Bayfield Wisconsin

Sept. 6, 2007
Every once in awhile one is the recipient of a near-perfect day. We had that today. Right now I’m in the Apostle Islands Area Campground in Bayfield, Wisconsin. This is a storybook little town of 600 people on Lake Superior. The houses are turn-of-the-century, flowers everywhere, hilly streets, charming buildings and shops and all set against the Lake outlined by tall masts of sailboats docked in the harbor that today just sparkled in the bright sunshine. Walt Disney could not have done “Sea Harbor VillageLand” any better!
The first order of the day was to find out where the three cafes were in town that offered free internet. In our meanderings through Bayfield we came upon a 1903 Carnegie library. What do public libraries have?? INTERNET!! Unfortunately, the sign said closed. But the grounds were so inviting that we parked to get a few pictures. As tourists do, we struck up a conversation with another visitor and discovered that the internet was available after hours. Indeed, a picnic table next to the library itself was being used as an internet corner. With whoops, Mr. T. and I grabbed our laptops and pretty soon there were four happy tourists madly signing on with servers, checking emails, sending pictures to families and even getting some real work done. It was one of the most charming “connections” of the trip. When I think of the places that lied about having internet and the frustration of being disappointed and then to suddenly have bandwidth from heaven struck us a very funny.
A hefty breakfast/lunch followed at The Egg Toss (across the street from A Stone’s Throw) followed by taking the cars on the ferry over to Madeleine Island. Byrdie got to wear herself out fetching the ball from the Lake--she never tires of swimming and bringing back the ball. The Island is beautiful but it was hard to imagine living there during the winter--and yet 220 people do. I found it alarming that the children go to school over in Bayfield on the ferry, then by WINDSLED the 2.5 miles until the ice freezes hard enough for the cars to DRIVE ON THE ICE over to the mainland!!!! I simply can’t imagine allowing one’s children to go on ice of any thickness--no way, no how, via a windsled. Home schooling would look very good. And yet over in Knife River in Minnesota they also mentioned that the ice gets thick enough to drive on! This is fodder for nightmares in my book.
It has been so wonderful to be in small-town America where there seem to be so many amenities for the locals. The streets and empty lots are free from trash; there is no graffiti; English is spoken everywhere; people look you in the eye and a person feels that perhaps one has stumbled through a time portal back into an America I was beginning to think had never existed. The thought of what California has become makes me shudder. How is it that there is enough money in the last 5 states I’ve been in to have the nice civic buildings, good streets, public services that work and ordinary people taking care of themselves? California is one of the prime economies in the world and yet we live like pigs. Our cities are ugly, dirty, littered, filled with way too many folk that make you grab your pocketbook tightly to your chest. Which is the real world? Is it only an illusion of being safe here in this beautiful state? Or is reality the relentless waves of have-nots, do-nots, what-nots? I can’t figure it out. I can only conclude that California spends its wealth where there is no return.