It's Halloween

I did carve a jack-o-lantern but it still didn't feel much like Halloween. I don't get trick-or-treat kids at my home, so I have no excuse to buy bags of chocolate, no cute little ones or obnoxious teenagers at my door either. Actually I had grown weary of trick-or-treat especially when I was taking classes and trying to study in the evenings, but I do miss the chocolate. My poor pathetic jack-o-lantern got moldy inside thanks to the wet October. It started out as a good pumpkin, home grown by Dale and I did enjoy the carving and the glow on my patio. It's had a good life and I saved the seeds to plant in the spring.
Happy Halloween!

River Trip

Saturday turned out to be a sunny fall day so Dale and I decided that it would be a good day for a road trip. We had a couple of ideas but were not sure how far we would go. It was a good road trip and we ended up at the Mississippi River in the far southeast corner of Iowa. We had not been to this area together before so that means we found several county seats and Dale photographed the courthouses. We even visited the one county that has two courthouses, Lee County. That's the reason that there are 99 counties but 100 courthouses.

Burlington is the home of Snake Alley, known as the crookedest street in the world. It's on the list of 100 places in Iowa to visit, so we found it, walked on it, drove down it and photographed it from both ends.

On the way home we realized we were very close to another destination on our list of 100 places. It was dark when we drove through Columbus Junction but decided to check out their swinging bridge while we were there. The bridge is actually very cool and quite long. It's in a wooded residential area and there was some light so Dale and I braved the dark to walk on the bridge. It did sway lots as we intentionally moved side to side. We were out there in the dark, laughing and coughing since we have both recently had colds. When we got off the bridge and headed to the car, I realized that I had "sea legs" then felt dizzy! I felt fine on the bridge but felt queasy as we walked carefully to the car. I am glad that we took the time and ventured into the dark. It was a fun find. Maybe we will go back again in the daylight sometime.

Pumpkin Bread

Pumpkin bread may be considered a family tradition for some of us. I think I first made pumpkin bread when I was a teenager and got the recipe from my mom. I made it for my kids. Jay and Ashley both liked it. It then became a Thanksgiving food at my house. My nieces and nephews seemed to look forward to it and I would have to make more loaves each year. When Jake was just a preschooler he asked if we could make "brown bread" together. I used to send an extra loaf home for Jeff after he got older because he liked it so much. I made the batter into mini muffins for Ashley when she was at ISU and I once mailed a loaf to Jay when he was at NIACC. On a cool fall day baking pumpkin bread makes the house smell great and makes me feel quite nostalgic.

Ledges State Park

Last Sunday Dale and I drove to Ledges State Park to enjoy October and fall foliage. The skies were grey and it was chilly, not the usual weather for our October outings. The leaves did have some vivid colors but there were also lots of green leaves falling to the ground after the freeze that weekend. The colors are not as brilliant this year but we still enjoyed out time in the park. I always love being in the woods and October is the best! We did not make it over to the Mississippi River this year but we will do that again soon.

Annual Convention Visit

Every fall I look forward to the Iowa architecture convention. I don't attend, but Ashley does and that means that I get to spend time with her during the work week. She came to Des Moines on Wednesday evening and left on Friday afternoon. We cooked together, hung out and relaxed after our work days. I got to look at some of her photography and she got to watch me knit. It seems silly but it is so fun to say good-night and good-morning. I loved picking her up at her conference and heading home from work together. It was a treat!

Chili Season

I do have a seasonal appetite for a few things and it is now officially chili season for me. Saturday after we got an inch of snow then sat though a chilly afternoon college football game, it was time for chili. I made sure that there would be leftovers for Sunday too. Several years ago my friend, Linda suggested baked potatoes as a good home for leftover chili and she was right! As the chili cooked on Saturday my mind was moving ahead to Sunday and leftover chili. I baked a couple of potatoes and diced some green onion and the pathetic little tiny tomatoes I got from my garden. Shredded cheese and sour cream added some extra calories and flavor. For me Sunday dinner was even better than the Saturday chili.

Autumn Color

I love taking an October road trip to enjoy Autumn color. We talked about going to the Mississippi River for the weekend but decided to stay closer to home because of the weather forecast. It was cloudy much of the weekend and we did get over an inch of snow on Saturday so it was probably a good choice to stay closer to home. Sunday we took a short trip to Ledges State Park and took our cameras. I will post more photos soon.

Drake Bulldogs Win

Saturday after the snow melted Dale and I decided to brave the cold at Drake Stadium. I took two blankets and wore my winter coat, mittens and scarf to watch the football game. It actually was quite comfortable even though it was about thirty-nine degrees. It was Drake homecoming and the Bulldogs won easily. Dale takes lots of photos and I borrowed his camera and big lens to take a few of my own. I like the action shot, especially the player who is faking on the right. I am often faked out in this situation and watch the wrong players until I realize that the football is moving the opposite direction. Oh well, I still enjoy a football game.

