Visiting Minnesota

This summer, we went to Minnesota! We didn't take the fast approach of taking an airplane, either; we rented a Ford Explorer and made a days-long road trip of it.

Here are some of the highlights of our adventure:

Tuesday, July 3

We headed out around 9:00 Tuesday morning (Tuesday is our trash day, and we wanted to wait until after the trash and recycling had been picked up; otherwise we might possibly have left a little earlier. But possibly not.) and drove for a couple of hours before stopping for lunch at the Fazoli's in Ft. Oglethorpe, Georgia. (We really miss having a Fazoli's near us, and go to one when we can.)

Our next stop, perhaps predictably for us, was Rock City Gardens:

After spending a few hours there, we hopped back in the car and drove to Kentucky:

(Anna did a lot of the driving at this point; I was in charge of napping and taking pictures of the road.) We drove for several hours, the girls watching "Scooby Doo" in the back seat, and stopped to spend the night at the Comfort Suites in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, about 350 miles from home--a pretty good day's travel, especially for us.

Wednesday, July 4

On Wednesday morning we got up, had breakfast at the hotel, and went to the closest Starbucks we could find to get Elyse a cake pop, as we had promised:

Then we went to John James Audubon State Park in Henderson, a beautiful park with a great history, and a wonderful place to visit for those of us who love birds:

I do realize that none of the above are birds; I was very taken with the building, which was built eighty-something years ago as a WPA project, and spent most of my time taking pictures of it. We did see plenty of birds, but I didn't get any pictures of them. A raccoon family and a baby deer came to visit one of the feeding stations while we were at the viewing area, and I did get some pictures of them; you can kind of make them out in this picture:

(This was not the last time I would wish I had brought my Canon on this trip instead of just relying on my phone's camera.)

We climbed to the top of the museum's tower:

but did not go down these steps:

(Actually, I did go part-way down, but it was a sludgy mess, and it looked like a good hiding place for monsters, so I didn't explore too much.)

We then drove for a few more hours, and spent the night in Hazelwood, Missouri.

Thursday, July 5

Thursday we went to the Saint Louis Zoo in (guess where?) Saint Louis. It's a great zoo, and also, remarkably enough, free.

It also has one of the coolest visitor's centers I've ever seen, with a cafe (which is definitely not free), a gift shop (also not free), a first-floor education center, and, suspended from the ceiling, a shark and giant squid (not real ones, of course):

I took lots of pictures of animals, but most of them, frankly, aren't all that interesting. However, here is a polar bear with a frozen food ball (or something like that), and some penguins:

After a few hours at the zoo, we headed out for the road again, drove for several hours, including through a storm:

stopped for supper at a Denny's (where we were plagued by flies, which pretty much ruined our meal):

and finally stopped to spend the night in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

Friday, July 6

Friday morning we drove for another hour or so through the pleasant, flat land of Iowa, with its wind farms:

crossed over into Minnesota right around noon:

drove for another hour or so through the pleasant, flat land of Minnesota:

and finally arrived in Faribault, Minnesota, to the house of Mary Jo and Denny (who will henceforth be referred to as Gramma and Grandpa). We settled in at their house and had some lunch, and rested for a while.

That afternoon, Anna and the girls went to Molly's house, and they all went to the lake to do whatever it is you do at the lake in Minnesota. At least one of those things is swimming, if the following picture, which Anna texted to me, is anything to go by:

Saturday, July 7

Saturday's big adventure was going to the Minnesota Zoo with Theresa and her kids. Here are some of the pictures I took there:

Jessica set up this picture, and I took advantage of the arrangement to take a picture of my own:

Various members of our party looking at things:

(I call this "Chiaroscuro at the Aquarium")

This is another picture that Jessica set up, and again I swept in and took a picture of my own:

