A moment for day 6

Today was quite an adventurous day. While I planned to stay in Ogema, WI for the night, when I arrived the site was really only suited for field camping and sleeping in my car would be much like sleeping at a rest stop. I was only 2 hours from Fran’s, so I decided to stop and eat lunch at the park in Ogema and then travel the rest of the way to Fran’s. So for those checking my location, I am actually at Fran’s right now and will be here for the next few days. With that out the way, I would like to update you on the many things that happened today.

There was a torrential down pouring of rain last night that kept my and Tiki up for hours, but when we woke up this morning we were met with the lovely sent of rain drop covered blades of grass and the brisk pure inhale of air free from dust. While I sat and made my morning tea, I was hit with a craving to listen to a podcast and play some type of mobile game. The break from my very effective and efficient forms of entertainment has been hitting me hard and the tools that were meant to ease the transition are becoming a bit more a crutch. I am ashamed to say that listening to a comedy podcast while playing Subway Surfers is not all that different from just watching a Tik Tok on my For You page. Realizing that I was feeling this way, I mad the active decision to reflect on this and spend time with my thoughts and the sounds of nature while drinking my mate. I will probably post this reflection tomorrow, seeing as how I am too tired to coherently write it tonight.

I, then, began the journey to Ogema where I would spend my lunch. While I was there I met two lovely local kids. To be fair, they absolutely should not have been talking to me because stranger danger and whatnot, but the 8 year old boy was dead set on petting Tikvah and was willing to sit and wait until it happened. So, trying to be friendly while also remaining vigilant about not looking like I was going to try and kidnap these children, I talked with them sitting in the gravel parking lot while Tikvah warmed up to them. There was a boy about 8 and a girl maybe 11, who I would describe as the youngest children of the epitome of the All-American family. I have not had much time to think about the interaction and its significance, but I wanted to write it down because there was something unseemingly impactful about it.

Their father is the district manager of all the Cenex gas stations in the surrounding area. Their mother is the manager of the Cenex in Ogema, which by the way is the only gas station in town. She is “fixin” to get fired because she wants to quit, but wants to be able to reap the benefits of unemployment. She is mad at the new rules that the owner, Squirrel, has recently imposed even though they have been doing this for so long. Their oldest brother is the assistant manager at the same Cenex as their mother. The have an older sister, Autumn, who left Ogema a while back because she just needed to get out. She moved to Eagle River, which is only an hour and half a way and has a population of 1,678, while Ogema only has a population of 684. They have a teenage sister named Brooke who is into the occult. “She’s a witch,” says the boy. “She just does it to be an individual” says the girl. She has a witch wall where she holds her spell jars and crystals and the bones of animals she collects from road kill. As we are sitting, the girl finds a pyramidal piece of quartz and tells me she needs to take it home because she needs to start building her collection for when Brooke leaves and she gets her room. They tell me all about their pets, 3 cats, 2 dogs, and a few horror stories of recent deaths. We laugh about how fat their cat, Tiger, is and how he is constantly stealing Maui’s food while Yoda just watches it happen. We talk about the different urban legends of the town and it quickly becomes clear that the Siren Head story is a combination of slenderman and skinwalkers with their own local flair. We talk about how the one school in town got closed down and now they go to a school 40 minutes away. They expressed how excited they were for when the school was going to become a mall with a cafe, but now it might just be a destination wedding venue. Before leaving they told me all about their local Christmas Tree Festival. It will be happening on September 30th this year. Not seeing the humor in that, they told me all about the different festivities like face painting and a parade. They said I should stop by and see their mom on my way out of town and she could give me the details. I told them I needed to get back on the road to make it to Eagle River, and they said I should hurry because there was a storm brewing. I loaded Tiki back up and as we were pulling out the girl shouted, “Don’t forget! September 30th”

I am not sure what it is about this interaction, but it tightens my chest. Makes me want to smile and also want to cry. I need to think more on it, but it is certainly something of note.

I am not sure how much I will be doing daily posts while I am at Fran’s, but I promise I will not leave you totally in the dark. So far, I have eaten cheese curds, Squirrel Balls (pretzel balls) and jalepeno poppers. Very dairy forward!

Talk to you soon!