The Brood and the Good Read Countdown day 67

I did not expect to be thinking about the campaign much on this weekend away from the stump but I forgot that Claudia and I had settled on a book about the Civil War for our next travel read. And what a book it is for me. Its about the travails of America leading up to the shelling of Ft. Sumpter. That was the event that greeted my grandfather Thomas Robb, then 12 years old, when hus family landed in New York Harbor.

Even better is the authorship of the book The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson. He’s written some fascinating books. This may be our fourth or fifth of his histories. For me I understood completely how starting it he was haunted by the events of Januaray 6th. My own book Not Your Usual Republican attempts to touch on why the Southern anxieties that led South Carolina to lead the charge to divide America to keep slaves as degraded as possible prior to Lincoln are not front and center in Trump world.

Hearing South Carolina slave aristocracy described as Larson does helps explain why doofuses like Gov. Desanitize- History hates wokeness. We will have it to read today as we wend our way back to Duluth.

On Friday we drove to Eau Claire (Clear water in french) so that our following drive would be quick allowing us to enter Lake Geneva, Wisconsin early enough to get to the library and other sites for CicadaPalooza. But the rain hit us when we got to town and would remain leaving us to flounder around with passels of other people eager to witness and consume the swarm of nutritious bugs. The moment we stepped out into the rain my grandson found a cicada and took its picture on a sapling in front of our parking spot. I ventured into the rail ill clad to find a place to eat. I came back soaked but we found our way to champs and had burgers.

Discouraged by the wet we toddled off to Delevan not far away and cozied up into our hotel to wait out the rain. Several hours later with clearing skies we headed back to the “pioneer Cemetary” which because its last burial was in 1977 was undistured habitat and the spot certain to find lots of cicadas. We really never got the loud chorus but there were lots of cicadas although not in the most extreme swarmy conditions. We will head back this morning to listen. The rain may have dampened the ardor of the drenched bugs last night. We want the full surround sound before he head home today.

In the meantime here are a few of the pictures [RATS, I POSTED 5 BUT ONLY 1 SHOWS UP AND I DON’T HAVE TIME TO FIGURE OUT WHAT WENT WRONG] I took of our adventure.




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