Genesco, Illinois

Today we went to Genesco, Illinois to visit one of Carol's work friends. It was a cute little MidWest town that's claim to fame is the city of pigs, they have these cement pigs putside the different businesses in town and they are really cute!!!

One in front of a wine restaurant is a chef

The one in front of the bank has pennies all over it!!!

Of course the newspaper

The clothing store has ...clothes....all over it

The art council has all these beautiful Autumn leaves all over it

t was one of those beautiful Fall days. Hope you all had a great day too!!!

Monday Sunset

This was Monday night, it was beautiful, took a whole array of pics, it just kept getting better and better, This is a empty field right behind the RV. when the lumpity-lumpity man is gone there is no one back there at all. You can even watch the storms come rolling in :)

Have another person reading my blog!!!! Can you imagine that someone finds me interesting at times? Welcome to Dawn & Denise (Crusin2some) This is so special! I did go over and look at your blog and you know i did not get rid of all of my things......took the easy way out and they are still at my roommates place, paying a reduced storage fee.. I don't know if i could do that, you explained having the yard sales and deciding what goes and what to keep and who to give things to, i don't know that i could part with my 'stuff'' and i have not made a major commitment yet either, if i like doing this or not, it is hard doing it all alone, many mistakes are made, so i have my bolt hole and a place to return to. Good for you to 'go for it'

Yesterday was a chore day, you know; groceries, post office, bank- that sort of thing. Started another afghan while watching late nite TV, dumped icky again...

Today i am waiting for the wireless guy again, to try to get the xm working in the RV, boy were i home would i ever RAG on that guy at Sergeants Mobile. i am still going to send him the bill for repair and see what he does..... i mean, really, after the amount i paid, it should work, right?

We are having those wonderful Fall days here, 68, no humidity, cooler at night. i am going to sit outside and crochet and watch lumpity-lumpity for awhile :)

Take Care!!!!

Here's Luci!

DeeDee says there is not enough pics of sweet luci to see, so here is one for her, see Luci is alive and well!! :)

Picnic

Isn't she darling? "A Girl Named Gus" is almost 4 this year, time sure flies by.

We went on a picnic today to Sunset Park on the Mississippi River.

We did NOT eat here :) !!!! the river is up a little bit......

A good time was had by all! This seemed to take forever to get down, but was really very fast!!!! Gus was right behind me, laughing like crazy. Carol went down with her next, laughing the whole way!

Happy day to you all!

It has been a couple of days and i have not written anything, nothing happening, i have worked on cards all day, walked Luci, well Carol did once too! It was a nice day out too, but a little chill in the air, but sun was out and no rain, so that is a step in the right direction. we have just been pretty laid back and doing some of the projects that we have been buying things for. you know you keep accumulating things and then never get to the project.

Have not even read in my book which i am about ready to finish, but i don't want it to end, so that is a way to keep it going by not finishing it, not being able to get to it. I am reading South of Broad by Pat Conroy. any Pat Conroy readers out there? I LOVE reading him, we watched 'Prince of Tides' again while working on projects yesterday (it just seemed to be the thing to do based on what i was reading and that we had just returned from North Carolina) He is such a lovely writer, mostly about the South, North & South Carolina. He wrote Prince of Tides, the Great Santini, Beach Music, the Lords of Discipline. 3 great movies in there. you can see the land, hear the sea and the birds and bugs in the swamps, feel the heat and humidity, all while reading his pages, he has such a way of evoking the land and the characters are well developed, you KNOW them and hate to leave them. the evenings on the veranda sipping drinks and murmuring about the day just lived and life being led.

