A Block Party

Block Party! Tomorrow, Sat. March 2nd at 3:30 PM

at Space 1713.Please Bring - Hardy Horsd'oeuvre, 

Drink, Table Service & Chairs. Hope You Can Come!

Yesterday afternoon, there was a knock at the screen door and a lady handed me the above note and said she hoped we could make it. She said she knew it was last minute, but they had realized some of the long-termers would be leaving this week and they wanted to get together while everyone was still here.

So, this morning I used the egg cooker Sister Sherry had given me to make hard-boiled eggs for the first time (I've been using it quite regularly to make poached eggs!) and then peeled and halved them to make a plate of deviled eggs. Then I used my last egg to make a batch of brownies and fixed a small plate of them as well.

A little after three-thirty, Forry packed up two of our chairs and carried the bag with plates and forks and glasses and the bottle of grapefruit and blueberry juice that Juni had given me, I carried the plates of deviled eggs and brownies, and we headed down the street to site 1713 (we are in Site 1659).

There was quite a crowd of people there already. It looked like the whole neighborhood turned out!
 

 

And was there ever a lot of food! We ended up having quite a feast. No need to fix dinner this evening!

This is part of a family from Iowa. Their mother had been coming to this RV park in the winter for over thirty years! We also met one of their uncles who was spending his 28th winter. They talked about remembering when the palm trees were planted...

Buddy Holley, Ritchie Vallens & The Big Bopper!

Tom sent me an email asking if we wanted to get tickets to the "Winter Dance Party" here at Valle Del Oro. It sounded like fun, so we did. We went to the afternoon show at the Ballroom at 4 PM. This is how it was described:

"In February 3, 1959, a place carrying three gifted musicians crashed in an Iowa cornfield. They say that was the day the music died. They were wrong. The number one and official tribute show to the Holley, Vallens and Richardson Estate is coming to Valle del Oro. Buddy Holley (John Mueller) Ritchie Vallens (Ray Anthony) and The Big Bopper, (Jay Richardson the Big Bopper's son) and the only show endorsed by Travis Holley, Buddy Holley's brother, says the impression really does Buddy proud...has his mannerisms and sound down pat. The best he's ever seen. The Chicago Tribune calls their show flawless, and the Chicago Suns Times says it is a stunning portrayal. Playing such songs as "La Bamba," "Chantilly Lace," and "Oh, Boy," Winter Dance Party will have you tapping your toes and dancing in the aisles."

It was a good show and it brought back lots of memories of our high school dating days. It's kind of hard to even think that it was all over fifty years ago!

This evening we all went over to Red Lobster for dinner. I had some wonderful snow crab while Forry had the four-course shrimp dinner. Juni and Tom shared an incredible lobster special. We all came home feeling like little stuffed pigs. So good!

Along the Way to Osage

The RV park we stayed at in Minnesota, Hidden Bluffs, is in the heart of Amish country. You get sort of a clue before you ever see a buggy when you see the wide shoulders on the roads designed to separate horse traffic from motor vehicles. Then when you see horse "apples" along the tarmac, you know for sure.

This family was on their way to town in an open wagon --

This gentleman was driving an interesting buggy. I'm not sure if there was a removable panel in the back for air circulation on a hot day or?

I got a chuckle out of the antenna "farm" on top of the Osage water tower --

This is the Main Street of Osage Iowa. It doesn't look all that different than the Main Street of Ritzville, Washington where my Grandfather Lyman Haight ended up --

This was also a common sight along the way. There were lots of these huge windmill towers sitting right in amongst the fields of corn or soybeans. This one was right in the midst of the farmstead itself --

We spent a quiet day today. We voted our Primary ballots and got them into the mail (Washington State is entirely "vote-by-mail"). The campground owner was going to the post office to mail her bill payments and assured me our ballots would be postmarked today.

I really enjoyed my walk around the campground today. The owners must have quite a set of green thumbs. There are clusters of little flower gardens all over as well as a very good looking vegetable garden. Plants are one thing I really miss living full-time in our RV (Our AeroGarden has been displaced by the Keurig coffee maker...). I spent a bit of time pulling pigweed from the flower garden by Auntie Violet this morning and did get a bit of a gardening fix in...

