Dr. Jack

Road Trip to Deadwood, Part 2

Batteries recharged after a good night in Rapid City, we proceeded on our journey. First stop: Mt. Rushmore. We drove into the Black Hills National Forest in the southwest corner of South Dakota and immediately saw a big difference from the rest of the state. The elevation rose around us, green forests replaced brown farmlands, and we saw beautiful scenery in all directions. The majestic heads of Washington, Jefferson, TR, and Lincoln peeked through the trees as we approached the park.

The next step was to park the car. The parking system involved pulling into a gateway, taking a ticket, and later paying at a kiosk. Not as easy as you might think. Kathleen, who was driving, is a wonderful woman, but . . . and there’s no easy way to say this . . . she has short arms. She drove up to the gateway and reached for the ticket. As has previously happened at every parking garage or drive-through ATM that we’ve ever been to, she suddenly realized that she could not reach the ticket. She put the car in park, opened the door, and reached through the window again. Still no good. She clicked open the seat belt. In the process, she must have hit another latch next to her seat, and that’s when the fun began. The back of her seat suddenly dropped flat behind her, and she went into panic mode. The door was still open, her seatbelt was unlatched, her arm was out the window clutching the ticket, and the seat was down flat. I was reminded of Lincoln’s phrase when one of his generals was attacked while his army was crossing a river: “He’s like an ox that’s jumped halfway over a fence.” Then the warning system of the car kicked in. Annoying signals began sounding periodically, adding to the pressure she was feeling. The line was beginning to form behind us, and an official-sounding voice yelled, “Please pull forward.” So Kathleen, always a rule follower, did as she was told. She put the car into gear and tried to pull forward with the door open and the seat belt tangled around her neck. At the same time, she was trying to fix the seat while sitting in an awkward upright position. We inched forward and the warning signals became more insistent, beeping more frequently, urgently reminding her that the door was open and her seat belt was not attached. The voice of the park ranger also grew louder, “Ma’am! Please pull forward!” During this entire fiasco, I was no help, because I was laughing so hard. We finally cleared the gate, pulled to the side, and set everything back to the normal position. The beeping stopped and angry drivers accelerated past us. Crisis averted.

Once in the park, we walked in until we had a clear, unobstructed view of the monument. It truly is magnificent, and you can’t help but marvel at the vision, the artistry, and labor that went into the project. We looked at it again from a slightly different vantage point, but then . . . we were pretty much done. I mean, I’m glad we saw it. We can check it off of the list of things to do in our lives, but you can only look at four enormous heads for so long. Back in the car, we enjoyed the scenery as we wound through the National Forest. The Black Hills are much prettier than the Badlands, and the weather had turned sunny and warm. By the time we reached Deadwood, at 11:30 in the morning, it was about 75 degrees. We were too early to check in, so we decided to drive up to Mount Moriah Cemetery, about a mile from Main Street—that’s a mile straight up.

Deadwood is situated in a narrow little valley between two ridges of mountains, with Mount Moriah located at the high point above the town. Our original plan was to walk to the famous graveyard, but I am glad we opted to drive. Otherwise, I would have had to dig another hole up there and drop Kathleen in it. She does not do well on hills. I was picturing a “Boot Hill” type of graveyard, with wooden tombstones and barely legible names, but the cemetery is neat and well-organized in concentric ovals of marble headstones. The centerpiece, figuratively and literally, is the grave of Wild Bill Hickok, Deadwood’s most famous dead person. In 1876, he was shot in the back while playing poker at the #10 Saloon in town. A large, bronze bust now adorns his gravesite. Right next to Bill’s marker, lies the grave of Martha Canary, better known as “Calamity Jane.” She was a rough-hewn woman who performed jobs normally reserved for men in the West, such as driving mule teams. She also fostered an unrequited love for Hickok and requested that she be buried next to him. Her last wish was granted. Both of their graves are festooned with coins, stones, and small bottles of whiskey left by tourists and other well-wishers.

The town itself is a charming little place that extends over a three- or four-block main street in the shadow of looming mountains. For those who watched the show, we stayed at the Mineral Palace Hotel, built on the site of Al Swearingen’s Gem Theater. The term “theater” was used loosely, as, at the time it was actually a saloon, gambling hall, and brothel. It is now a modern hotel housed in a building that is over a century old. The desk clerk who waited on us was apparently part of the original staff, as she seemed also to date from the 1800s. When we checked in, the old woman said, “Let me see if your room is ready.” Instead of calling housekeeping, she scurried down the hall (at least as fast as a woman who was 112 years old can “scurry”) to check for herself.

