An Outdoor Adventure In Art & Nature

It was a pretty tolerable day out yesterday, so we decided to spend a little bit of it outside to explore a few things that are just a few miles from our house.  They're things we have biked by often enough, but have never stopped to check out for one reason or another (usually because it was summer and they're in the woods, so we would have gotten eaten alive).

First, we went to the James Tellen Woodland Sculpture Garden, a collection of concrete art that was created by Mr. Tellen in the 1940's & 50's.  They're still in pretty good shape, considering their age and exposure to the elements.  Thanks to the local art center, they're now being preserved and are available for public viewing.  When you pull up, you immediately see the fallen log fence with a few Native Americans and bears.  I've biked past this so often and have always admired it.  The logs look so real! 

There's a trail that winds through the property, displaying the collection.  If you'd like to see more, visit my Flickr. 

Just down the road, there's a park with this really cool carved owl in it. 

Also in the same area is the Sheboygan Indian Burial Mound Park.  While the mounds were excavated and the remains relocated decades ago, the mounds have been preserved.   

There's a nature trail in the park that winds through the woods.  We saw a hornet nest, without hornets, of course.

A pretty common sight in the woods around the area-

Woodpecker "art" on a tree-

It was really nice to be out in nature for a while and pretty rare to be able to do so somewhat comfortably this time of year! 

Fuel Cafe and Outside Art

Yesterday we tried out a restaurant in Milwaukee we've never been to before, Fuel Cafe.  The first thing we noticed when we pulled up was their tagline- killer coffee, lousy service.  The lousy service sign you see in the window was blinking like it was about to die.  Such a great touch! 

The inside of the cafe was pretty cool.  They had a huge mural of motorcycles on the wall by where we were sitting, the benches looked like they were made out of old billboards (or some kind of large signs) and they were playing oldies style music, like Johnny Cash.  I tried to get a close-up of the Soup Today sign, but they all turned out blurry or with people's heads in the way.  That will be a goal for our next visit, which we're definitely planning on.  The sign says something about veggie chili being available on the weekends, which they've won awards for and since Mike is a chili lover, he wants to try it out sometime.  The cafe had a Route 66 type of feel to it, which is our kind of style (and despite what their tagline says, their service was very good).   

We were just a little disappointed in their menu because they had a lot more vegan options online than on their actual menu.  I'm guessing that they changed things but have yet to update their online menu.  We both got the Super Burrito, which was an enormous burrito filled with refried beans, guacamole, mashed potatoes, vegan awesome sauce (some kind of spicy sauce that was, indeed, awesome), tomatoes, onions and lettuce.  They should rename it the Super Delicious Burrito! 

When we left the cafe, we saw this graffiti on the next building over.  While I don't support vandalism, I am drawn to graffiti of all styles.  There's just something about it.   

Across the street was this mural on the side of another building.  I have my own interpretation of it, but would love to hear what yours is!   Like any of my pictures, you can click on it to see a larger version.  

Then we drove to a house that had something I've been wanting to take pictures of for a while.  These remind me of the Cadillac Ranch on Route 66- also something I've wanted to visit for many years now (and will, someday!).   

I love that they have a flag with dogs all over it.  Some guy that was biking by at the time told me to check out their back yard, but when we went through the alley I found that I'd have to pretty much go around their garage into their yard to see it.  That was outside my comfort level, so we made do with admiring their front yard displays.   

They also had Brew City Bully Club signs in their yard.  We've been seeing more & more of these around Milwaukee.  They're starting to be as visible as Recall Walker signs, which I support just as much as ending dog fighting.     

In other news, between my physical therapy sessions on Thursday and Friday, my elbow improved by 6 degrees!!  I've been hell bent on getting it to bend (har har) and was determined to get it to the 2 degree difference each session that my therapist would like to see, so 6 degrees was quite the accomplishment.  I can actually touch my face now with all of my finger tips and massage in shampoo just a little bit with my left hand.  Needless to say, I'm feeling much better about things than I was and I credit a lot of it to all of the encouragement I got from you, my dear readers.  It really meant a lot!  My shoulder is still giving me a lot of problems, but for now I'm going to focus on getting my elbow all better and try to worry about that when the time comes.

Another cool thing I've got to share is that last night, we thought we heard a female cat yowling outside, so Mike went out to investigate.  The sounds were actually two groups of coyotes yipping & howling at each other from the field in front of our house and the woods behind it.  The stars and Mars were really visible, too, so we star gazed for a few minutes until it got too chilly.  I really miss spending a lot of time outdoors, so it was nice to be able to enjoy that even if only for a little while before the cold sent me scurrying indoors.   

I hope that everyone is having a lovely weekend!