Osage Cemetery

My paternal grandfather Lyman Edward Haight was born in Osage, Iowa. Today we drove back to Iowa to the Osage Cemetery where we wanted to look for the graves of my paternal grandfathers Jacob Haight and James McGrath.

I was a little concerned whether we would be able to locate either set of great-greats after I read on the website of "Look Up Graves," that there were over 7000 graves in this cemetery! But I was very pleased to find a very good directory near the cemetery gates.

The cemetery is divided into blocks and then the blocks contain raised numbered "lots" which have a number of family graves, usually 8 or 10. We found Lot 0070 where James McGrath was supposed to be buried. But this stone for Edward McGrath was the only one in the whole section...

We think if reads 1866, but everything is pretty illegible --

The whole raised area where Forry is kneeling is 0070, but there are no other markers here.

Next we went to Section 0021 and were happy to find this large plinth marking the grave of my Great-Great Grandfather Jacob Haight.

 

The stone also names Jacob's second wife, my great-great grandmother Margaret "Sally" Smith. His first wife (and mother of his first seven children) apparently is buried in New York.

 

These smaller stones were in front of the large plinth --

It's interesting that on the large stone she's called Margaret, and on this one it's Sally...

There was also a stone of this size for Jacob's third wife who is also buried here.

I knew from what Cousin Terri had told me that there were more McGraths buried in this cemetery, so we went back to the directory which sent us to Section 0891 where we found this large McBrath stone surrounded by eight other small stones.

Right in front of the large stone were these two stones for "Father" and "Mother" with no other names on them. HOWEVER, the dates match those of Great-great grandfather James McGrath 1826-1878.

And of Great-great grandmother Margaret McFarland McGrath, 1834-1920!

Were these stones added later? Perhaps following her death? Is James actually buried here? Or is he back there in Section 0070? According to the cemetery brochure, "Burial records in the early years of the cemetery are somewhat sketchy and for some years are not even in existence....According to a 1935 newspaper article, markers are not necessarily placed where the person is buried."

It's an interesting mystery anyway.

We also found listed in the Cemetery Directory one Hardt burial. It's listed as Hardt Baby Boy, August 2, 1913 with the burial site noted as the Potter's Field section of the cemetery (this area is in one corner of the oldest part of the cemetery and has no markers whatsoever...). Another mystery to ponder.



Flora of Iowa

I love going into communities that have gorgeous pots of flowers on their light poles. This is the Main Street of Winterset, Iowa --

This flower box was alongside the Visitor Center on the side street. These miniature petunias are very petite - less than a half inch wide --

Queen Anne's Lace is very prolific along the roadsides --

As are the pink flowers of clover --

The feathery Goldenrod is just beginning to show color --

How tall do you think this "cornstalk" in the soybean field is? We're guessing it was close to twenty feet tall with a light on top of that yet...

I'll bet it really looks interesting during the years that the field is planted to corn...

John Wayne!

One of the things our friend Leslie wanted to do while they were in Iowa was to visit John Wayne's birthplace. Her grandfather had been a great fan and she has fond memories of watching many movies with him.

Winterset, Iowa is only about a half hour from the Adventureland Campground. They have a very nice Visitor Center. When we arrived there we realized that Winterset is in Madison County -- the home of the covered bridges! (I'll write about our visit to the bridges tomorrow.)

Across the street from the Visitor Center is this magnificent courthouse made from locally quarried limestone.

A few blocks away from there is this statue of The Duke himself -- with Bill and Leslie posing in front --

The statue was donated to the Winterset community by John Wayne's family --

At the John Wayne Visitor Center and Gift Shop, you could purchase your own full-size cut-out for only $32 dollars...

We went on tour of the tiny four-room house that newlyweds Clyde and Mary Brown Morrison lived for the first four years of  their married life. Marion Robert Morrison was born May 26, 1907. His parents' first child, he weighed a whopping thirteen pounds!

Like most places we've been, no pictures were allowed inside the tiny house. It is filled with an impressive collection of John Wayne memorabilia, including hundreds of rare photographs.

