Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Mineral Point

Last Friday, Michael and I snuck out of town for a few days. We headed up to Wisconsin for some R&R.

The main purpose of the trip was to go to theatre. On Friday night we saw George Bernard Shaw's Widower's Houses. On Saturday, we saw Hannah Cowley's The Belle's Stratagem. I'd never heard of Ms. Cowley before and it was interesting to see a play authored by a woman in the late eighteenth century.

My knowledge of that era is pretty limited but I didn't think that a woman would have been accepted as the author. The Bronte sisters published their books about fifty years after Cowley and they had to use male pseudonyms. I wonder what changed. Sounds like I need a history lesson.

We spent Saturday puttering around Mineral Point in southwestern Wisconsin. It turns out it was the weekend of Cornish Fest. When we crested a hill into the main drag we saw this:













There must have been 25 or 30 Model T's and Model A's lining the street. Some were convertibles, some were hardtops. Some of them had trunks. There was at least one with the rumble seat open. I just love the idea of a rumble seat.


We also ran across this horse and buggy that was ferrying people around the fest.













It's a little hard to see from this photo, but there are four horses here. The two adults in the center are doing the actual pulling. On either side of them is a young horse that isn't doing any work. My guess is that this is a learning exercise. The youngsters walk alongside to get used to the idea of the noise of the buggy and people and the street. And that no matter how fast they go, they can't get away from the darn buggy. Just like anything else, these young horses are learning by doing.

It was a nice weekend. The trees haven't quite started to turn yet but there were roadside stands selling pumpkins and apples. So fall has to be right around the corner. I'm looking forward to pulling my sweaters out of storage for the season.

I think my next project is going to be a February Lady.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Nice notes on the Cars and Mineral Point. I was there too and enjoyed "A Taste of Mineral Point".

With fall coming - and the Arts Tour Oct 17-19 -you can get some great back country road touring in the area - contact the Chamber office (1-888-764-6894) or http://www.mineralpoint.com -and ask for one of their free bike maps to the area -- don't tell the bikers but they make great car drives too! - especially if you can ride in a roadster -- and even beter yet, I bet,
from that rumbleseat!