Fall Garden Clean-up

Three days before the first freeze and snowfall it was a sunny seventy degree afternoon. I decided that it would be a good time to do some garden clean up and enjoy the sunshine. I left work a little early, put on some jeans and started to pull up the flowers that were still blooming. I knew that they would freeze in a couple of days and it would be less fun to deal with wilted dead plants. I enjoyed the chore and all the colors so I got my camera out to play around with my manual settings. I think I may be getting better at it and I know that I am learning more about how it all works!

Our Fall Harvest

Dale picked these pumpkins in his yard on Friday night. This Spring I brought him a couple of packets of seeds. One filled with pumpkin seeds and the other was giant sunflowers. It was my contribution to his "sunken garden." It was a huge success. It was fun to watch the progress all summer. The growth brought back memories of growing these crops with Jay and Ashley when they were little. The harvest was always fun for show-and-tell. I remember Jay getting on a school bus with a sunflower, stem and all that was much taller than he was.
Dale got three giant sunflowers this summer that were well over six foot tall. There are more green pumpkins in the garden but these were ripe and ready to go. I look forward to carving jack-o-lanterns and roasting pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds in the near future.

Snow on October Tenth!

Although it was forecasted it was still an exciting surprise to see a good amount of snow when I woke up this morning. The fall colors are beautiful and the snow adds a gorgeous glitter! It's like the best of fall and winter combined in one day.



Of course I do expect that this will melt and we will have more gorgeous fall weather with beautiful colors and sweatshirt temperatures. For today I will dress in layers and bring mittens and blankets when we head to the Drake Football game later.

Knitting Big

This is my biggest knitting project ever! I have made prayer shawls with three skeins of yarn but this new project should require about fifteen skeins and uses smaller knitting needles. I am making a blanket for Ashley to use for her newborn baby shoots. She wanted a knitted texture in a neutral color. I love the idea of helping her with the photography so I decided to tackle the project. The plan is for the finished project to be about a sixty inch square. It's taking me about 16 minutes a row and I have about 14 inches done. I have started the fourth skein. Although I have six more, I am still searching for more in the right dye lot. It's going to take weeks (and weeks) but it's still fun. Now I wonder how I will find time to finish the quilted Christmas tree skirts that Ashley and I started in January!

Home on the Range

Dale and I have spent the last couple of weekends pretty close to home. We hung out at his house or mine after dealing with my car repairs and my dying refrigerator. Yes, after I had dried my tears over the car problems and paid the bill, I came home to find that freezer was no longer working at my house. When the repair man arrived a couple of days later he pronounce it "not worth fixing!" It was less than ten years old but giving out quickly. So this weekend Dale and I got to move appliances together for the first time. It went smoothly but I am still sad about my refrigerator. I really did like it.

So what does that have to do with buffalo? Not much but we did leave the city for a while this Saturday. After watching the Drake Bulldogs win a football game we headed to Prairie City which is just a short drive east. First we went to check out the newly named "Best Tenderloin in Iowa" at Goldie's Ice Cream Shop. I think that the Iowa Pork Producers chose well. It was a great tenderloin and a wonderful small town establishment. Since we were so close to the Neil Smith Wildlife Refuge we took a drive out to see the buffalo herd. We have been out there many times but this was the first time that I saw the buffalo so close to the car. It was sunset and the colors of the prairie grasses were beautiful. The animals are huge and it was amazing to see them up close. I just love Saturday!

Auto Repairs

Nothing rattles my independence and confidence as much as car trouble. As soon as the issues arise I start to wonder how much it will cost, how long it will take and how I will manage life while the repairs happen. I don’t have the knowledge to make the decisions easily and I don’t have easy access to backup transportation. I survive the car issues and the repairs but first it knocks me back a bit. Last week I noticed my temperature gage rising to the danger zone when I would stop at a traffic signal. I made a couple of phone calls and took my car to the shop closest to my home where he informed me, after having my car overnight, that it was bad news and would cost me $1400. OUCH! I decided that this deserved a second opinion. Dale suggested another repair shop and helped me get the car moved. The second repair shop did agree that I needed a new water pump but didn’t see the need for all of the other repairs. I got my car fixed for less than half of the first estimate. It felt good to get the car back into the garage and forget about the car problems. Things like this always make me wonder how much longer I should drive my Honda and how I will know when that time comes. But I won’t worry about that now that I am back on the road.

Vacation Album

This is the last posting of photos from our recent vacation. If you don't enjoy looking at other people's vacation pictures you might want to close this window now. Ashley, you are excused from looking at these since you already sat through the entire showing of Dale's photos and mine!

