What I did on my Summer vacation

Dear class,

This summer we drove around the country. And drove some more. 2100 miles all told.

Where did we go? Well, first we went to Iowa and visited some good friends in Urbandale. Urbandale, despite its repetitive name, was a very nice little community with a lot of green space, great bike trails and public parks. Hmm, sounds communist.

Like an idiot, I didn't take pictures while we were there, but you can trust me--we were in Iowa. Saw corn, Amish and more corn.

Saw this bizarre machine in Iowa while we were trying to find the Amana colony.


Funny story. We thought we were looking for more Amish, but found the Amana factory. Anti-modern, my ass!

But touring through Iowa was great fun. Very pretty state and we caught it in full green. And we crossed the Mississippi River--twice. First at Dubuque



And then at St. Louis.



It was far more impressive at Dubuque, but that might have been the bridge and our angle at the river. (SOF did the pictures from the car.)

Back to our trip. After Iowa, we visited Ubub and FOUbub in Madison for a delightful day and a half. Cool town. We had great food, visited a farmers market, and then had beers on the terrace.



What an amazing setting. Drinking Bells Two Hearted IPA on the terrace was about as nice as it gets. I can't imagine going to school at UW and trying to get work done during the summer. Of course, it might be a little different during the winter, but since Ubub was trying to recruit us to Madison, we didn't see photos of that.

After Madison, we drove through Chicago traffic and construction to Kalamazoo, Michigan (home of Bells IPA, btw) to see SOF's sister and her family. The traffic was rather brutal, but the trip was uneventful.

Kalamazoo was really pretty and we had a lot of fun with the family. Played guitar, walked around town, and then took a day trip to Lake Michigan.





Really cool little lakeside town that felt like you were on the ocean--minus the salt air.

After several great days in Kzoo, we left early Monday morning to drive home. As I noted, we crossed the river again at St. Louis



and then drove through Missouri. Much of this trip was new territory for us, and we both found Missouri beautiful and strange. Here is the beauty.



And here is the strange.



Yeah, that's right. We visited the Precious Moments Chapel/Museum/Gift Shop. More on that later, but suffice it to say, it was a strange experience. And not the only one in Missouri. Billboards were strange--including one that just said: JESUS I still am not sure what that one means. Epithet? Praise? Right after that billboard we saw a church sign that said "This building is prayer conditioned." Get it? Clever.

Anyway, that is what we did on our summer vacation. And now we are just glad to be home.

More later.