Amanda Rae Was Here...

This image above exemplifies how I’m NOT feeling right now.

For the first day in twenty-six, I had absolutely no plans. It was mentally challenging, for me, to wake up and start the day without an itinerary in place, but things worked out better than I could have expected. I ended up at a free outdoor yoga class on the front lawn of the Paine Arts Center and Gardens in Oshkosh and befriending a group of vibrant women. We hung out and took photos in our sweaty yoga gear. They invited me to hear a band perform on the waterfront, but by that point I did have dinner plans. The irony!

Before all that, this afternoon, I climbed to the top of the 1932 Cape Cod-style lighthouse at the very tip of Fond du Lac, on the southern shore of Lake Winnebago. (As a devoted Francophile, I was drawn to the name, which means “foot of the lake.”)

It’s been refreshingly cool here in Wisconsin—mid-70s—and breezy, so I’ve been spending as much time as possible outside, today taking photographs: of sailboats, bridges, flowers, Frisbee-playing swimmers, ducks.

At the base of the lighthouse, I took the chained anchor photo. Well, some lady did (I gave in)…at which point her two children positively squealed with delight, saying that it was the funniest photo EVER and staging their own silly shoot as I wandered off.