As I've said before, if I didn't post the occasional selfie, I'd barely be represented on this blog. This is me waiting for the bird show. There were a lot of people behind me, but I cropped them all out so it looks like I'm alone in some sort of post-apocalyptic gladiator arena:

A couple of pictures from the bird show:

Jessica taking a picture after the bird show:

This is Anna and Theresa at the playground while the kids played. What struck me about this picture is that, though I doubt they were aware of it, they were sitting in virtually identical positions:

Bears:

Sunday, July 8

Sunday began with a trip to Luke and Courtney's house for brunch. Before and after the pancakes and eggs (which were very good, Courtney!), the girls played with their cousins:

After eating, we went for a walk to the park near their house:

From Luke and Courtney's house, we went to Theresa and Jeb's house on the lake for a family gathering. We were there for around four hours; here are some of the pictures I took:

There are few things Jessica loves as much as playing with (and reading with) her young cousins:

And spending time with cats:

(That's Oliver, by the way.)

Monday, July 9

Monday was our final day in Minnesota. That morning, Anna and the girls went out with Gramma and Grandpa to the camper and I stayed at their house to do some grading (my summer students' research papers were due Sunday). Anna texted these pictures to me:

After lunch we loaded up the car, said our goodbyes, and pointed ourselves towards the south and home. We drove for several hours and a few hundred miles, and spent the night in Mount Pleasant, Iowa.

Tuesday, July 10

Tuesday morning we spent some time watching Animal Planet shows in the hotel:

I'm personally glad we don't watch any of these Animal Planet shows on Hulu back home; since the Crocodile Hunter died, Animal Planet has really gone down hill. But I digress...this was the view from our hotel:

After a while we tore ourselves away from Animal Planet and views of corn fields, and headed out to put some more miles on the car. Somewhere -- I honestly have no idea where -- we passed a burning truck:

(Anna was driving at the time, otherwise I would not have taken this picture.) This wouldn't otherwise be notable, except this was the third time on this trip we passed a vehicle that was or recently had been on fire, which strikes me as a lot of burning vehicles.

We stopped for lunch at a Subway in Chesterfield, Missouri, and then went to Faust Park.

Faust Park has a Historic Village, much like the one at Stone Mountain that Jessica and I like to go to:

 (I took this picture through a window; you can't go inside the buildings.)

I believe this is the Fenton Mercantile. It reminded me of a combination of the Olsens' store in "Little House on the Prairie" and Ike Godsey's store in "The Waltons":

It was too hot to stay there for as long as I would have liked to; soon we were back on the road and traveling through rural Missouri:

The girls kept themselves amused in the backseat:

You can't quite tell in the picture above, but Elyse drew Scooby-Doo on Jessica's arm:

Anna did a lot of the driving, not just on this day but on the entire trip. I snuck this picture of her somewhere in Missouri:

If you look carefully, you can see that she has a box of peanut butter Ritz crackers beside her. That's one of the secrets to surviving a long drive like this.

We drove on for a while after sunset, and after passing through the late-night heavy traffic of Nashville (or it seemed like that to us, both the lateness of the night and the heaviness of the traffic; by then, Anna was grateful I was driving), we finally spent the night in La Vergne, Tennessee.

Wednesday, July 11

Wednesday morning we didn't dawdle too much in the hotel:

Because we wanted to stop at Rock City one more time, and then get home. We made it to Rock City in about two hours and spent about that long there:

Elyse added another cardinal to her ever-growing collection:

The above is the last picture I took on this trip. We were home in time for supper, glad to be back in our own place but a little sorry it was all over.

(For whatever it's worth, this is the longest blog post I've ever created, covering a span of nine days and including seventy-eight pictures!)

Six Flags 2018

Today we took the various free tickets Anna and the girls get as rewards from their schools and went all the way to Austell to get rained on at Six Flags.

Well, actually, our intent was not to go to Six Flags to get rained on, it was to ride rides and have a good time, but getting rained on is how it turn out. The girls did ride one ride and we all had a good time despite the storm.