Driving Through Iowa

We continued to follow Interstate 89 today west across Iowa. Many of the cornfields looked okay, but some of them are obviously showing the effects of the drought --

It started to rain soon after we left North Liberty and kept it up almost all the way to Altoona. It's interesting to hear speculation about the rains and the crops -- "Is it too little, too late?"

We arrived at Adventureland Campground a little after two-thirty. It was good to see our friend Bill out walking just after we checked in at the office! It's been a long time since they left us in Florida to head north for their summer jobs here at Adventureland. Leslie was already off at work, so we will not get to see her until the park closes at ten tonight.

Bill took Forry and I out for a wonderful dinner at a nearby  Mongolian Wok. I had been thinking about making stir-fry for dinner, so thought it was a great idea.

When we got back, we walked around the campground a bit. This is part of a lovely flower garden a couple of sites down from us. I wish I knew what this gorgeous vine is --

This vegetable garden actually has some cabbages and tomato plants. Bill said it has been a big job for the lady to keep it wet enough during the extremely hot weather they have had here all month.

We stayed up and watched the Olympic Opening Ceremony from London last night. What an interesting funky spectacle it was. I really liked the tongue-in-cheek British sense of humor. I chortled when Queen Elizabeth parachuted from the helicopter,,,!

Iowa!

We had stayed at the small KOA near LaSalle, Indiana last night. It is a lovely little park that we would have stayed at for another night, but they did not have any space. It was kind of interesting to see that this morning almost everyone had left, but to know they will be completely full again by tonight!

As we left Indiana, we kept looking at the fields of corn, trying to see if we could detect the damage from the drought. Some of the fields look stunted with short stalks.

We drove all except the last few miles on Interstate 80 (fortunately no longer a toll road). After we crossed the Iowa state border (the Mississippi River), we stopped at their Welcome Center to pick up an Iowa map. I do like the signs at their rest area!

I was surprised to see this historical plaque at the rest area. I knew about the Mormon handcarts, but hadn't realized they had started this far east. The mid-eighteenth century migration of Mormon converts was the direct result of Mormon missionaries in Europe. To think they walked all the way from here to Salt Lake City pulling hand carts with all their belongings. The sign went on to tell of the success of the first three groups, but how the 4th and 5th groups started too late in the summer and lost many of their number to snow and cold in the mountains.

We drove as far as North Liberty, Iowa to Colony Country Campground. Isn't that a neat hex sign on their office building?

This is another very neat, very nice small campground with just 45 RV sites. We will only stay here the one night as we are looking forward to meeting up with our friends at Adventureland near Altoona tomorrow.

Cheers for Stuart's Service!

Auntie Violet has been feeling a bit cantankerous lately. She's let us know by pushing out the bedroom slide (slide #2) as we've traveled down the road. She doesn't push it very far, just about two inches. We stop after about an hour or so and push the button to put it back in, then she's usually pretty good about it until we get to our next location and by then it's out about two inches again...

Knowing she was having a bit of a problem, we deliberately scheduled a stop in Elkhart, Indiana so that we could visit STUART'S SERVICE, an authorized HWH repair shop. We had stopped there last October on our way through so that they could install some new hydraulic hoses for us.

We made an appointment for 10:30 this morning and headed to County Road 6 in the midst of scattered rain showers.

Chuck Stuart and his crew very quickly took Auntie Violet into the shop and found that she had a leaking valve. They very quickly adjusted it, then added more hydraulic fluid to replace what she had lost. They then kept her for a another 30 minutes to make sure that the valve would not leak again.

We cannot say enough positive about Stuart's Service. They know what they are doing and take care of things very professionally. We were charged for only one half hour of shop time plus the cost of the hydraulic fluid.

By noon we were back on the road. We took Interstate 80/90 across the remainder of Indiana and on into Illinois. There were ten lanes of traffic! There were a few times when we were hemmed in by semi trucks on both sides and in front and back -- not the most pleasant driving!

We are re-tracing a bit of our route from last fall, but will veer off in order to visit Iowa and Wisconsin which are two of the four states we have not yet covered in the "lower 48."

We settled in at the LaSalle/Peru KOA for the night. This is a very pretty nice little park near Utica, Illinois. We'd like to have stayed for a couple of nights, but they are booked solid for the weekend. We'll head on to N. Liberty, Iowa tomorrow.