Arlo Guthrie in Bayfield

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You may not find this terribly rewarding unless you're included here, so this is a good time for casual and random browsers to turn back before they get too caught up in the sweep and majesty of the proceedings and can't let go.

We're booked with a collection of friends to see Arlo and the "Guthrie Family Reunion Tour" in Bayfield in the north.

Up Highway 51 towards Ironwood, a brief stop at an antiques shop and bar/restaurant in the old style

'Breakfast Thr Son'. With jazz.

Two coffees to go

Ashland, Wisconsin, on Lake Superior, and the remains of one of the old iron ore shipping docks, which could reach 500 metres out into the lake

The Rittenhouse Inn in Bayfield, built in 1890, very nice; we're expected.

Ready to settle in

Checking for more campaign gaffes

Dining room in the evenings and, for us, breakfast room in the morning

Time for a walk round downtown Bayfield

Bayfield is a resortish town of 530 souls on the southern shore of Lake Superior.

Just above the harbor area, with ferries to and from the Apostle Islands across the way

Kristin perusing the new titles, with a big promotion for Russ Feingold's While America sleeps

Former Senator Feingold (one of the honest ones) will be signing copies here on 23 August; damn, we're a week early.

Kristin in Bayfield, Wisconsin

A beautiful stubby old boat (1952), the Shenehon, that's based here for NOAA's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory.

The obligatory flag extravaganza, a large piece of every small town's budget

Bayfield City Hall: "Notice: no guns, knives or weapons on premises" ("Place payments here.")

Lake Superior towns celebrate their abandoned boats from the prosperous old days.

They even turn them into lawn ornaments.

Wonderful designs, some of them

John and Kristin awaiting our friends at the Wild Rice restaurant -- dine and dash, Arlo and the Family are tuning up the instruments at the Big Top.

The Big Top Chautauqua concert venue, just outside of Bayfield. The clan of Guthrie travels in the bus on the left.

The Guthrie Family (Arlo, sons, daughters, in-laws, and grandchildren) put on an amusing informal show, about half comprising Woody Guthrie classics. Many of the family members have musical careers of their own as well.

Kristin, Rob, Kirk et al at intermission

A standing ovation for Arlo and his collection

This is very good advice . . .

. . . advice which we will take to heart straightaway on the roof of the Bayfield Inn.

Until the barman has to close up shop.

The Coast Guard had an extremely proud and noble tradition, but now it's just another part of the Department of "Homeland Security". Like the TSA.

And like the Border Patrol -- which seems to be everywhere, whether or not we're near a border.
("The priority mission of the Border Patrol is preventing terrorists and terrorists' weapons, including weapons of mass destruction, from entering the United States." Everything's changed since 9/11.)

Lovely patriotic flags! Lots of them! We're so proud!

Upper Bayfield

Some of our group stayed on the boat of a friend, and it's time to clean it all up, if possible.

NOAA's Shenehon again, which was based on Lake Michigan but seems to be here permanently now.

Collecting the bedding, empties, etc.

Bayfield's main street (Rittenhouse Ave.)

Funny flags, too!

Cornucopia, Wisconsin, westward along the lake, and another shrine to wrecks from the past

Those were the days!

Kristin and the inexhaustible nautical graveyard

There's not one of them I'd want to be in a rough sea in. Thin plywood mostly.

Kristin in Cornucopia

The commercial zone. Now we're headed south again.

Back to Ashland, Wisconsin -- the trompe l'oeil town.

Whatever the town looks like now, this is what it used to look like.

Ashfieldiers in wartime -- this is better than a list of names on a granite slab.

The "Hometown Trolley". That's the brand name (like Dotto and Tschu-Tschu in Europe), based in Crandon, Wisconsin, but with nationwide sales, and this is the Mainstreet model.

Illustrious former residents

The artist at work

The whole town of Ashland is done up like this; it's fun just walking down the street.

We're on a side trip out to the Penokee Hills west of Mellen, where the barons of Gogebic Taconite Inc. are desperate to scour out one of their super-profitable open-pit iron mines and turn most of this into tailings.

And trash the wetlands downstream along the Lake Superior shore, including those in the Chippewa lands of the Bad River Slough, newly designated by the United States as a Wetland of International Importance under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands.

A little bit of heaven here on earth; an embarrassment of riches at Trig's in Minocqua

Summer in Wisconsin, 2012