Every year after Thanksgiving, I take a drive across the state line to Monroe, Wisconsin, where I go to one of my favorite taverns to watch a few of the last college football games of the regular season.  It's a tradition I have followed for 20 years or more.  Sometimes I'm joined by one or two friends; more often it is a solo journey.  It is one of my favorite days of the year.

Monroe is about an hour's drive away.  One of the best aspects of the day is the process of getting there.  No big highways for me.  I always take the back roads...

past the apple orchard, some trees still laden with frost-bitten fruit...

and the quaint country church (no services today)...

over the single-lane truss bridge across the Pecatonica...

near the knarly old walnut tree...

and countless red barns of all sizes...

 

and shapes...

and sepia fields, harvested late.

Once in town, I search out the courthouse's Romanesque spire...

And enter the warmth of the tavern on the square.

With nightfall, it is  time to go home.  I'll be back next year!