, and we went on our little trip.

*

And the DNC? I went to a meeting a couple weeks back. It was very organized, an hour and a half, and we listened as four presenters discussed the convention and what kind of help they need. They had set a goal of 15,000 volunteers -- about 10,000 had already signed up (though "we never stop recruiting") -- and they expect 50,000 people to attend. They liked Milwaukee for the relatively regular grid pattern of its streets, making for easy navigation, and the fact that the Milwaukee Theater and Fiserv Forum -- and, for that matter, most downtown hotels -- are just blocks from each other. An improvement over Philadelphia, where venues were miles apart.

But now the coronavirus has arrived, so I wonder if they'll even hold it.

        

Tough little North Carolina vine

Asheville