Hope you are enjoying Fall

Take Care & God Bless

Fall

is just bursting out all over Iowa and the Midwest! I love taking seasonal pictures. Today we went to Williamsburg, IA to go expressly to The Woolen Needle, which has long been my favorite store. They have a WHOLE store devoted to woolens for felting and needle work, like making those penny rugs using a button hole stitch, table runners, decorative items, they also have quilting supplies of a nature, lots of flannel and everything is primitive/ autumn colors, browns and earth oranges, greens/yellows. they have needles and lots of threads for embroidery, it is just a neat store, they are showcased in the Shop Hop/Quilting magazine for Fall.
We then went to Kalona an Amish/Mennonite community. Stopped at one farmers stand (right along the road, in front of their farm) and got some baked goods, and also stopped at a couple of antique stores where i got the pictures that i will share in the next couple of days.
Last night was a horrid night, with strong winds, the RV rocked/rolled ALL nite and it rained and poured, it was a warmer wind tho, strange, opened windows, closed windows, had bed clothes off then on, and today wore long pants again and a light sweater, with a hooded sweatshirt, got that cold, but the clouds all cleared away, wind stopped and turned into a great day!!! Tomorrow supposed to be good too. And we had a huge harvest moon tonight. I am sure you all saw it too
Fair weather your way, Take Care and God Bless

The Pig

Luci is afraid of this pig. It is in front of the RV park welcoming us every time we return. When we go for a walk we will pass it one way or the other, and she actually jumps back/ stops, gets all stiff, sniffs, her little nose just working away. Then she gives it a WIDE berth, all the time looking over her shoulder at it.
It is funnnny, well maybe you have to be there :)
Today i am waiting on the UPS man, i ordered some movies from amazon and they came yesterday apparently, during one of the times i was not there. and wouldn't leave them, they sent an e-mail, i responded and they are trying again today. They leave things on our porch at home all the time, even things they should not leave, even when i am right there. so i really don't know what the big deal is, BUT here i am, i'm waiting, where are you??
The park is really clearing out, but i am watching the weather, and it does NOT look as if snow is imminent, that being the only thing (freezing weather) that would shove me out of here and on down the road... Carol and I still have plans..............

The River

Remember on Sept 3rd the Mississippi was so rough and wave-tipped, it was SO windy!!

Well, this is the Mississippi today, smooth as glass. Doesn't look like it could ever harm a fly.

Hope you all had smooth sailing today

Take Care & God Bless

The lumpity-lumpity, that was again out there at 7am... with trucks coming and going getting loads of dirt. I mean, really???? i thought you would all LOVE to see what was waking me up every morning, and i was not exaggerating.

Morning meal!!! Gooseberry jam, yummy, just the right zip to it to wake a person up, had the lumpity-lumpity not already done a very good job of doing that.

I have been here a month! I know that because today i have to pay rent again. and will be leaving just before my month is up again on Oct 18th and will be on the way to Florida!!

Have to find a place to get an oil change done on this beast, get to xm radio fixed, yes i am still fooling around with that. Get the generator working, seems it is important to have that running in case i need it and still have not turned on the hot water. there are just some things that seem to be beyond me or my scope of understanding, maybe i can find one person to do all of these things except for the radio, don't think that guy knows about the working parts of the RV :)

BUT today we are going to get gas for the truck, get Luci's nails done, yes i have to have someone else do them as she screams like i am cutting off her legs if i try to do it myself, what is with that anyway? and Carol and i are meeting to go to a movie, fun-fun

Hope you have fun too!!!

I Know, I Know

I am a slug as i did no post yesterday. Sometimes there is just nothing to say. Did nothing yesterday of any note whatsoever!

This morning the lumpity, lumpity man was out there sifting dirt in the empty lot behind by bedroom window yet again. at 7am no less!!!! and now he has stopped, what is that? Loud clap of thunder right over the trailer REALLY woke us up about 8am. Took Luci out for her first potty break and another clap, she looked at me like what????? and would do no more, ran for the rv!!! so that was that. am back in bed, Tried to call people and no response from anyone, of course all i know are people in the Pacific time zone so it was 2 hours earlier, but i never woke them up or they were up and already gone? think they were still asleep :)

These are houses in Lexington, i was just enamoured with that little town, it was so neat.

It is Monday and have to find something to DO. Later having dinner with Carol and watching DWTS first show, hmmmm.

Well guess i better start the day and do something even if it is wrong

Y'all have a great day, hope it is more sunny than it is here, The weather has to change for the better and those halycon days of Autumn pretty soon, don't you thing?

