Road Trip Views in the Midwest

      All through Illinois, as we drove north from Springfield to Northbrook, where and then on to Rochester through southern Minnesota and then up into Wisconsin, we saw only two major crops, as far as the eye can see on both sides of the roads:  either corn or soybeans. 

 

as far as you can see! mile after mile

corn with windmills

soybeans

A “Castle” in IL?

Exit 55 on I-90 has a "Wayside" park.  We stopped to change drivers and saw wooden steps into a forest, so thought we'd take a little walk.  Little did we know that a huge rock was on top of the hill and it had a path around it, which we took. 

Suddenly we saw this HUGE rock!!

And it rock continued and continued, so when we saw a break in the rock, we went through the small space to the other side.   That side's path wasn't so easy and Ron had to help Joan walk so carefully. 

A small space

The other side is quote angled

Strange tree growing on the rock

Here's how it happened

Time with Keenan and Emily

Friday evening, we went to the Springfield High School football game with Keenan in order to see our grandson Joseph playing in the band.  He plays drum and is a senior this year.

      Saturday night, Keenan treated us to the WIZ live musical at the downtown theatre.   

Sunday after church we went to Charlie Parker’s Diner for lunch: they are so busy (and with a small dining area) that you sign up and then you step outside and they text you when your table is ready.  They had said a 10-minute wait but it was only 1 minute!)  

Monday afternoon we went to the University of Illinois Springfield  (UIS) Community band in which both Emily (flute) and Keenan (trombone) play.  That was lots of fun to watch. 

Later they treated us to dinner out at D’Arcy’s Pint.

    We left Tuesday morning for the Chicago area.

P.S. Keenan has a new job, administrative.

Getting to Springfield To Work in our Storage Unit

We arrived in Atlanta and our friend Hugh picked us up at the airport, and as our van had a flat tire (in his back yard) they let us borrow their car to drive to our unit at Wyndham Fairfield Plantation in Villa Rica, which we love.

from our balcony at  Villa Rica

We waited for a short time on the front porch and then he texted, "Welcome"

The next day Hugh was able to blow up the tire temporarily with his compressor and he  and Ron took the van to a shop and got a new tire.  As we traveled north then, we spent one night on the road to Springfield, IL (this year in Nashville and were able to visit our great friend Kim, in the Wyndham Nashville condo), and then visit Keenan and Emily, while we stay in Joseph’s beautiful Airbnb house (see BLOG for 8/22/16).   He was out of town but he can electronically unlock the front door.  Pretty nifty.

   

      This visit, instead of working on Keenan’s projects, we had to work on our storage unit(s) and the priority goal was to get out of the smaller unit we had had to rent a few years ago and just have the one unit.  

     We spent 3 ½ days working, and it was NO FUN!  Joan didn’t even want to take a picture of the process, since as we worked; we put stuff outside in several categories:  trash, thrift shop donations, save, mail to friends, take to Seattle, etc.  Once there, we could not leave since we would have to put everything back into the unit (and there are no bathrooms available) and it took an hour in the late afternoons, to put everything back.  So, no photo of the process but Joan did take a couple of the final result, and yes, we were successful:  we went to the hardware store that rents the units and canceled the small unit and reduced our monthly payment. 

Putting the extra shelves down

Smaller storage unit, almost empty

    Here is the inspiration for Joan to quickly decide what to keep (she already had committed to do it, but here’s an easy way how.)

https://www.onekingslane.com/live-love-home/marie-kondo-book-declutter/

     Marie Kondo has written several books on decluttering and organizing and the number one criterion that Joan hangs on to from her list of procedures is “Do I get JOY from this item?”  Very easy then, to simply keep or get rid of it.

Empty!

Boxes are labeled, and we have the list

Done for now

 Aug 25 A Break To Get Gas

   We knew we’d need gas to go to the Chicago area and we also knew we did not want to purchase it there.  Using Joan’s Gas Buddy app, we also saw that gas in Springfield was high but just north in Lincoln, it was 40 cents per gallon cheaper!  That was worth the extra mileage to drive.

    After working two hours in the storeroom, we were hot and tired, so we decided to go and get the gas and maybe have lunch too.  We headed north and discovered that gas in Mt Pulaski was even 4 cents cheaper, and it was on the way to Lincoln. 

   Go get there we had to drive through the town of Elkhart, so cute!  

   

Coming into Elkhart

Such a cute archway into town

We got the gas and then went to a place for lunch that we had read about in TripAdvisor, but they no longer served lunch; just not enough business she said, just coffee and pastries now.  

Coffee shop decorations

We headed over to the other restaurant in town but stopped along the way at the historic courthouse, where Lincoln had also been.  Well, needless to say, we stayed there over an hour, talking with the volunteer docent there.  So interesting.

    We never did get lunch, nor back to the storeroom to work that day.

The Eclipse

    Several asked if we were going to Oregon to view the eclipse.  Unfortunately, when Joan made our airline tickets last February for SEA-ATL for our annual Midwest trip,  she didn’t even think about the eclipse.  It was scheduled for 10:20 a.m. in Seattle, some 94%?  

      Our plane was to leave at noon and we were actually checking our bags at 10:20 a.m.  But afterwards we rushed up to the top of the parking garage as we saw people up there, and people were sharing glasses, so we got to see the moon passing across the sun (after the total coverage).  It was still amazing!

(Later in the month  we drove through Carbondale IL, where the longest totality was in the US and they had such great banners up!)

An Oregon motel

This is scary

Continuing the 2017 Dungey Family Reunion Weekend, Days 3 and 4

Sunday morning, we went with Earl to his church (to the English service), then went out to lunch to one of his favorite places. 

A very fun eclectic restaurant with a “homey” atmosphere.  The food was excellent, all in our group were happy.  We had the tuna salad which had lots of things in it. 

     Then we caravanned with several cars to Point Defiance Park.  Quite incredible.  To think that we’d never been here.  The gardens are wonderful, such a large selection of roses.  Beautiful views along the Five Mile Drive and we wished we could have walked along many of the trails available in the woods, but we were with a large group and moving on.  It has everything: gardens, woods, beach, history, Puget Sound views!

      We ended up at the Ram Restaurant for supper near the park.  This popular restaurant was a nice ending to our family reunion weekend.  We were able to eat out on the deck overlooking the water, which we always love to do.  We chose to use the 4-man tables rather than asking for a table for 14 which was great since we could talk better but we were still all near each other.  The food was fine.  (We just had the small Caesar side salads, since most dinners came with so much that we couldn’t eat anyway.)

    We ended the reunion Monday morning, the 7th, and saw beautiful fog on the water and under the Narrows Bridge. The fog horn was blowing all morning.