windinthemaples

The attendance numbers for July 4th at Old World Wisconsin was something like 1500 people. The next day, it appeared to be back to its average, maybe 200-300. That's attendants during the entire day on the entire 500+ acres. So you can see, we were very much alone most of the time with the costumed reenactors. At the gift shop and the cafe, back in the modern world, there were a handful of people to be seen but otherwise we felt like we had the entire place to ourselves. It was unreal.

Now that the parade was no longer an issue, two open air trams were in operation around the site letting you save some of the walking. They'd trundle down the road every thirty or forty minutes dropping or picking up anyone sitting at the roadside benches in the various ethnic settlement areas, within seconds they'd disappear, the dust would settle, and we'd be back in that dream state of the really good, really empty historical restoration/reconstruction work. At most, in the five hours we were there, we ran into maybe six to ten other modern people out on the land. They all drifted away within five or ten minutes and the rest of the time it was just us and these costumed residents. I don't know how they built this place, how they pay to maintain it, how they can afford for there to be so few visitors, but it feels like the most incredible secret in Wisconsin.

Pairs of horses and oxen dug enthusiastically into their afternoon hay. An old shady barn housed napping sheep and chickens, another sheafs of dried hay. Women wiped their hands on aprons and invited us in to tour their homes and most proudly their kitchens. Men tipped their hats and squinted up at the sun, commenting on the weather, their livestock, and the farm that could be found down the way. On a sheep farm, a woman spun wool thread, her black booted foot pumping softly on the spinning wheel's foot pedal. Calico dresses, aprons, and well-worn shirts hung out to dry. Wagons sat unhitched in the yards. It was missing the welcoming barking of dogs as we walked up the lane or the weaving of cats in the barns, but otherwise it was possible to imagine that it was real, that we'd found some time machine to a somewhat magical, perhaps romanticized past of rural life.

It was such a glorious day.