Take Care & God Bless

Yummy

We stopped in Lexington, Virginia. Think i said something about the town before on the blog, but we also went to a bakery!!! surprise, i know!!!! But this was the BEST place, and i don't even know it's name! I also had a chocolate croissant, which i ate b4 i thought to take a picture. It was so light and wonderful, melt in your mouth good, this apple turnover was the same way, and it was a fairly young man that was the baker, he gets in at 3am to start work, he was sitting in the back when i used the rest room. It was an old shop, wood floors, but spic and span. Good thing i don't have access to a place like this all the time. it was so GOOD.

nothing happening today, got up late and had to go to the store for grocery supplies, then back to the rv to do laundry and wash the bedding, it was more than time for that. and the laundry was getting lots of people using it, went there just in time to be 2nd in line, so i was able to get my things right in and a young man doing his clothes, let me use one of the dryers he was using, he had another load to go in, but was already using one dryer, he said and did not want to hold me up, so i took it! there were two ladies behind me waiting. so i was just in time to not have to wait. we have to pay for the washer but not the dryers, which is a price break...

have taken Luci for a couple walks, made the bed, folded and put away clothes and the food, so am all set, been here on the computer, reading blogs n' stuff. Got a People Mag as had to know about Kate's new body :) Have shirts laid out all over the couch and chairs as things don't dry here anyway and when it is raining, did i mention it is raining? it is raining..... things don't dry fast at all. had them outside on my drying rack under the awning and that did not work. Wonder how long they will take to dry?

Oh, balanced my checkbook.. need to do a little better job at getting the right charge down, pay attention to that little detail, as had a couple errors, which makes things harder to balance :(

Other than that not much happening.

Hope you all had a productive day,

Take Care and God Bless

(and since nothing is happening, Carol working for next couple of days, so i am staying around here, and don't want to go sightseeing in the rain, i will just show more pics and give info about the NC trip, i KNOW you want to know more about that)

God's Light

This is West Virginia, yes we had fog and LOTS of rain... That was yesterday. we were so exhausted from trying to get back and then see things too, in a fast way-yet thorough.

Oh the big house is Monticello, home of Thomas Jefferson and it was wonderful! It is at 870' and he leveled the top of the mtn by about 20 feet, took him or his slaves, a year. He was born 3 miles from there and played on the mtn in his youth, it was called Tom's Mountain. His father surveyed Virginia and West Virginia for King Charles and was granted land for his service. Thomas inherited 3000 acres and his brother 2000. there is still 2600 acres in the estate. He had a large garden and orchards, it was very steep up to it, they bused people up and back.

We also stopped at a place in West Virginia called Tamarack that has crafts from people of the state and it was really neat to see all of those things, very diverse. I got a walking stick and a basket!

We stayed in Lexington, Virginia and Seymour, Indiana. Lexington was a very old town, Virginia Military Inst is there, as is Washington & Lee College. George Marshall of the Marshall Plan (after WWII) and Stonewall Jackson were born there. We drove around quite a bit looking at the city and the wonderful churches/houses/store fronts. There were even log cabins right in the city limits. still being lived in!

In Seymour we had our 1st problem in motels that would not allow pets and ended up in a refurbished auto court, which was clean and nice but not the Hampton Inn.. Luci was happy

I have got to take her out now and get ready for bed, am really tired and Carol has to go to work tonight, don't know how she does it!!!

Guess

where i got to go to today!!!! it was really soooo exciting. Got to walk on the same land as the person who wrote the Declaration of Independence!!!! and i was truly awed!

What to do when you are waiting for the flagger to let you go on? Take a picture of yourself!!!!

Today we went North to the Currituck Lighthouse, that was not run by the Park Service, but by volunteers i believe, It was a nice drive, so now we have been as far north on the Outer Banks that you can go and as far South, but we had to take one ferry ride to get to Ocracoke and that far south destination. I like south best, more funky and less inhabited and commercialized, the north had LOTS of newer homes or rentals and they were ginormous!!!! and then today was by far the hottest day we have been here, We came back to the hotel then went to the beach right near here again and just walked or stood in the warm ocean waters. it was nice.

