La Crosse Trip - Day 2

The reason we headed to La Crosse was to take a ride on The Queen paddlewheel boat. We had ridden on a paddlewheel boat in the Quad Cities before we were married, and that's when Bill noticed the yacht, Miss Dubuque, which is the boat we ended up getting married on. We like relaxing boat rides! This one ended up being very nice too. The boat was built in 2008 so still very new. There was a "tour guide" on the boat giving us lots of information as we cruised. Click on the video below to get an up close look at the paddlewheel turning.

We could've easily spent a couple more days in La Crosse but had to head home.















We also checked out the La Crosse Farmers' Market. It sure was nice. Lots of great looking vegetables and flowers!

Tuesday

Bill has sure been working hard in the heat and humidity. He hopes to be done with this project by Aug. 1st so then he and Tim can get started getting equipment ready for Harvest.




























Diane needed a babysitter yesterday while she worked. These are my 2 favorite pictures of Camry so far. She was a perfect little baby to take care of. Lacey . . . kept me busy! We all went to the Pocahontas Farmers' Market after Diane was done with work. I got more good sweet corn and Diane got tomatoes.

After cleaning and laundry this morning, I'm headed to an apptmt. in Humboldt this afternoon. I was going to mow at Zemens' when I get back but Bill's brother, Jim, is doing that now I just heard. I will need to water all of our new plants.

I have an important stamping event in Peoria in about a week. I have lots to do for it in this next few days. There have been too many fun things and otherwise going on the past few weeks.

RAGBRAI - 2nd post

There were tons of food and other vendors set up on the main street of West Bend - the next town north of us. There was even a bike repair vendor (1st photo) - and it was busy.






I had fun people watching and picture taking there for a while. Also braved the crowd to make it to the hardware to buy some screws for Bill for the deck project that he's still working very hard on (more pictures soon).






A couple more of the support crew/party buses.

We barely got back from our getaway in time Sat. to pick up the frozen rolls I was supposed to bake. Our town was on a special loop for riders who wanted to ride 100 miles on Mon. It was decided that rather than "the town" trying to do several booths with limited manpower, to have just one booth at our Pond Park and have cinnamon rolls, bananas and oranges. There are 3 churches in town so they wanted to have 10 bakers from each to bake 3 dozen rolls.
Our church is out of town so I signed up on the Lutheran Church's list. Our cafe bought all of the frozen rolls. Those baking took them home, let them raise overnight, baked them, covered them tight and dropped them off at the Community Center. It was a hot day and the riders came through later than expected so there were several left.

Our library was open for riders to use the restrooms and fill up their water bottles. Both were very appreciated.




These guys had stopped at the library and I asked them where they were from. They said Indiana. I said that I have only lived here 3 years and was from Indiana. They asked where and I said Carmel. Turns out they were from suburbs all around the west side of Indianapolis. When they left, one guy said "bye Carmel!" I saw him on the news that night saying that when asked "why would you spend your vacation riding a bike through Iowa?" but he said "we're loving it".

To see some good video clips from each day including some costumed riders doing the Hokey Pokey in Poky and riders amazed at The Grotto, click HERE

RAGBRAI - 1st post

Quick post tonight about RAGBRAI. This is the annual bicycle ride across Iowa. The route is different each year. 10,000 riders started in western Iowa in Sioux City at the Missouri River on Sunday. They rode to Storm Lake and spent the night in tent cities and camped all over there.

Today they came east through our area including Pocahontas, Plover, West Bend and ending up in Algona for the night.

A special loop for riders who wanted to ride 100 miles today (vs. about 80 average) came through our town.

Some people ride in teams and have support buses - see 2 pictured here. Most of them carry the bikes on the roof and many use it as a party deck in the evenings. They travel from one host city to the next during the day.

As you can see, you see everything including the one guy whose recumbent bike and his "hat" looks like a banana. Another guy has a Viking type hat on. Fun day watching riders from all over the world come through our area! More pictures later this week. Don't forget that you can click on them to make them bigger.

La Crosse, WI - day 1

Fri. we drove from eastern Iowa into Wisconsin through rolling, and very pretty, dairy country and eventually along the Great River Road (the Mississippi) to river town, La Crosse. We had to detour a couple of times due to closed roads due to flooding from all of the rain the night before and recently. This first picture was taken in Manchester, Iowa. People were all over downtown watching as the downtown streets started flooding and wreckers were trying to rescue cars from the water. The DQ and a Hardee's were flooded. I thought it was scary. The story was on the front page of our paper today. Besides the rain, a dam had burst.










I had to check out this Gifts of Wisconsin shop. Found a WI Christmas ornament which is really the only thing I collect - when on trips. The check in guy at the hotel had recommended Buzzard Billy's for mostly Cajun food and great chicken dishes so we decided to try it. It looked like an unusual place. I had an au gratin chicken entree that had shrimp and crab, and Bill had catfish. Both were very good! The Pearl (on Pearl St.) was also recommended for homemade ice cream. It was an old fashioned ice cream parlor also with chocolates and jars of hard candy. You can see that it was a popular place! The old downtown buildings were neat!