While we waited, we looked around the lobby and saw that it extended in a labyrinthine manner down the entire street. Like many of the extant businesses in Deadwood, the hotel has expanded horizontally over the years, and now occupies an entire block of one and two-story places. The walls have been knocked out between them, and you can wander from one to the other without stepping onto the street.

I said, “Kathleen, Darling, what are those machines with bright lights and noisy sounds?”

“I’m not sure, Dearest; perhaps we should investigate.”

“Well, Pumpkin, I’m not certain, but those machines and the tables covered in green felt appear to be some sort of games of chance.”

“They do, Sweetums; do you think we should try our luck?”

“Yes, Sugarlips,” I said solemnly. “I believe that Wild Bill would have wanted it that way.”

(By the way, that’s exactly how we talk to each other.)

We spent the rest of the day roaming up and down the street in glorious weather, stopping in at one casino or another. Seth Bullock’s Hotel is still there on the sight of his original hardware store, and there are two saloons that claim to be the spot where Hickok was murdered. We explored everything. Drinks were complimentary as long as you were gambling, so we drank for free the rest of the day and had a wonderful time. It wasn’t crowded, the people were friendly and pleasant, and none of the prices were exorbitant, as is unusual for tourist locations.

We had dinner in the Gem Restaurant, where all of the dishes were named for characters from the TV show. Here is a link to the breakfast menu, if you want to see it: https://www.sirved.com/restaurant/deadwood-south_dakota-usa/gem-steakhouse-and-saloon/448710/menus/2847457 I actually won $300, so it was a lucrative day as well.

The next day, we drove back, but stopped in an Iowa motel, just across the border from Minnesota. To reach our hotel, we had to pass another casino, so we stopped in. Amazingly, I won another $300. By the time we got back to Ben’s house, we were tired, but happy that we had made such a memorable trip.

Road Trip to Deadwood, Part 1

In the 1978 comedy, Animal House, starring John Belushi, the men of Delta House find themselves stymied completely by Dean Wormer and his cohorts. They are about to be expelled from school and have their fraternity shut down. When some of the guys realize that there is really nothing that they can do about it, Otter and Boon know what needs to be done. “Road trip!” they announce.

Kathleen and I found ourselves in a similar situation in late September. We closed on our Nashville home on September 12 and drove up to River Falls where Ben and Amber were generous enough to allow us to stay with them and the grandkids until we closed on our new place on September 30. We couldn’t start cleaning and painting, or even shopping for needed items until we actually had our furniture and were moved into the new place. Feeling a bit restless, and not wanting to overstay our welcome, we knew what we had to do: “Road trip!”

We had recently finished watching the old TV series called Deadwood on HBO. The show aired from 2004-2006, but has been played in reruns ever since then, building up something of a cult following. We resisted watching the show after seeing part of one episode in a hotel room years ago. Kathleen is no prude, but the profanity in the show was especially foul and seemed almost gratuitous, so she was turned off on watching it. She thought that the language was worse than at a Henderson-family reunion—and that’s pretty bad. We have loved long-form television series such as Sopranos, The Wire, and Game of Thrones, however, and eventually a teaching colleague of mine, Adam Wilsman, talked her into giving it another try. We were hooked from the first episode. We learned that the language was indeed excessive, so the show was not for everyone. Realistic profanity was used, though, because the creators were trying to duplicate the raw, uncivilized nature of a Western boom town in the 1870s. Once we got past the language, we found that the plotlines and characters were well-developed and intriguing, and the writing was first-rate and intelligent. In the second season (there were three all together), the writers seemed to make a conscious decision to include elements of Shakespearean writing in the scripts. From that point on, the style of the Bard was evident in each episode, complete with dialogue in iambic pentameter and soliloquies spoken to the severed head of a dead man (similar to the “Alas, poor Yorik” speech in Hamlet). Therefore, when we wanted a destination for our road trip, Kathleen said, “Let’s go to the real Deadwood.”

