ACROSS NORTH DAKOTA

 Today we finished Wisconsin and traveled across most of North Dakota.  All our photos today were taken from the car, so, many of them have dash reflections.  

I have never understood how anyone can be bored driving across the country. The landscape and the culture changes as you go and there is so much to watch and take in all through the day and the miles. Today we saw beautiful acres and acres, no, we saw miles and miles of corn!  The patterns of the rows as they round the gentle South Dakota hills are truly artistic.

Then there are the miles of Mormon sunflowers. The legend is that Mormon migrants, traveling toward Utah, scattered sunflower seeds to mark the way for others to follow.  In reality, the small sunflowers are native, but, the wheels of wagons and the tracks of walking feet cleared the prairie grasses and made a habitat for them to flourish.  In doing this, the sunflowers did begin to grow along the migrant paths and still follow the highways today.

We watched miles of hay being baled on the highway right of way and learned that the hay growing on what is the right of way does not belong to the adjacent landowners. No, the right to cut and bale this hay comes from competitive bidding with the North Dakota DOT.

 This went on for miles and the bales were round and huge.  One would barely fit, sticking out over the sides, in a large pickup truck.

I was surprised by the number of natural lakes we passed along the way.  Exploring this we learned that there are hundreds of small lakes from the last glacier period.  In fact, the entire Red River Valley (popularized in song) was once the largest post-ice age lake until it eventually dried up.

We saw giant fields of oats in harvest.  Now the oat straw was being baled.  The huge oat fields, and a smaller number of wheat fields, explained the multiple grain silos that popped up every few miles.  

Tomorrow we finish South Dakota and head into Montana.  Now time for sleep!

THE SS BADGER

We left Trish’s mom’s home and are headed west. Instead of driving down and around by Chicago, we planned to take the steamship SS Badger across Lake Michigan to Wisconsin.

The Badger is the last operating steam powered vehicle in the United States.  This information sign posted by the boarding queue tells her story.

We watched while they loaded cars and trucks into the belly of the steamship.

Once on board, we had breakfast and then explored things to do on the four hour voyage.  We discovered several large lounges, lots of chairs outside on the top deck, the movie theatre, cafe,  bar, history room, and, of course, the gift shop.  You could also book a cabin, but, for day crossing this had no appeal.

Since there was a chilly breeze on deck, we chose the main lounge and got a table by a window. In a short time Badger Bingo started.  We played along, but didn’t win anything.  After that there was trivia time.  Trish and I did much better then.  There was a three way tie at the end of the game. The winner was to be determined by the team that could list the longest value for mathematical pi. My memory from Roy Haupt’s eighth grade class came to the surface and 3.1415926535 made us the winners! (The prize was two drink cups that change color depending upon whether their contents are hot or cold…wow!)

It was a very pleasant journey an a calm day.  Once off the ship, we drove to St. Cloud, Minnesota, for the night. On to North Dakota tomorrow.

 

VISITING TRISH’S MOM

 This week we are in Lake Orion, Michigan, visiting Trish’s ninety-seven year old mom.

When Trish was born, her father was career Navy.  He retired when she was ten years old and the family moved from Southern California to Lake Orion, Michigan, where there was a job waiting for him.  

They built this house and moved here in 1967 and her mom, Betty has lived there ever since.  Trish’s dad, Ralph, died in 2019 and her brother, Jerry, and his wife now live in the house with Betty. So, she has been here for fifty-nine years!

Betty is very strong physically but is having a gradual decline in memory.  We sit and visit, we walk around the yard, we even go out for ice cream.  We enjoy being with her.  She is not sure when we for here, but she sure does enjoy the moments.

At this time in her life, moments are very important. If you only remember the moment, it is important to make them as much fun as possible.  Enough good moments surely contribute to feelings of love.  Our hope is that we will get to come back next year and celebrate ninety-eight years!

OUR NEW COMMUNITY GARDEN

 On our island, a wonderful new project is now in its third year and is really looking wonderful. Several years ago the Island Inn Hotel closed forever and the property went on sale.  With lots of help, the Preservation Society bought the building and the land and began to dream about what to do with it. This posted sign tells the story if the building and its history.

The project is taking the building back to its original status.  When all finished it will be a lovely space for community use.

The rest of the property, under the direction of Debby Wells, is transforming into this lovely garden.  

Trish and I love to go there with our lunch or just for a restful time.  We put one of the benches in the garden so one of the things we enjoy is just going there and sitting on our bench! 

If you come to the island, we hope you will take time to sit on our bench as well!

SUMMER AT HOME

 Except for one week, we have been at home on the Island since May 19.  This has enabled us to grow lots of vegetables and flowers this year.  We have eaten tomatoes, beans, peppers, squash, cucumbers, onions, carrots and other things. No corn because we don’t have enough room for that.  Even more than the vegetables, our eyes have enjoyed the flowers.

Every year we learn more about what likes to grow here and what does not. Last summer we had a kind of hybrid cosmos that outgrew itself.  This year it reseeded itself but returned to one of the parents of the hybrid. So, we got this beautiful new yellow and brown flower that reproduces itself intermixed with the yellow and red gillardia that really likes to grow all over the island.

In back of the house all kinds of zinnias intermix. We gradually get a mixture of new plantings and some surprise reseeding from earlier plantings.

The best surprise of the year has been caladium.  We had one bed that is constantly shaded and stays a bit damp even without being watered.  We filled it with caladium this year and it loved the place.  We will save these “bulbs” and use thrm even more next summer.  

Both Trish and I equally love playing in the dirt!

King Tut Treasures

 Every year when Trish and I go to the Biltmore Estate, there is some special exhibit we see in addition to the house itself.  One year it was Downton Abbey sets and costumes. One year it was Monet art work. Last year it was Dale Chihuly glass work.  This year it was the Treasures of King Tutankhamen.

These artifacts are exact duplicates of the originals as the originals are housed and protected at the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

The interpretation here was excellent beginning with the entire story of Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon’s teamwork over the years.  Then we get to walk through the artifacts with excellent interpretation.

We started with the gigantic shrine that almost totally filled the burial chamber so much so that it was nearly impossible to figure out how to disassemble and remove it.  

Inside were four more shrines until in the very center came the sarcophagus container with its series of inner containers.

Inside the gold sarcophagus was placed the inner casket and then the mummified body itself. 

In the final room of the exhibit were displayed all of the additional artifacts found in the tomb including tools, weapons, food, and other things to care for the Pharoah in the life to come.  Our minds and eyes were full by the time we got to the end!

Biltmore House Christmas

 From San Antonio we drove to LaGrange, Georgia, where each year I tell Christmas stories in an event called Deck The Halls.  We then went to Dublin, Georgia, where I tell Christmas stories each year at the historic Carnegie Library building. 

We are now in Asheville where we usually stop in the Christmas season to visit the Biltmore Estate. Last evening we visited the upper floors of the Biltmore House. 

We usually take an audio tour, but, after doing that several times, Trish and I decided to wander in our own so we could soak as long as we liked in each room rather than being pushed along by the recorded guide.

We learned that there are thirty-one trees in the house itself and more than seventy on the entire property.  Beyond the trees the whole house seems to be one huge Christmas decoration.

It was a very nice thing to move slowly.  We say little details never noticed before realizing that even the tiniest stone or hinge was crafted with care as the thousand workers put this place together in the 1890’s.

One of our favorite rooms is the library where each of us wanted to curl up with a book and stay for a while.  There are 22,000 books here as George Vanderbilt was, from childhood, a voracious reader.

From upstairs we could look out the windows and see the vast spreading front lawn and its single tree.  Today we will return to the house and go deeply downstairs.