From Where I Sit

By Pat Spilseth, Columnist

It’s been a beautiful fall. The weather has been great to enjoy our Minnesota lakes and the outdoors, and this fall’s colors have been brilliant. A friend just returned from northern Minnesota and said the color was already faded. Wanting to enjoy more of this fall’s gold, orange and red, Dave and I decided to take a few days to see the color south of Minnesota. We drove 500 miles to see color but found the best color right at home! The maples are spectacular in my neighborhood!

We’ve always enjoyed staying at B&B’s,  bed and breakfast accommodations, so we booked a few nights along the river to Wisconsin and into Iowa. First we stopped at the Maritime Museum in Winona. This is our third visit to this gem of a museum which prides itself on art depicting water interpreted by artists in sculptures, watercolors, acrylics and oils. Flying fish hang from the ceilings and colorful fishing lures were attractively arranged on a wall. Fish were illustrated with an Asian artist’s finger dipped in soot creating prints depicting bone structure and scales, eyes and fins. Who’d have thought one could create such magic with just a finger dipped in soot!

We stayed at a B&B in Winona owned by a mom and daughter, Jan, the manager, and Gracie, the cook. The bed in our room had such a high mattress that I had to jump up and roll into the bed. I needed a stepladder or stool to get into bed at night but the mattress was so comfortable when I finally got in bed. We had a great night’s sleep and a delicious breakfast of quiche and fruit. Our table companions were fun to chat with and could they talk!   

Remember the Watkins man? One of the traveling salesman in the fifties who stopped by your house to see if your mom was out of vanilla and wanted to buy the best vanilla on the market for her baking needs? The company was founded in 1868 by J.R. Watkins who began by selling linament door to door and has been in business ever since. The museum had displays of Watkins products which ranged from spices like cinnamon and vanilla almond extracts to beauty products and body liniments to rat and mouse exterminating products. What a strange combination of products! Today the company is owned by Minneapolis investor Irwin Jacobs’ son.

One of the most enjoyable features of a road trip is stopping at neighborhood bars and supper clubs where other guests welcome the new folks entering their regular meeting place. When we entered, we felt a bit like the characters in the TV program “Cheers.” We met a happy, friendly group of folks at an Eagles bar in Prairie De Chien, Wisconsin, with Laurie, a crusty barkeeper stealing the show. She had spellbinding stories! She told us she was a spy in her military service…??? She was thrilled when she learned that my husband Dave had been a Navy pilot. Entertaining folks at the bar was her forte. Laurie was hysterical talking about her stint in the service and her first husband who made her gag, but she got a daughter out of that union.

Driving through three days of rain wasn’t bad especially when we arrived in Mason City, Iowa, with Frank Lloyd Wright homes, hotel, parks and sculptures. We had a very knowledgeable guide at the Stoddard house who had lots of interesting tidbits about Wright’s quirky personality. He was short so ceilings were shorter. Carpenters must have been frustrated with Wright’s demands, especially all the angles he designed on the wood trim of his buildings.

Our home was built in the mid-fifties by an architectural student favoring Wright’s designs of natural materials blending into nature. Like many of his designs featuring views of nature, our home has large windows in a long row facing the lake. When we bought the house the walls were cinder blocks, which we dry walled; a wood floor and flat roof with overhanging soffits, all of which followed Wright’s designs. He arranged windows in a ribbon pattern, everything was open spaces and parallel.

Golden leaves are breezing through the sky, covering the grass with a gold, green and brown patchwork quilt. In short order, white frost will cover the lawn and roofs of houses. Allergies will finally ease. Ducks are bobbing, bottoms up, at our shoreline, and soon geese will be honking over the water as they fly south in their V formation. Neighbors are packing up, almost ready to leave Minnesota’s weather for warmer Arizona and Florida.

Winter is slowly creeping into the neighborhood. We’ll stay home, perfectly content by the fireplace and watch the snow fly. Books are stacked up by my favorite red leather chair for winter reading and the fridge is filled with good things to eat. Though Dave will leave for a few weeks of tennis in Florida, I’ll stay home enjoying the winter snow and the frozen lake sprinkled with fish houses, cross-country skiers and  ice boats.

“I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape – the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn’t show.”  ~Andrew Wyeth

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To contact Pat, email: pat.spilseth@gmail.com.