Deadwood was a mining boom-town that sprang up overnight in the mid-1870s. Gold was discovered on land previously granted to the Lakota tribe, white miners rushed in seeking their fortunes, Native Americans tried to protect their land, and the US Army was sent in to drive them out. It was an unfortunate, familiar story in Western history, and it led to Custer’s Last Stand in 1876, and the Wounded Knee massacre in 1890, both in the same region of SW South Dakota. Deadwood became a colorful town that attracted such Western celebrities as Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, and Wyatt Earp. Hickok was famously murdered there in 1876 while playing poker and holding the notorious “Dead Man’s Hand” of aces and eights.

As we drove over, we noticed some things I had never seen before on the bland, interstate highway system. As soon as we crossed over the Minnesota line into South Dakota, the speed-limit signs reflected the wide-open spaces of the Great Plains. You could legally drive 80 miles per hours in most places. Also, there were warning lights and railroad gates at each entrance ramp because the interstate is often closed during blizzards and heavy snow. Other than that, there was not much to see until we reached the Badlands National Park. It left plenty of time watch the unchanging landscape and ponder the many famous South Dakotans who have left their mark on history since the area became a state. Let’s see, off the top of my head, there was Billy Mills, one of my boyhood heroes and Olympic 10,000 meter champion in 1964. Tom Brokaw from television. George McGovern, the last liberal to be nominated by a major party for president (in 1972; he lost badly to Nixon). Then there was . . . um . . . well. . . I guess that’s about it. Back to the unchanging landscape.

By the time we got to the Badlands, it was cool, overcast, and drizzling a bit. We were pleased to receive a senior discount—I still can’t get used to that idea—and bought a pass that allows us to enter any national park in the US for the next year. Kathleen paid no heed to the “Beware of Rattlesnakes” signs as she bravely forged a path from the parking lot to the inside the park. She is a true woman of the outdoors. When we reached a good vantage point, we scanned the bizarre landscape in all directions. Over millions of years, wind and water erosion have scoured the terrain, leaving reddish-tan structures of rock standing in all directions. It’s unlike any other place in the country. You could certainly understand why outlaws would choose this location as a place to hide from the law; there was little to differentiate one rock or hill or valley from another. Actually, it was beige, craggy rocks as far as the eye could see. “Look over there, some beige rocks! Hey! Some more beige rocks! My God, woman! Is that a big beige rock way out there?” We returned to the car and drove another twenty miles or so through the park and saw a lot more beige rocks. Perhaps we were just tired from a long day of driving. Perhaps the colors look more spectacular when the sun is out. The truth is, we realized, that we are simply not as affected by natural landscapes, especially deserts, as others might be. We tend to prefer historical sites and places where humans have left an imprint on the world.

We spent the night in Rapid City, SD. There was not much to see there except in the downtown area. On each of the corners, they had erected statues of the presidents. The first forty-one are included so far, through George HW Bush. They were each about five feet tall, which meant they were slightly smaller than life size. Except for James Madison, which was about the right height. I guess Rapid City’s proximity to Mt. Rushmore (about 20 miles away) is why they chose this unusual tribute to the presidents.

The next day brought glorious weather, with lots of sunshine and temperatures in the mid-seventies. On to Rushmore and Deadwood!

Our First Meat Raffle

As I previously mentioned, Kathleen and I were disappointed to learn that Bo’s ‘N Mine, the bar/restaurant on Main Street that had been an institution in River Falls, had closed. We had been looking forward to the meat raffle that we had witnessed in the past and that had been held on Sunday nights. We assumed that the meat raffle had died along with the old name. Still, we liked the feel of the place in its new manifestation as the Nutty Squirrel and went there on a recent Saturday morning to watch Florida’s football team play against the Tennessee Vols. A word or two of explanation is required here.

While waiting to close on our new home and move in, we were spending several weeks with our son and daughter-in-law at their home in River Falls. Ben does not subscribe to a regular cable package and therefore does not get ESPN, which was broadcasting the game. Also, this game is a big deal for us. The Florida-Tennessee game is held in mid-September every year, right around the time of Kathleen’s birthday. Thus, it had become a family tradition for daughter Kristin and her husband, Kevin to join us in Nashville to watch the game and celebrate her birthday. Kristin, Kevin, and I all have one degree or another from the University of Florida and are fans of the team. Since Kathleen and I were momentarily homeless and too far away to view the game with Kristin, we felt it was important to continue the tradition on our own. So there we were, at 11:00 on a Saturday morning at the Nutty Squirrel.

