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Wow-watosa (5/30-6/1/26)

Bob and I have been seeing a bit more of Wauwatosa (or Tosa as the locals call it) and a bit more of our shy cat as luck would have it. We have discovered his favorite hiding places — behind the washing machine or among some boxes in the basement.

We are loving this area and thrilled that the cats are continuing to warm up to us. They are an amusing bunch.

Lily likes to watch birds on the tv

Saturday, I drove 1.5 hours to Janesville to see my mom. We got some cleaning done at her house and some errands run as well. Bob did errands of his own here.

Wauwatosa is a town of about 49,000 that is a suburb of Wisconsin’s largest city of Milwaukee. It is known for its historic village, parks, and diverse housing. Yesterday and today we walked to and explored a couple of its parks, and tomorrow we hope to do a portion of one of the 5 neighborhood self-guided walking tours to see some of the varied housing styles throughout the town.

Yesterday’s walk to Hartung Park took us through more lovely neighborhoods with large (but not huge homes) and by a small college.

A pretty home in our neighborhood.
Many of the homes here have nicely landscaped yards as well.
Another nice home on a large triangular piece of land
between 2 roads.
The entrance to the park which is on land
that was a quarry and then a landfill
The exercise stations at the park
A labyrinth for meditative walking
The entrance to the small (600 students) Mount Mary University

Today began with a lovely surprise.

Quite a bright rainbow

Bob and I then walked to another pretty neighborhood park — Firefly Grove Park. It looks very new and includes a bicycle pump track, play area, walking paths and pond, and a Thomas Dambo troll, which was the main attraction for us.

Most of our walk was along busy North Avenue, but homes in “our” neighborhood continue to catch my eye.

A house in the ‘hood
A great bike lane in between the street and sidewalk
along North Avenue
The entrance to Firefly Grove Park
The bicycle pump track
A supply of band-aids etc in case anyone gets hurt.
This is the first time we have ever seen this.
The small pond in the park
Some turtles

There were some artistic benches around the park.

“Flight of the Fireflies,” Casey King, 2025
“Home Sweet Gnome,” Jake Patnode, 2025
The Thomas Dambo troll, who is shown smelling lamps
from lampposts as if they are flowers.
There are 2 broken lampposts near the figure
which represent where he may have gotten the lamps.

This type of sculpture is typical of Thomas Dambo, as he is known for his installations of giant wooden sculptures (usually trolls) made out of recycled materials. We have seen other Dambo trolls including one in Austin, Texas. Sadly, that troll just burned down in the last couple of weeks.