Tues., July 1, 2014 - Decorah to DesMoines

The weather has been rowdy since the night we arrived - heavy wind and hail produced some crop damage on Sunday night.  We saw a complete rainbow out the from door.  We certainly did enjoy our visit, including the weather!

Today we drove west toward DesMoines, but stopped in Charles City to work at the Library there during the afternoon.

It was only 175 miles to Ames IA where we planned to stop, but we found a really nice rest area on I 35 south and decided to stay there to rest, cook dinner and have an early night. There were very few cars and trucks, so it felt almost like a camping spot - out in the country.  Very nice.  Many of the rest areas in Iowa have a visitor's center with information about a particular topic related to Iowa:  wind power, civil war history, etc

Mon. June 30, 2014 - Decorah family visits

Mike and I went in to town for a morning work session, then met up with Jan and Joanne to visit their mom and dad, Jenny and Einer at their nursing home.

We had a nice visit and enjoyed an afternoon thunderstorm as well,

After that Mike and I went to the Decorah Library for an afternoon work session

where we found something unusual - a seed lending library - thought of Eric here.

Tonight we were treated to our 2nd delicious home cooked meal in two days - this time at Joanne's house with delicious sweet corn from the family farm.

Joanne has been the family historian and showed us the family tree picture / scrapbooks she has been working on.

My Grandma Randall was the oldest of 12 kids. Her sister Jenny that we visited today is one of only two siblings still living, and I spoke with Ole Johnson, the other living sibling via phone on Tuesday morning.

After dinner, we returned to Jan and kens house for laundry and a travel planning session - Jan helped me figure out the westward journey back to California by way of other cousins along the way.

Mike had an early night enjoying the king-sized bed - it was a very comfortable guest room.

Sun., June 28, 2014 - Milwaukee to Decorah, IA 214 Miles

We said good-by to Nancy and Joe last night and woke up to an empty house this morning - they flew out to Phoenix early today.  This morning I did some good computer maintenance and clean-up work on on my pictures on computer and phone.  Bad news though, at the very end when I was rushing to get out of the house for the scheduled noon departure, I closed my laptop in an unusual manner and crushed the wireless mouse fob between the bottom and top of the laptop and cracked the display. BUMMER!

On a travel note, it was a beautiful day.  We drove west out of Milwaukee across Wisconsin Amish country

then crossed a very swollen Mississippi River to enter Iowa at Prarie Du Chien

on our way to Decorah where we spent two nights with my 2nd cousin Jan Grimes and her husband Ken.

We saw them last in 2004 when they were in California and looked us up for dinner one evening in the springtime - we all watched Eric play baseball first, then had dinner out.  Well this time, Jan invited her sister Joanne over to join us for dinner at her house and we had a good time getting reacquainted with family matters,

and had a tour of their home and hobbies before bedtime.

 Ken with his taxidermy collection.

and showing us his tractor in the garage.

Jan showing one of her many beautiful quilts.

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Thur. - Sat. June 25-27,2014- Milwaukee

Scott and Colette left for work early this morning but we stayed and worked at their house this AM and Mike went to Best Buy to get a new laptop - his is on it's way out and will not consistently accept a charge.  We left about noon and started our 250 mile drive out of Michigan through Indiana

and Chicago to Sussex, WI, a suburb of Milwaukee where we stayed with Nancy and Joe for three nights. Nancy and Mike worked together while interns together at Touché Ross in Chicago while still in college.   The last time we we visited her was in the summer of 2001 when we were on our 2nd road trip in Chatty with the boys - the year we drove to Michigan and visited the remaining lower 48 states.  Thursday night we had a get reacquainted visit with Nancy and dinner out at The Copper Dock.

Friday we all had a work at home day until dinner time when we went to a

 good old-fashioned Friday night fish fry at The 5 O'clock club

followed by a visit to another restaurant/ bar where Nancy and Joe introduced us to our first Summer Shandy - a local seasonal beer

 

Saturday they took us on a driving tour of Milwaukee

- first stop -  Nancy's downtown office at E and Y,

 

then to Burkes Tavern - the Irish Bar Joe owned with his brother for 30 years until he sold it in 2012.

Burke's provides a shuttle bus to Miller Stadium where we watched the Brewers neat the Colorado Rockies on a beautiful day for baseball.

 

 

 

We enjoyed the local baseball tradition of watching the hot dog race in the 5th inning, 

and enjoyed the ball park itself with it's sponsorship from local businesses Harley Davidson and Miller Brewing

then left after the game ended to join the others waiting for the shuttle bus back to the bar they arrived from

 which in our case was Burke's

where we had another Summer Shandy,  and got some food to go

served by Nancy's daughter  Jesse.

We returned to Nancy and Joe's house, had our take-out dinner and crashed early since Joe and Nancy are catching an airplane out of town very early in the AM.  It was a great day and a really enjoyable three day visit.

 

Wed., June 25, 2014 - St. Clair to Kalamazoo, MI 185 miles - layover with Scott and Collette

Last night after we got home from out Ford House tour we discovered an electrical issue in Chatty.  The coach batteries were not recharging properly and we were afraid we would lose the refrigerator.  Good news is this morning Mike figured out how to re-trip the breaker and all was solved.  That was goodluck for us.  We spent the morning getting road ready and cooking up some of the chicken we bought last night, so we did not leave Thousand Trails St. Clair until almost 1:00.

Destination:  Kalamazoo 185 miles where we had a date with Scott and Collette for dinner.

We parked Chatty on their side yard

and were grateful to sleep inside tonight - they made us an offer it would have been rude to refuse - and the house was so cute!

Tues. June 24, 2014; Private tour of the Ford House

Today we started at the St. Clair Shores Public Library

and then spent the afternoon with Suzanne at the Edsel and Eleanor Ford House where she works as a docent tour guide,

First we had lunch in the Costwold Café

 

 

We waited out a thunderstorm after lunch, then she gave us a private tour of the grounds.

 

standing in front of the playhouse

 

and on the back porch of the main house

Wouldn't be a trip to the Ford House without seeing a vintage Ford car.

Thanks Suzanne!  That was a great tour!

Mon. June 23, 2014 - Met with Cousin Suzanne

Today we drove into Harper Woods where we met up with my 2nd cousin Suzanne

 who works, (conveniently for us ) at the Harper Woods Library.

 

We worked there all day today except for

a personal tour of the library's Heritage Room
 (where Suzanne showed us some history of our uncle Wally's careen as a Harper Woods police officer and then as a security guard for Ethel Ford.)
the nice lunch break we took with Suzanne and her husband Randy.