To our dismay, all of the television sets in the bar area were tuned to the Wisconsin-Michigan game. We did, however, find the game on one TV set in the restaurant area. So there we were, sipping Bloody Marys and beers while surrounded by little kids eating pancakes and eggs. It should be mentioned that the Bloody Mary was unlike any I had enjoyed before. It came fully garnished with a large toothpick bearing an olive, a pickle, a hunk of cheese (of course), and a Slim Jim sausage about three inches long. Further, it included a beer chaser. Very elegant. We had a great time cheering the Gators to victory. More important, though, our charming and delightful waitress, Kayli, informed us that the meat raffle was alive and well and living at the Nutty Squirrel on Monday nights. We were beside ourselves with joy.

Two days later, my Chicago Bears were playing Washington on the Monday night game on ESPN. Have I mentioned that Ben does not get ESPN? Off to the Nutty Squirrel again. As soon as we sat at the bar, the waitress gave us two tickets. We simply wrote our names on the back, returned them to her, and waited in glorious expectation for the bounty of meat we were sure would be flowing in our direction.

In a bar surrounded by Packers and Vikings fans, I had to keep a low profile while cheering for their divisional-rivals, the Bears. But no harm befell me, and we had another great time. Every fifteen minutes or so, the bartender called out a name from a ticket. The winner would be led back to the walk-in freezer and allowed to select a package of meat. The woman next to us won early in the evening and chose a package containing six thick pork chops—almost five pounds worth. Winners would shriek with joy and high-five their way back to the freezer. One table of six college students won three times in the course of the evening. Name after name was called, but we remained meatless. As the game entered the fourth quarter, many of the patrons had left and there were only a dozen or so people remaining in the establishment. The bartenders changed shifts, more names were called, and we were beginning to lose hope. By that point in the evening, most of the names being called were absent, and the ticket was tossed. Finally, we heard the magic word, “Kathleen!” and we had won some meat. There wasn’t much left in the freezer, but she selected a nice package of 12 pieces of poultry—a full chicken and four extra thighs. Afterward, we practically danced down the street to our car, clutching our frozen meat in our cold hands. We had such a good time, that we went back again a few weeks later, and Kathleen won again. This time it was early in the drawing, so she had her pick of many items and selected two nice strip steaks. I think we’ll have to keep attending the meat raffle while Kathleen is on a hot streak.

As a postscript, during our first meat raffle, we had the chance to talk to Greg, a man who had been bartending at the same place since the early ‘90s. He explained that the current owner had actually purchased the bar about three years ago. He planned on changing the name right away, but delayed doing so in order to maintain continuity with the customer base. Earlier this year, he shut down for several months for remodeling and updates. They moved the kitchen, opened up the ceiling, and made other changes that I had not noticed at first, given my limited exposure to the place before moving here. The owner also decided that the temporary shut-down gave him the perfect opportunity to change the name. Bo’s ‘N Mine was gone and the Nutty Squirrel rose from its ashes like a beer-serving Phoenix.

Winter is Coming

One of the first obvious differences between Nashville and River Falls is the weather. The day we left Tennessee, it was 97 degrees; when we reached River Falls, the temperature was in the low 80s, although it was fairly humid. As we drove up Golf View Drive to Ben and Amber’s house, I couldn’t help but notice the lush, green lawns surrounding every home. My lawn in Nashville followed a predictable pattern each year. I re-seeded and fertilized in late September. The grass began to look good about the time winter arrived, and it went dormant for a few months. In March and April, my lawn was the envy of the block, thick, green, and beautiful. By June, though, the temperatures rose, rainfall became more sporadic, and the grass began to thin out. By July and August, it was in the mid-90s nearly every day, rain ceased to fall at all, and my once-beautiful lawn turned yellow despite daily watering. Soon, the grass disappeared completely, and my patch of lawn became a patch of dirt littered with dried leaves that had fallen from our burned-out tree. In late September every year, I began the cycle all over again, like Charlie Brown attempting to kick a football and hoping that this time, Lucy wouldn’t pull the ball away at the last second. When we left Nashville, I drove away hiding my face in shame, afraid to meet my neighbors and admit I was leaving a dusty, dirt rectangle where a green lawn had once existed.

