The Corona Diaries Vol. 23: Don't Feel Like Stilton But I Am To Them

Here is the card I received on Father's Day:

I remarked to a friend that it was a cheesy card and he replied that it Colby been worse. I groaned.

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I found a photograph taken here in Madison in the early 1970s, I think, basically just a few blocks down the street from us. So I biked over there one day to try and take a picture from roughly the same spot 50 or so years later.

You'll also notice the barbed wire on the left in the old photo. Today that area is a park and the big hill out of frame is a frisbee disc golf course. Old timers call it "Radar Hill" because from the late 1950s(?) through 1972, it was home to the "Truax Communications Facility Annex". Truax Air Force Base was a few miles to the northwest out at the airport and, from what I've read, this facility annex was part of NORAD (North American Air Defense Command). I have also read that it kept an eye out for Russian planes heading to Chicago so that, in the event of attack, it could give early warning so that the Nike missiles that were stationed down there could be put into action.

The facility was retired in 1972 and the land sold to the city which made it a park. I've wandered that section of the park but could find nothing left of the old Air Force site except for some barbed wire tipped fence at the top of the hill.

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On one recent Saturday morning I headed out for a bike ride. My only goal that day was to check out a subdivision on the far southeast side – Lost Creek - whose streets were all named after Beatles songs (and one John Lennon tune). I thought it'd be fun to get a snap of the signs for Day Tripper Drive and Penny Lane.

Since it was on the way, I stopped at my beloved Acewood Conservation Park. It had been very dry as of late so the retention pond was quite shallow but it was a lovely morning and birds were singing all around me.

I got sidetracked a few more times making my way to the Lost Creek neighborhood from Acewood. First, I stopped to watch a family of Canada geese waddling down a sidewalk. Next, I rode down a dead-end road to see what was there. After crossing a creek over an old stone bridge, I found that there was a business offering "recycling services" at the end of the road. Back in the days of yore, this was called a junk yard.

My next detour was to go down a sidewalk which I'd spotted when I had ridden by on previous occasions. All I'd been able to see previously was that it led into some tall grass and disappeared in the distance. I found that it ran alongside the sheds of a storage joint before ending a bit shy of a quarry. (A junk yard and now a quarry. Doctor Who references are everywhere!) Nothing exciting but I did spy a red winged blackbird that was flying back and forth between two trees. I feared that I would be attacked again as I had been in Dubuque a week or so earlier. Instead, I caught this:

"Holy crap! What the?! For the love of God!"

And then not 2 seconds later.

"Oh, hey. What's up?"

"Howdy neighbor. Nice day we're having today."

I made my way back to the road and continued riding until I came to an abandoned farm. Lost Creek could wait as I just had to take a look. There was a for sale sign out front and its current residents, some turkeys, were out for a stroll.

Despite it being a brilliant, sunny morning and shiny new houses sitting right across the street, it was still rather spooky wandering around the old farmstead. The garage and the outbuildings, like the one above, all appeared to have fallen into disuse some time ago. Collapsed roofs and missing doors gave rise to mysterious, shadowy interiors. Who knows what danger lurked in those tenebrous rooms? At worst, a critter like a racoon that doesn't want to be disturbed by pesky humans.

The remains of an old windmill were slowly being consumed by nature. It was a scene that would not have been out of place in Annihilation.

I rode out of the farm's driveway thinking that Lost Creek was still up the road a little way but I immediately saw Yesterday Drive in front of me and realized I was there.

Lost Creek is a small neighborhood and quite secluded. Yesterday Drive is the only street that connects the subdivision to the main road. The rest of it is either fenced off or ends at some woods. My mission was accomplished as I biked down Penny Lane.

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Bonus photo. I snapped this photo of a Mallard hen being chased across the street by a very persistent drake. I felt badly for her because he just wouldn’t take no for an answer. On the other hand, this may have been a normal mating pas de deux or they may have simply been having fun. No zoologist am I.