When we got there, it was cloudy but not all that overcast:

So, thinking we had plenty of time and also being hungry, we immediately ate some lunch (that's a picture of the ceiling, which Jessica and I both thought was interesting; I didn't take any pictures of the actual pizza place):

Then went to Thunder River, the ride the girls like best. They rode it twice, and I rode it zero times:

(They aren't in the picture above, but it gives you an idea of what the ride is like.) 

This is me, waiting for the girls to go by the viewing area:

It's hard to tell, but this is about the time the girls got soaked:

While the girls were riding the second time, the storm came in, and we spent the next hour or so walking in the wind and huddling away from the rain:

Most of the rides were closed down because of the weather; after a while of waiting, we decided it was time for us to leave. The rides did start up again as we were heading for the exit, but it looked to us like another storm was coming in, so we kept going out. I took these pictures of colorful curving attraction tracks as we were leaving:

I call the following two pictures Six Flags Parking Lot After Storm I and Six Flags Parking Lot After Storm II:

(The sky didn't really look this foreboding; my camera app's Dynamic Range Optimization feature made it look that way.)

Callaway Gardens with Elyse and Mommy

Elyse really wanted to go to the beach this summer, but with everything else going on we didn't have time for a proper trip to Florida or Tybee Island. Anna's solution was to take Elyse for a three-day visit to Callaway Gardens, which has a beach, and also a butterfly center, and which is also close to Wild Animal Safari. Perhaps most importantly, Callaway Gardens is only a hundred miles from home, which makes for a great short get-away.

Here are some pictures Anna texted me of their adventures:

Miscellaneous Recent Pictures

Here are several pictures from the past few weeks (except for the first one, which is from January), some of which I took myself, some of which were texted to me:

Jessica, shortly before we moved out of our house in Loganville:

A few pictures from Elyse's Field Day, near the end of second grade at Magill:

Anna texted me this picture from one of their many recent Girl Scout trips:

Anna texted me this picture from Savannah while she and Jessica were there with their Girl Scout troop:

Here's Elyse, eating a cake pop and waiting out a thunderstorm in the cafe at Target, on the weekend that Mommy and Jessica were in Savannah:

The sky over Target after the storm:

Elyse in my bed reading with Tessie:

Me in the part-time instructors' office at Gwinnett Tech on the first day of summer semester:

Jessica set up, took, and edited this picture, and then texted it to me:

We Moved!

This morning at 10:00 we sold our house in Loganville to a charming young couple with two kids, who we believe will enjoy that house as much as we did when we were young(er) and had small children.

Then, for about an hour, we were technically homeless (all our stuff was in two storage units, my parents' garage and spare bedroom, the trunks of our cars, and a 20-foot U-Haul truck--except for the stuff we left in the garage at the old house, which we had to go retrieve tonight), until we bought our new house in Grayson!

Here's our big ol' truck, backed up to the garage and ready to be loaded by the movers we hired:

Here's Elyse, just barely fitting on the stuffed-to-the-gills truck:

(You wouldn't believe how much stuff is in that truck!)

Goodbye, Loganville house!

Hello, Grayson house!

We're far from all moved in, but we have a lot of our stuff here, and we know where the rest of it is. We don't get our Internet connection and phone until next Tuesday, but we will be sleeping here every night from now on, so this is truly home!

(This, by the way, is post number 550 on our blog! That's just a coincidence, but it seems fitting that a post about such a significant event would be connected to such a monumental number.)

Hangin' Around the Storage Unit

Tonight Jessica went with me to take a load of stuff to our storage unit--one of them, that is; we have two that we're using to store a bunch of our stuff as we get ready for our move.

(You can't tell from the pictures, but there's a lot of stuff in there--behind that wall of shelves and boxes that looks like it's at the back, there's another wall of shelves and boxes, containing several hundred books, that you can't even see in these pictures.)