Now we are packing up and getting ready for the long trip back to Iowa...

Y'all take care

Oh we went to Dairy Queen for dinner, fast in and out and they had no burgers!!!! only fish sandwiches and chicken. and the chicken strips came with gravy!!! and a Blizzard was $5.29!!!!

yes indeedy, we are in the South....................

oops....

Forgot to tell you about luci's adventure. We were at the Ocracoke Beach, no one around for miles and we had set all of our things down and started to hunt shells. So i decided to let her off the leash, she had already 'done her business' TWICE so i figured she was good and she normally just follows me around, Carol and i both looked up and she was no where to be found!!!! i thought was there a hole or something that she fell into as that was what is appeared that happened, she would NOT go near the water, i yelled and called her and finally here she comes, from the direction of the road!!! and the car, she had gone back to the car, she was sick of this beach shit, hot and wanted back in the car!!! Can you believe.??? so back on the leash she went. thank heavens there was not much traffic and she must have decided she was alone and did not like that or she heard me calling and came back, it was a scary couple of minutes, let me tell you... the little poop!!!!

Our sunset....................

Left is the Hatteras Lighthouse, and Right is the Ocracoke Lighthouse. We had a WONDERFUL day, we were going to take the ferry to the mainland, but after seeing Ocracoke we decided to stay there and be at the ocean all day. We found so many shells, mostly clam, but so many different colors and shapes, and oyster shells that were iridescent they were so tumbled. We just walked and sat and talked, Luci ran off, Ocracoke has set standards and made most of the island a refuge and no building over a certain height, so the houses are all on the southern part of the island, with a twisty road thru the homes, b&b's and small family run businesses, no chain restaurants or businesses. It would be a wonderful place to stay, people on golf carts and scooters. It is very laid back and casual. Then you go to the beach and there is no one there, there are a couple of places where there are restrooms and parking lots, but mostly you pick a spot to park in the 13 miles to town after debarking from the free ferry from Hatteras, walk over the dune and there you are, and shells galore!!!! Just wait till i can get a picture for you, i have like 4 shopping bags of them!!!!

Then we drove back, took the ferry back to Hatteras and the rest of the Outer Banks and we go this great big ball of a sunset on the horizon, it was so beautiful. So we started out at 7:30am and did not go where planned, but had a great day!

Hope y'all did too!!!!

Scenes from Rodanthe. We had a great day!!! it started out raining then got humid/muggy, but it was nice at the beach and we found SHELLS, wow, lots of them, it was SO cool, but no really big ones. Went over a really long bridge, saw a Coast Guard station, some white birds with really long necks and long bills, more sandpipers and whatever those little ones are right by the ocean that skitter all over the place, really fast. they are so cute and FAST. Houses right on the beach, really big houses, 3-4 floors and lots of windows and balconys, screened porches, on the 4th floor and some have crows nests even higher up. But the beach was lots different further down, not as coarse of sand and not as commercial, more home town places and not as many places to shop, which is great, i like more out of the way places.

Tomorrow we are going to go further south, get up early and take the ferry to Oracoke and to the mainland and drive around, see more beach/ocean and marsh land. There are also a couple more lighthouses. this one is on Bodie Island. Looking forward to seeing ones that do not have the scaffolding on it!

Luci is soooo tired, she does not even whine to get out of the car anymore, just sits there and looks at you. :0 poor little thing. Carol sat down on the sand waiting for me to get ALL the shells on the beach and Luci laid down right beside her. one of the beaches there were no people and i let her off leash and she just stayed right beside us, did not run off and stood to let us put the leash back on when people came down, so she was a very good little girl, but tired. She is sound asleep right now.

Take Care y'all

Oh, wanted to say that we have been called baby doll, honey, sweetheart, we are in the South!!

It's 9-11 today, and even at the beach they remember......