Do you ever ask someone to take a photo of you and your family with your camera when you travel? I ask. I give a bit of direction but I am often surprised when people want to back up lots, point the camera toward our legs or completely miss the background! But with digital you can take a peek, then ask someone else later! I am also quick to offer to take a photo when I see people photographing each other. Most people seem to appreciate the offer and trust me with their cameras.

These photos are in no particular order because that seems to take more time and planning than I want today. The Mackinac Bridge is beautiful and quite long for a Midwesterner. The last time I was there Jay had his driver's permit but could not be encouraged to drive across. It is a beautiful area where the Upper Peninsula meets the lower part of the state. . . two very different lands!

It was fun to explore the U.P. We chased a couple of sunsets, enjoyed the food, the scenery and the sense of humor that comes from Yoopers. We did drive up to Sault Ste Marie to visit the Soo Locks and spend a little time on Lake Superior.

The best surprise of the trip was a wonderful Art and Cultural Festival in Cleveland. It was not in our plan but when we headed the wrong direction we stumbled on the Tremont Historical District. We decided to park the car and enjoy the discovery. It was a beautiful park lined with many artists and church booths selling food. There was a stage with a great variety of local entertainment also. As always we tried something new to us and ate perogies as well as cabbage and noodles. The locals were so friendly and happy to have Iowans there to visit.

Our afternoon at Sleeping Bear Dunes was quite an adventure. According to the printed materials we found the largest of all the dunes. WHY? I have no good reason! The last time I was there when the kids were little I am very certain that the dune was not this tall! I do not remember being so winded. I do not remember my ankles hurting and my calves burning!

I walked up most of the way to discover we were not at the top but that we could now see the rest of the steep dune! I heard others swearing at this point but I was conserving my breath so I did not! Dale went the rest of the way to the top and I was there to photography his running descent.

Dale follows the rules. He is cautious and considerate when out and about. I guess that's why I thought this photo was pretty funny. This is on the shore of Lake Erie and the rocks were very slippery, even a bit slimy. Dale had not seen the sign but we had both been out on the rocks with our cameras and lots of other people. We were safe.

I took this photo of Dale at Progressive Field when we went to watch the Cleveland Indians play. I think I am learning more about setting my focus when I want to blur the background, or I just got lucky. See the blanket on the guy in front of Dale? Those are the free blankets. We each got one. It was a very fun night.

This was a wonderful morning bike ride on Mackinac Island. It was a gorgeous day and we enjoyed the bikes and scenery as we rode around the perimeter of the island. We were advised that horses have the right of way so we rode carefully! When we got off the bikes we picked up our fudge and headed toward the boat for the short ride to the mainland.

It truly was a wonderful vacation. Even when we got lost we had fun. I love to travel and it's a bonus that Dale and I travel so well together. Now it's time to start planning for the next one!

Road Food

Food is one of the interesting aspects of our travel. We stumble upon some unique places and we plan ahead to find recommendations for some other places. A favorite place for research and planning is Roadfood.com. Dale will often explore the website before we leave Iowa to learn more about regional foods and diners or restaurants. I will usually find a few books at the library such as "Michigan Curiosities" or "Off the Beaten Path in Ohio." We have used these resources to find barbecue in Memphis and North Carolina as well as Hot Browns in Kentucky and purloo in South Carolina. We found tiny little locally owned establishments in many states and we also found the world's largest drive-in, The Varsity, in Atlanta. Food is part of the adventure.

We stumbled upon Butch's Beach Burritos across from the beach and lighthouse in Grand Haven, Michigan. Their photos showed long lines in the summer but we were fortunate to arrive in September just a week or so before they closed for the season.

We found Juilleret's and Don's on roadfood.com and found that they were very unique places well worth the stop. The atmosphere was quaint at Juilleret's but the food was even better. My pumpkin bread french toast was interesting and delicious. Don's sign and interior were very well preserved and it felt like we had stepped back a few decades. The waitresses even wore the traditional matching waitress dresses.

When in Michigan we knew that fudge and ice cream were a must-eat so we willingly enjoyed those specialties. When we reached the Upper Peninsula we knew we wanted to eat a pasty, which is their specialty. It's a Cornish tradition and we learned from a Cornish man in Madison Wisconsin that only the "Yoopers" think that they must include rutabaga. Wherever we find them it seems that the Cornish are passionate about their pasties. Dale and I enjoy the food and the tradition.

Finding these interesting places also leads us to some very interesting people. We love the opportunity to meet them and get to know a bit about the area. On this trip we found again that people are good. We met friendly, helpful people all along the way with one exception. The people that work for the Cleveland Browns football team were not friendly and not helpful. We did not go to their game!

