Ryan's Blog: Wisconsin, Home sweet home!

Left CO on Monday, 2/22/2010, drove to Kearney, NE and got a hotel. Continued to WI the following day and dropped in on Dad and Karen at the family farm in Boscobel. They were surprised to see me because they don't have internet there, and I lost my phone. I put stuff in storage and went snowshoeing with Dad to inspect trees...might sound weird, but there are a lot of nice trees on the farm, some of which I took part in planting when I was grounded as a kid :) I followed Dad and Karen to their home in Milwaukee, and have been using it as base camp for the last five days. Nice to be back in Milwaukee! It really is a great city. It's nice to be around family for an extended amount of time too. I met Angie on Wednesday and went to a standup comic thing at Cactus Club and then crashed at her house. I went out on Friday night to see DJ Miles Maeda with my friend DJ Dong after stopping by Tanya's bar, Burnhearts. Got to see many friends and had a great time! On Saturday, Karen made a phenomenal ham dinner, and her brother Jay from Indiana stopped by. We had a very nice night of eating, drinking, and conversation. On Sunday (28th), I met Mom and Grandma at Grandma's retirement home in Milwaukee for lunch. She is 92 and doing amazingly well!

On Monday, I got up at 5:00am to go ice fishing for Whitefish with Dad and family friend Don in Sturgeon Bay, Lake Michigan. This is my Dad's newest obsession. He bought all kinds of fancy gear including a portable tent/sled with heater, drill-powered auger, and underwater camera. Since this was kind of a test-run as far as location, Dad was the only one to catch a fish, but next time we'll be better prepared. The camera was amazingly clear. I was watching the screen, saw the fish come up to Dad's bait and actually swallow it. He couldn't feel it, but I yelled to hook and reel, and up came the fish. Pretty cool to see what's going on under 18 inches of ice and 22 feet of lake! Great day.