Our room had an unbelievable view of The Mississippi (last picture). Check back for Day 2 of La Crosse! In the meantime, RAGBRAI comes through our area tomorrow!

Short Getaway

Bill and I left Thurs. afternoon for a short getaway with first stop being Independence, Iowa to see Big Bud, the world's biggest farm tractor. It is currently on display at Heartland Acres until the end of July.








Big Bud is 27' long, 20' wide, 14' tall and weighs over 130,000 lbs. The tires are 8' in diameter. It can work more than 1 acre per minute at speeds up to 8 mph. I think they said they could easily work 500-600 acres per day with it. We saw a video of owners using it with a huge cultivator on their farm in Montana.

One of the things the owners really liked about it was that it was made for the average farmer to be able to work on it easily.

Heartland Acres also had lots of restored antique tractors on display, old cars, all the old stuff like a party line phone like my Grandma & Grandpa Dunk had, the old wringer washing machine and all the old tools used for farming plus some live animals.

After driving through some really scenic and peaceful Wisconsin dairy country, we drove along the Great River Road north to the fun river town of La Crosse, Wisconsin. Pictures from there tomorrow!

We got home this evening just in time to pick up frozen cinnamon rolls that several of us are letting rise overnight and baking tomorrow. These are for the RAGBRAI bicycle riders that will come through our town Mon. morning. Bill's brother, Jim, is doing the trip this year! More on that later too.

Made chocolate chip cookies tonight to take to church tomorrow for Vacation Bible School this next week. Lots of baking lately.

More from the Garden Walk

I really liked this trickling water feature. The homeowner made these leaves herself.


























Aren't so many flowers amazing???

I've heard now from 4 people that sometimes on my posts, the type is not lined up right. It's always ok when I look at it after posting so I need to figure out what's happening!

Filling in the Cracks

Beth, who is our Farmers' Market organizer and also a P.E.O. member, saw Indiana cantelopes in an area grocery. She was so nice and bought one for me and brought it over today! She knows that I've talked about the southern Indiana ones being so good! This one is - yum!


Today Bill put the black plastic edging around the patio blocks to hold them in place and in these pictures is filling in the cracks with weed resistant sand. It has to be broomed in, watered down and more put in a couple more times.

Friend, Randy, is in town from Las Vegas this week and sent us a text today to come over for cocktails and appetizers "on the porch" tonight. His parents live in a farm house that originally had a porch on 2 sides but it was taken off at some point. They've recently put one back on and it looks really nice - like it's always been there.

I made a green pepper/onion/pecans/cream cheese dip that you serve in a green pepper to take.

Bryan cut our grass for us again today! Next is Peggy's yard. We're going to miss him! He leaves Fri. evening.

Patio Progress Today

Bill and Bryan worked on the patio all day today. They put the weed barrier down, then a layer of sand and packed it some. Bryan carried the patio blocks while Bill got them level and into place. Another hot day for this job!












In the videos below you'll see what Tim was up to this afternoon - working on the creek crossing behind our house. The rock gets washed away over time.

I went to Humboldt today for a cortisone shot in the shoulder. It wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. Then on to Diane's salon for a hair appointment and then the Poky Farmers' Market. Got some really good sweet corn there - the first of the season.

Bill is at a fire dept. meeting tonight. They have them twice a month for training and any work on equipment that needs to be done.

Patio & Garden Walk

This was the start of the patio project today after it quit raining after lunch. Bill & Bryan have been adding small rock and packing it with a rented packer. They're having frustration trying to get it all sloped just right for drainage away from the house. At least it's cooler today. Click on the arrow below to watch the video of packing rock.

Here are some of the pictures from the Garden Walk I went on Sat. Now I have ideas of pretty things to plant and do around the patio!

Deck/Patio Project

Bill has been working on this deck and patio project off and on. It's the part most dreaded of the landscaping all around the house. I think he liked doing our little 8' x 8' deck. We wanted it just big enough to walk straight out from the screened porch to grill. We'll have steps down all around the 2 open sides. There won't be any other railing except a hand rail.

You can see in the 2nd picture that we had a basement window well to work around. We were saying that if the deck could've gone all the way over to the house, we could've had a food & drink pass through with the kitchen window being right there! We could've put the deck all the way over but didn't want to totally block the light coming in that egress window to the basement.

We have just the smallest gas grill for the 2 of us. We didn't need all the side burners and warmers and other grill bells and whistles!

Out from the deck will be gray patio block to where you see Bill digging. The patio will be small too since we don't plan to have a bunch of furniture sitting out to blow over in the wind and get dirty when we can sit in the screened porch away from bugs.

Bill dug this patio area out today mostly with the backhoe. Now it has to be filled with gravel and then sand for these 16" patio blocks to lay on.