We are so tired so have come back to the room to nap prior to trying to find dinner somewhere. Notice the horizon, it is so defined, i don't ever remember that of the Pacific, the sea and sky sort of blends in together at Oregon, and the water was soooo warm, it was like bathwater, it is NEVER like that, even on a warm day in Oregon, and the sand was not as fine, more course and lots of tiny bits of shells, we did find some bits of shells, but they are so tumbled, that they are smooth and chip like, it is strange, no recently broken ones, and i thought after Earl that there would be many more shells and there weren't, just the old tumbled ones, but we are going to go further south tomorrow and maybe different beaches will show us something else. and you can't sit and gaze at the ocean, no cliffs, you have to walk over a dune to get there, and they have wooden steps over all of the access points, houses are built up on stilts, so the bottom floor is not there, just garages or storage, and they build up high decks above the house or up on the dune to look out, it is kind of cool, lots of people, with great tans!!!!!, we are not tanned, white things struggling thru the sand pulling the dog behind, she is so tired, those little legs were just going everyplace and running to stay out of the water, and she wanted me to carry her!!!!! HA, then the worse of indignities, i washed her off (there are water faucets at all the access points, and some even have showers) It is so nice out, 76-80, we had a really good time.

Take Care and God Bless

This is the 1st view point all day long, they have NO viewpoints, but i guess there are no heights either to look out upon. West Virginia was all hilly and quite beautiful, even a 7% grade at 2735 ft at Sand Mtn, but that was it!!! and the leaves were starting to turn there. but then you get to Virginia and all you see is YOUR side of the freeway and trees on either side, there are whole cities hidden in those trees, but gosh darn you can't SEE it for the trees on either side!!! i mean the whole state we went thru was like this. until you open out at Newport News and the end of the Chesapeake bay, with lots of coal processing and ships, and then the tunnel!!! UNDER the Bay, it was scary, but we survived and there was NO turning back either and they kept telling you you were coming to it and this is your last chance, soooo you had time to turn around, or check your gas so you don't get stuck... it was a very long day, left at 7:30a and did not get to Outer Banks until 10:30p

Luci was pissed, staged a protest by refusing to eat. and whining at every opportunity.

Tomorrow the beach!!! which we haven't even seen yet!!!!!

Guess where we are???

Well we drove all day and are in Shelbysville, Kentucky. Luci is having a great time smelling all the smells, is not happy in the motel room, KNOWS that there is someone else on the otherside of the wall and keeps going to the connecting door and snuffling snot all over. great.
Went thru Illinois, and Indiana halfway over and then to the bottom and you get to Louisville which was a really pretty city on the Ohio River, that was really big, the city had many bridges. We ran into lots of construction in Indianapolis and some of the freeways. We are freewaying it all the way as we need to get to NC by tomorrow nite! hopefully we can take it a little slower and see some things on the way back, like Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home and the home of James Madison & Monroe are all in one of the areas that we are passing thru on the way.
BUT we want to see the ocean and the Outer Banks, so that is where most of the time will be spent. Indiana was very dry, it was surprising, all the grass was dead as was the corn...
weatherwise it could not be better, 76 & slightly overcast at times.
One story: we ate in an Applebee's in a small town in Indiana-Crawfordsville and the time did not match, so we asked if they were in the Eastern time zone and no one knew!!!! can you believe it, one of them even said she thought it might be Pacific???!!!! they finally looked in a phone book and indeed they are in the Eastern time zone and we lost another hour, i forgot this when calculating time to drive and how far we would get, pretty basic thing to have to know, but it was really funny that none of them knew.
Roadkill report: the poor raccoons !!!! there was about 6 of them today and one pheasant
Hope you all had a good Day!!!! Take Care and God Bless

WIND

was still windy all night and all day!!!! i mean, really windy, rock the RV wind. but now it is calm.
BUT i did finally figure out how to get those darn wheel covers on to stay, they kept blowing off! had a visitor, a lady from 2 rv's down after the thunder storm the other night, bringing me one back. i got my handy pink screwdriver and looped the end of the bungee cord around the handle of it and then pushed it behind the tire, between the two back tires, then pulled the cord around and over the knob on the beginning end, i am sure it was such a sight, used my flip flops for under my knees on the gravel and rammed my face into the tire to get my arms around those big tires, not the best angle for the butt, but it worked, i have been thinking about it for DAYS, glad i finally figured it out!!! now they won't blow away
we are leaving on thursday for North Carolina, Kill Devil Hills, the Outer Banks, i am excited!!!