Lighthouses

Years ago my kids bought two coffee table books for me. One was about ballparks and the other filled with photos and information about lighthouses. They chose well. I still love ballparks and lighthouses!

On our recent Great Lakes vacation, Dale and I visited and photographed many lighthouses. I lost track along the route but as I look at the photos I have counted seventeen lighthouses on this trip! That is seventeen separate locations along the shores of Lake Erie, Lake Huron, Lake Superior and Lake Michigan. There are similarities of shape and colors but they each have their own distinct character too.

Here are a few photos, but not each and every one. I do not want to clog up the internet with too many photos. I also realize that people will get bored and quit looking after the first dozen or so. One interesting thing that I discovered with my lighthouse photography is that I need to pay more attention to the level lines. I have a few images that look like the the lighthouse is tilted. . . but you may have already noticed that! So much to think about with photography, but most importantly I enjoyed the sights, the water and the sand. I remind myself to set aside the photography to enjoy the moment and the experience. The chilly water of the Great Lakes on my feet was a good way to do that.

Living History Farms

We planned our vacation so that we would arrive home on Friday and be able to to attend Photography Day at Living History Farms on Saturday. Again this year Ashley traveled to Des Moines to go with us. All three of us have learned lots and changed cameras or lenses this year. We also knew that there was plenty more for each of us to learn.

I learned a few things from the photographers who were available to answer questions. It was especially nice to get to be a part of conversations that Ashley was having with the photographers. She has not only changed her camera and lenses this year but also started her own photography business and is doing very well with portrait photography especially enjoying her newborn baby sessions.

I am often drawn back to the same still life photos when we go to Living History Farms. I love the simplicity of the 1900 farm especially in the kitchen area.

We were all interested in working on low light situations for photos. Backlighting is also a challenge for me so I enjoyed trying to get a photo of the sewing machine sitting in front of the bright window.

This checkerboard is also a low light challenge. Dale, Ashley and I all took a shot like this on Saturday. I think we all took a similar shot last year too. Although Dale and Ashley did much better than I with many of the low light situations at the farm, I think I may have gotten the best photo of the checkers. It's always fun to come home, hook up the laptop computers and look at each other's photos.

Ashley got a great shot of this little kitten drinking from the watering can below the outdoor pump. I didn't notice him then but did find him bathing in this barrel on the front porch. Although there are lots of people, strollers and a few cell phones around it still is fun to stroll back to a simpler time (with our high tech digital cameras, of course!)

Ashley taught me a few things about metering light off faces. This model was a willing subject for many photographers including Ashley and me. It was interesting to hear how she determines her lighting and focus. I think I learned lots. It was a fun day and especially fun to share with Ashley. You can see some of her photos on her blog.

Beach Walking

I love to walk on the beach. This week I got lots of opportunities to walk on the beaches of four of the five Great Lakes! This picture was Lake Michigan this morning. Earlier in the week we spent time on Lake Erie, Lake Huron then Lake Superior. It's going to take some time to sort through photos but I am sure that I will be posting more about our trip to the Great Lakes.

Great Lakes

During the last week I have dipped my feet in the water and walked on the shores of four of the five Great Lakes! I love being near the water and enjoy exploring small towns and lighthouses. Dale and I have found beautiful places along the shores and some interesting road food also. The weather has been just perfect every day. More of Lake Michigan today. It's a great vacation!

Cleveland Indians at Progressive Field

Saturday evening Dale and I went to Progressive Field in Cleveland to watch the Indians play and explore one more MLB park. I was thrilled to get one more ball park on my list. Fortunately it was a gorgeous evening and it was a high scoring game. We enjoyed the hits and a couple of home runs. In the end the Indians beat the KC Royals 13-6. It was "free blanket night" at Progressive Field. All spectators got a fleece blanket and it felt good on my lap by the end of the evening. Besides, I always enjoy a freebie! Before the game we did explore Cleveland a bit but I will blog more about that later.

Cubs Win!

Dale and I spent a wonderful Friday afternoon at Wrigley Field cheering the Cubs on to a victory over the Reds. Both of us had been to Wrigley in the past, but this was the first time that we went together. I am a fan of Major League Baseball parks and Dale has been a Chicago Cubs fan for decades. It was fun to be together and sing "Go Cubs Go" with Dale at the end! The seats were filled and Cubs fans know how to cheer and celebrate a win. It was a wonderful ballpark experience with perfect September weather!

Labor Day at the Rodeo

Dale and I may have established a Labor Day tradition. Again this year we went to the Dayton Rodeo and it was great entertainment. We both love to photograph the rodeo events and thoroughly enjoy the show and the unique setting. Dayton is a small town with a huge love for rodeo. The arena is almost like a bowl with seating carved into one side. I was impressed by the honor and patriotism of the day again this year.