In River Falls, every time we tell someone that we are new to town they ask how we like it. We rave about the small-town atmosphere, the mom-and-pop businesses, and of course, about the weather, explaining about Nashville summers. They say, “Yep, summers are pretty nice up hereabouts. But . . .” About that time, a dark cloud passes over their faces. They look around conspiratorially, as if trying to determine if anyone is eavesdropping. Then, in a quiet, ominous voice, straight out of Game of Thrones, they say, “. . . winter is coming!”

Day 3: Small-Town Life

September 16, 2019

After arriving in town on the weekend, we set aside Monday to do some of the other things we had to do to prepare to move into our new home. As veterans of many moves in the past, we figured that we would be waiting in long lines most of the morning, accomplish one or two things, and limp home at lunch beaten down by mindless bureaucrats. That’s the way it had always been in the past. This was different. First of all, virtually all of the businesses in town are situated on Main Street, a thoroughfare that bisects the entire town and covers perhaps a mile or a mile and a half or two miles. For my entire life, I’ve wanted to live somewhere in which I could walk to breakfast. Now I have that. It turned out that everything we needed in River Falls was within a few blocks of each other.

We had breakfast at the South Fork Café and, at 9:00 walked a block down Main Street to The First National Bank of River Falls. We thought we might have to wait, because we had no appointment. The woman with whom we had worked in the past and who had set up our account on the phone saw us walk in, however, and came to greet us with a big smile and a hug. She spoke in the cheerful, sing-song manner of speech common up here (“How ya doin’ guys?”) and turned us over to a woman who helped us get checks and debit cards. Done by 9:20.

Our next stop was city hall, a half-block off of Main, to put the utilities in our name and find out how all of that worked. It turned out that electricity, water, garbage collection, and recycling was all on one account and one bill. We were done in five minutes, and they directed us to the gas company. I was beginning to like this town.

In our longest trip of the morning, we drove about four blocks over to 2^nd Street, one block off of Main. We explained that we weren’t even sure if our home needed gas or if it was all electric. The clerk turned to her computer and prepared to type in our address, but when we told her what it was, she said, “Yep; you have gas.” Didn’t need to look it up; she knew most of the addresses in town and whether or not they had access to gas power. My affection for small towns was growing.

At the post office, also on 2^nd Street, we explained that we were staying at our son’s house temporarily, until our closing on September 30. We were having our Nashville mail forwarded there and wanted the delivery man to know so that he would not be confused by the new names at that address. She jotted this info on a post-it note and said, “Yep, yep; I’ll let him know.” No forms to fill out, no computer entries, a post-it note!

Back on Main Street, we found the State Farm office, and walked in, stepping over a sleeping dog just inside the door. We soon discovered that most River Falls businesses seem to have a policy that says, “No appointment, no problem.” In minutes we were in an office with a young woman explaining that we needed to change our address and some other things on our policy. When we gave her our new address, she smiled and said, “I just hung up the phone after talking to John, the previous owner of that condo.” Small world, small town.

In short, we finished all of our business, had time to go shopping (the grocery store was on Main Street—where else?), and returned home by 11:00.

I think I’m going to love small town life.

Day 2: Goats For Rent

September 15, 2019

Finishing a morning walk on my second day in River Falls, I passed a sign that caught my eye. It read:

ScapeGoats, LLC

Buckthorn Grazing

Rent Our Goats Today!

A phone number at the bottom indicated that this was indeed a legitimate business. My stepson, Ben, and his family live on a nice street adjoining a golf course. These are well-kept homes that are probably considered somewhat upscale for River Falls. Each of these homes, however, has some woods and hills behind the house. An invasive plant called buckthorn can grow wildly in the region, choking off other vegetation between the trees. Apparently, if a homeowner is concerned about the overgrown nature of the foliage behind their house, they can simply rent a small herd (Is it herd of goats? Gaggle? Murder? I can never remember these things) of about fifteen goats. The business owners will then fence off the offensive area and release the voracious animals to do what they do best. The company suggests that goats are better for the environment than chemicals or machinery, they handle the steep slopes of the neighborhood better than lawnmowers, and the munched-on plants are less likely to return than weeds that are merely cut down. Further, they are more entertaining than other options. One group of people who hired the goats held a “goat party” in their yard. They gathered some friends, set up lawn chairs, and served drinks with, of course, goat cheese. They had a big time watching the goats do their thing. Across the street from Ben and Amber’s house, the neighbors rented the goats yesterday. From the driveway, we can watch them working on the hill in their fenced area. I never saw this on the South Side of Chicago.