Oh My Goodness

WE had THUNDER and Lightning ALL night long, and pouring rain, i mean i could hardly see the rv next door to me and the rain was bouncing off. I have lived thru a Midwest storm! lightning seemed to be right over us at times, the thunder was not far behind at all, almost simultaneous with the lightning!!! and the thunder would just roll on and on and on, it would move away then come back, there were warnings on the bottom of the tv, when i had it on, it finally went off as the signal was too hard to get i guess. AND then there was the WIND, we just rocked and rolled back and forth, i was sure we were going to tip, Luci only jumped when i did, but she was burrowed in her favorite place under the covers. the weenie!!!
Just let me say, it was downright scary. I just woke up for good, as i was awake half the night, you just can't sleep thru something like that. You would get to sleep then it came back, to be right over you, and that really strong light, then a CRACK of thunder, i mean, it is serious!! and you stay awake, or wake up from where ever you were. Think i will stay in my jammies all day :)
Such a night, hope it stays away now, or got it out of it's system, i'm just sayin'
SO i hope you all have a great Labor Day, safe and sound (it is still overcast and windy here)
Take care and God Bless

OK

What about this BUG??? it was at least 6" long!!! i was going to sit on the marble bench and watch the river flow by, this was in Princeton, but the bench appears to belong to this fellow and i did not want to move it/scare it and have it land on me!!
(click on picture to make it larger than life)





What is the story of a gate to no where on the Mississippi River? was there a dock there? does it belong to one of the houses across the street? A nice sturdy iron gate too.

When is it that you decide to NOT use your barn anymore? What helps you make that decision, then to just let it fall apart? I love taking pics of old barns, or new ones too, they are so iconic of a farm life well lived.

Had a nice little drive and ended up in Clinton about 30 miles north of Davenport, got there thru the back roads from the RV park, so saw alot of corn, barns and silos, narrow roads going up hill and down dale. there was one river Wapi...something, that was in a little valley sort of and it had flooded all over, i think it had been like that for awhile tho lots of birds but they were all in a tree/swamp sort of thing and no pull outs anywhere, cept the middle of the road and on curves, so no chance to take a pic, big white birds tho, that you could see thru the foliage.

Roadkill Report: the possums and porcupines were out last night.... about 8 possums, poor things, they must be slow too...

Have a GREAT day!!

Sunset at the Hacienda

This is just grass, i think, but the angle of the sun transforms it into something special.
and i figured out the goobledy-gook when doing the blog, instead of edit html i need compose, ha, and here you are, where i am supposed to be... guess i just hit the wrong key inadvertently... :) before
got a cheap 19" tv to hook up to dvd player, so i can watch movies as i don't get many channels off the antennae n i can't figure how to disconnect everything and re-connect to use the dvd, it was unhooked from rv tv as it was sucking channels, whatever that means, i am electronically challenged as it is and things have to work, if there are too many moving parts i just can't do it. i did manage to get the dvd out of the cupboard with the rv tv still working and hook it up to the new one on a little console table by the front door n it works really great. watched 'the back-up plan' with jennifer lopez, it was really cute, chick flick and chunky monkey, i was a happy girl.
found a post office and mailed some cards, so after the holiday i can go back and mail a package.
walked Luci a couple of times.
the weather has evened out, it is to be a little cooler tonight but getting up to the 80's again tomorrow, they said nothing about humidity tho. but it has been nice these couple of days, a sigh of relief. going to look at maps and see if i can drive someplace tomorrow for some new sights. have some upkeep things to do around here too... but may leave them until Monday, windows and grill in the front need de-bugging & need to do a black water dump again...icky-poo....
You all Take Care & God Bless