A Little Road Trip that Leads to Pottery and a Secret Garden

Yesterday we took a little road trip down along the Mississippi, crossing at Prescott over to Wisconsin and following highway 35 all the way to Alma.

Stopped in Stockholm, Wisconsin, for lunch and to once again admire but not buy the Gaylord Shanilac woodcut prints at Abode Gallery. (One of these days I really am going to buy one!) And the many other pretty things at Abode.

Enjoyed lunch at the Bogus Creek Cafe, where the owner is something of a cheerful bodhisattva, always calm and centered. The food is also very good, and the garden seating is delightful.

Judy in Alma (photo, which I "borrowed" off of Facebook, by Rob Stealcheat)

Then onward to Alma, for the main object of (or excuse for) this trip: to see the newest pottery creations of my longtime friend, Judy Anderson, aka Dragonfly Guild. She is having a one-artist art fair/pottery sale on a little piece of property she and her husband recently bought just north of town.

We actually missed it driving down, but turned around in Alma and headed back north about a mile, and found the sign easy to spot from that direction.

It was great to see her new glazes and designs in "person" (she has posted photos on her Facebook page of the various works in progress).

We bought a couple of mini sauce dishes (for holding chocolates, of course), and sweet little vase, and a demitasse (more or less) mug, which I put to use this morning by brewing a pot of espresso.

Ceramic vessels from Dragonfly Guild, with a tile from Stone Hollow Tile and an espresso pot from, er, *cough*, Target.

And after I finished my coffee, I picked a couple of lilac blossoms hanging over the fence from my neighbor's bush and put them in the little vase.

Oh, about that secret garden. In Alma, there's an establishment called Hotel de Ville, which, besides having rooms for visitors, as you might suppose, also has a little coffee-and-ice cream shop, behind which is their "secret garden," a playful mix of old retaining walls with plantings and sculptures. Definitely worth a peak when you visit Alma.