Day 1: The Bacon Bash

September 15, 2019—First Day in River Falls

On my first full day in my new home town, I took a walk downtown (about two miles) for breakfast at the South Fork Café. Two doors down stood a bar/restaurant that had loomed large in our memories and was one of the things Kathleen and I looked forward to upon moving to River Falls. On an earlier visit, a year or two ago, we conducted an impromptu pub crawl along Main Street and stopped into the bar called Bo’s ‘N Mine. We wandered in, and the bartender immediately informed us that we could enter the “Meat Raffle” free of charge. We declined, as we were just visiting and had no place to store any meat. Periodically, during the night, however, they would call out a winning number and someone won some meat. We thought it might just be venison, or wild turkey, or some sort of game, but they actually awarded nice cuts of beef, poultry, or pork, packaged and ready to cook. Now I discovered that Bo’s ‘N Mine was gone and a new place called The Nutty Squirrel had taken its place. My disappointment was severe, and I ate my breakfast thinking we had missed out on our chance to win meat on a Sunday night.

Just when I thought that our protein intake would suffer by moving to a town that no longer had a meat raffle, my spirits soon picked up again. Upon leaving the South Fork Café after a breakfast that couldn’t be beat, I noticed signs and banners every few steps that advertised the “Bacon Bash,” a small festival that would be held that very day. I had no idea what to expect, but that afternoon I attended the Bacon Bash with Kathleen and Lucas, our six-year-old grandson.

What we found was the typical, small-scale festival with booths hawking everything from hand-made jewelry to windows capable of insulating the owner from Wisconsin’s onerous winter winds. At one end of the street fair, a Janis-Joplin-Wannabe was belting out bluesy songs, but most people gathered around tents with radios broadcasting the Minnesota Vikings versus Green Bay Packers game—a huge regional rivalry in this town near the state border. The centerpiece of the event, however, was the row of food tents, all offering various items containing greater and lesser amounts of bacon. The savory scent of cooking bacon wafted through the air, tempting even the most health-minded people to sample the strange concoctions. Everything there had some sort of bacon–even the cinnamon rolls. For those lacking in imagination, bacon-on-a-stick offered a simple solution to satisfying their pork craving. With a cup of semi-sweet white wine in hand, I chose the shrimp kabob, with each jumbo shrimp wrapped in a brown strip of fried bacon. Kathleen opted for a chicken-wrap sort of thing with bacon bits scattered throughout. Lucas proved to be the most adventurous of all, picking the cheese curds smothered in bacon bits.

For the uninitiated, cheese curds are a regional delicacy found in Canada and northern parts of the US. “Curds” are sort of the dregs of cheese remaining after the cheese-making process is completed. They are little pieces of cheese in balls or small lengths, and, in Wisconsin, they tend to be made of cheddar. While the cranberry is the official state food of Wisconsin, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a restaurant that does not serve cheese curds. In fact, cheese in general is ubiquitous. With every meal you order, you might be asked, “Do you want a wheel of cheese with that or just a wedge?” Another feature of Wisconsin-style cheese curds is that they are invariably lightly battered and deep fried. If the mere description of these little treats doesn’t have your mouth watering and your arteries hardening, picture them mixed with fresh bacon fried to a crisp brownish-red color scattered generously on the top. They were amazing.

As a post-script to the day, I later bought a local newspaper, which comes out weekly. That particular issue contained a story about the closing of a local landmark, the Bo’s ‘N Mine tavern. Apparently, the bar and restaurant had been operating at that location for more than a half-century. Then the story got a bit strange. The owner hadn’t sold the business, he still owned it but had simply renamed it to The Nutty Squirrel. I’m not sure why you would change the name of a business with fifty years of name recognition built up, but that’s exactly what he did. The story went on to explain that they had done extensive renovations on the interior of the building. So, later that week, we eagerly took the family to the new Nutty Squirrel to see what it looked like after the massive changes. Inside, however, I could detect a few cosmetic changes, but no substantial differences from what it had looked like before. Now admittedly, I had only been in there a couple of times before, so perhaps I was missing something. I’ll keep you posted.