Autumn Escape

My 5-day autumn escape started with some different "fall colors." The first were these beautiful stained glass windows as we attended a wedding in Oshkosh Saturday for Tyler and Ellie – the son and daughter of good friends of ours.

The wedding was beautiful, the wedding party was beautiful, and every detail of the reception and dance was so well thought out. Just so fun! And since these two are Assumption "kids," we knew about 80% of the guest list! 

We stayed overnight and got back Sunday with enough time for me to unpack the suitcase and re-pack it for my sister getaway. I still call it our Wild Women's Weekend – even though it was Sunday-Wednesday this year.

Our destination was a spacious VRBO in the Eau Claire/Altoona area. Secluded but still within minutes of all the amenities the city has to offer!

For this year's Opening Act, I convinced my twin we should do a mini Hee-Haw show. We sang the clothes-washing song from the show (We're not ones to go around spreading rumors...) and wrote some corney jokes about each sister. Of course we were a hit. Ha.

The weather was actually summer-like on Sunday and Monday. So Monday our mission was to go to a nearby park and find a "stick sculpture" we saw in Our Wisconsin magazine since the park was close by.

What are the odds we see a picture of the "Oak Lair" in Our Wisconsin magazine, we decide to search for it since the park is 10 minutes from our VRBO... AND we have a chance meeting with architect Ryan Butler who turned into our group photographer? 

We loved hearing about his passion and creative process as a landscape artist! What a nice surprise! (By the way, that cane belongs to one of my sisters, not Ryan.)

We highly recommend Mount Simon Park if you're ever in the Eau Claire area! 

And he took some nice group photos of us among his creations!

Fall colors were not at peak yet. But we saw that maybe a lot of trees showed off early before the winds took their leaves away.

There were some splashes of color. But nothing too brilliant.

Tuesday returned to cold and windy so we stayed put. Both RoAnn and Raylene had to leave us around mid-afternoon because they had obligations Wednesday morning.

So we took our "skydiving" selfie before they left. Yes, we're dorks and that's why we get along!

The rest of us checked out Wednesday by 10 a.m. and hit the road. Since I had the full day off, I took a few detours to hopefully find fall colors. That included the High Ground by Neilsville (way up on a hill) and some random side road.

Today was back to work – thankfully remotely this week since a lot of work piled up in my short absence!

And now it's time to support 90% of my friends who are cheering on the Brewers! Just one more win and you're in the World Series! 💙💛