A mixed day

No German food; there was a sign up saying the chef had a medical emergency and the restaurant was closed until "further notice." We wound up with wood-oven pizzas at a neighboring restaurant, and they were very good, but....when you're hoping for schnitzel, it's hard to pivot to pizza.

Also, no Heritage Museum (apparently a demonstration farm), the place had been rented out for a wedding and was closed. (I will refrain from comment, seeing as I am a Bitter Spinster, other than that mmmmmaybe they should have indicated so on their webpage).

And the Dairy Museum is *always* closed Saturdays.

We did get to see the "Healing Waters," but apparently the sulfur spring that fed it got wiped out with the coming of agriculture?

 

(I wish I could ask my dad, who was a hydrogeologist, about it, but I can't. And I admit - that's one of the sources of melancholy I feel right now)

And the area is sadly kind of overgrown

 



So instead, we saw the small music-box collection in the library, and shopped, and watched most of the Fall Festival parade that was today:





We also walked over to see the courthouse square, which has some interesting things, like a beautiful old courthouse of native stone:



This is also where the (in)famous Glass Bathroom is - it has one-way glass so you can see out when you are in there, but people cannot see in. I didn't try it out; I'm sure I'd not have been able to have used it even though I KNEW no one could see in.



They also had a cool water feature with random sprays of water







And an unsettling sign:



(There's a saying that for every strange rule there is an even stranger backstory, and I admit I think that here)

We did a little shopping around the downtown; there was a wine festival later today and some vendors were set up. I bought some lavender soap and a "surprise bag" (for $5) from a shop that had bath things (I got three bath bombs - large ones - in the bag,so that was a good deal). And a couple scented candles, and a small folding tea infuser (I never seem to have enough; I often find that the ones I have are dirty when I want to use one).

We also drove around a bit after the disappointment about the Heritage Museum; didn't find much (We stopped at an antiques barn, but most of the stuff didn't have prices marked on it, and the things that did? Were really expensive, more than either one of us thought was reasonable).

We did stop at the Dairy Museum and look at it (and were sad it was closed) but I was able to grab some photos of the gigantic cows





And this one, which I posted on Twitter with the caption TEATS., but no one liked it, so maybe my being a 10 year old for a moment didn't make an impression. But still:

TEATS.



(And yeah. They really got the veins on there, too. I wonder if the sculptor knew cows, or if someone told them what they wanted and were like "don't forget the veins on the udder")

Laura had to get to the wedding she was playing at after that, so we took our leaves. I admit I felt slightly sad as she turned east on 11 and I turned west; I don't get enough time with friends, it feels like.

And driving home was slightly melancholy - thinking about "man I wish I could have asked my dad about those springs," and feeling bad about the things I couldn't do there, and it looks SO DRY right now, we really need rain. And tomorrow is the leave-taking by the minister. I printed out and briefly read the liturgy I'm supposed to help with but I didn't rehearse it or read it TOO closely; if I'm too practiced with it I will be more likely to cry because I'll think about the event rather than concentrating on making my mouth say the words right.

And then I stopped at the Kroger. Got the few things I needed and as I was walking out to the parking lot, there were two men laughing VERY loudly and uproariously, and the tone of the laughter.....it was that almost-mocking, excluding tone I remembered so well from earlier years and I was instantly self-conscious - had my skirt crept up my backside? Was something wrong? Were they laughing because they saw a chubby woman? What? And then I wondered: is this me being self-centered, expecting that OF COURSE everyone is looking at me - which made me feel even WORSE - or was it just the aftereffects of a childhood spent being laughed at?

I mean, reasonably: they probably were sharing a private joke or one of them told the other a joke, and they didn't even see me, but yeah....it bugged me because I thought I'd got past that "people are randomly laughing, oh no, they are laughing at me" thing but I guess I haven't.

Oh, don't get me wrong: it was still worth the trip just to hang out with Laura for a couple hours, and seeing the courthouse and the giant cows was cool and the pizza was good. It's just...there were things about the day that made it less than ideal.