travel

No, what I mean is, I dropped them in a mud puddle on the way to the computer.  And then the big kids took them away from me.

Ok, what really happened was that while we were in Iowa we had the joy of helping my mother get things done that she needed . . . and I truly just didn’t have time to sit down and write about what we were seeing and where we’d been.   However, as soon as we catch up here I do have lots of photos and a few stories to share, even though they’ll be a bit late.  Thanks for your understanding.

And thanks especially for your enthusiastic response to our annual Trip to Iowa sale – your warm good wishes and abundant orders gladened our hearts no end.  You are truly the best!

Windmills on the Road

When we arrived at the Amtrak Station in Burlington, we were greeted with the scene above. Had we stumbled through time onto the set of a Fellini movie?  (I secretly hoped we had.)  But no, what you see are the arms for giant power-generating windmills, not just any old strange symbolic shapes.  Turns out that about 25 miles down the road in Ft. Madison there is a cutting-edge windmill factory that turns out these windmills sized for, well, for folks way bigger than we are.

To give you a better idea of their scale:

Aren't you glad you don't have to install this?

Amazing, isn’t it?  This train of over 50 arms was bound for parts East where some residents can anticipate cleaner air every time they turn on a light bulb.  It still felt like a Fellini movie to watch them go by, though.

Finally, here’s a parting shot of me and my mom.  Bob would have been in the photo, too, but, well, he was taking it instead.  You can tell it’s him though, because we are both smiling.

Mom and Nancy

It was a great visit, made even better by all the good wishes we received while we were gone.  Thank you all for your kind thoughts, generous spirits and especially your patience in waiting for us to ship your orders!  You’re the best!  Really.

Quick disclaimer:  Unlike last year’s trip, this year we stuck close to my mother’s home, helping her with things, talking and resting.  In other words, I really slacked off in the photography department.  However, we did manage to get out and about a bit, and I found a bit more to share with you.

Big Muddy's

As you can guess by the name, Burlington is not famous for fine dining, but more for friendly atmosphere. Big Muddy’s is the restaurant we always head to to celebrate arrivals and departures and anything else in between. 

What you can see during dinner.

The restaurant is beloved by those who live here, so much so that the community came out in force to help save the restaurant when it was being submerged by the 2008 floods.

Big Muddy's Flood Lines

As you can see, there have been some serious floods here, the last one being serious enough to set everyone back on their heels.  Happily, even with all that water and mud and more, Big Muddy’s and Burlington itself have sprung back even better than before. 

Burlington is also the endpoint for this year’s RAGBRAI (The [Des Moines] Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa).  The tradition is to ride down Snake Alley (see last year’s travel notes), through downtown and then to the Mississippi to dip your tires in it’s water.  Only then are you considered to have finished the ride.

Bicycle Happiness

These bicycles were hung to celebrate the Memorial Day Bike Races and will stay in place until RAGBRAI ends.  Personally, I like them so much I think they should just stay there permanently, but that’s just my opinion.

A few days after visiting the bicycles, we took a short stroll through Crapo Park (that’s cray-po.  Just in case another pronunciation came to mind . . .).  It is a beautiful acres and acres large expanse of just about anything anyone could want a park for: baseball, performances, picnics, playgrounds, bike rides, historical museums, trails, views, and more.    We visited a couple of my favorite spots.

Log Cabin Sign with Hawkeye Revelations

The Log Cabin Museum is one of the several local museums my mother worked to restore and maintain.  I took a photo of this sign because on it is explained that Iowa became “The Hawkeye State” after a character in Fennimore Cooper’s Last of the Mohiccans.  Something I had somehow missed knowing.

Log Cabin Museum

The museum wasn’t open, so we moved on to what is my favorite of all places in Burlington: Black Hawk Springs, just to the right of the Log Cabin.

Black Hawk Springs Trail

You enter at this lovely trail, then moving into a grotto-like ferny woodland . . .

Black Hawk Woods

. . . until you come to Black Hawk’s Cave.

Black Hawk's Cave

It was here that Chief Black Hawk is said to have hidden during the Black Hawk Wars. There is good reason to believe that this really happened.

Black Hawk's Cave

In addition to being a great leader and amazing warrior, Black Hawk must also have had enourmous strength and endurance – as you can see, beautiful though it is, Black Hawk’s Cave would not be a comfortable place to hide.

Afterwards, we sat on a bench placed just right for a fabulous view of the Mississippi.  From there, we watched as three bald eagles soared above the trees on the Illinios side of the river.

Bald Eagles over Mississippi - Really

You don’t see any eagles?  Well, your right that it’s pretty hard, but if you look really close, about 1/3 of the way down and 3/8 of the way from the left margin, that dust spot on your monitor is really a bald eagle.  After nearly dying out, conservation efforts and a lot less pesticides have enabled them to thrive again.  It is now possible to see them every day as they cruise the river looking for food.  If you’d like to get a better look at the bald eagles in Burlington, I found this web site that has some amazing photos: http://adam.smugmug.com/gallery/2513945_VKXav 

This afternoon (Friday, May 29) we get back onto the train and head home.  Our experience coming out was that there was not a reliable enough connection to be able to write more here, so this will probably be it for a few days.  Once home, most of the writing will be in the form of thank you’s on orders we will be busy sending out. 

For now, thanks to all of you for being some of the nicest folks anywhere – we have had so many notes from so many of you wishing us a good trip.  Our trip has indeed been terrific, and your good wishes were a large part of it.

Ruby Canyon Guardians

Ruby Canyon

Ruby Canyon

Old Grand Junction Railroad Station - FOR SALE

 Of course, there’s a bit of work to be done (like completely clear out the interior and start over), but imagine the possibilities: The Little Yarn Store on the Right Side of the Tracks, for instance.

When our noses weren’t pressed against the window, we discovered an old friend from last year was the caretaker of our car again.

Al on his last trip

This is Al – someone who is a kind soul always genuinely wanting to be helpful.  We met him again on his last trip with Amtrak – he’s worked for 34 years and retired right after the Zephyr reached Chicago.  He told me, “the Lord made it possible for me to do this and now I’m going to follow my destiny.”  We wish him a beautiful life and are glad to have seen him one last time.

Then, we crossed the Continental Divide by going under it through the Moffat Tunnel.

Moffat Tunnel

In this shot you can see the Moffat Tunnel to the far right, about midway down the photo.  Our train is about to enter all 6.2 miles of it.  The tunnel is so long that it takes 10 full minutes to travel from one end to the other, and while you’re doing this, you move from the Colorado River watershed to the Fraser River watershed – suddenly everything tilts toward the Mississippi, and it’s downhill all the way to Iowa.

Fraser River

This is actually sort of a river-lake created in part of the Fraser River by a dam a bit downstream.  The rest of the Fraser keeps on flowing.

There was still a lot of magnificent country to see ~

Fraser Rapids

Rocky Sunset

Eventually, our eyes and minds being filled with beauty of grand proportions, we fell asleep in Colorado and travelled a bumpy ride through Nebraskan darkness (don’t get me started about the condition of the rail beds in Nebraska).

And then, we awoke in Iowa!

Iowa Daybreak

There is a different kind of majesty here, one that moves my heart almost musically. To me, Iowa holds a landscape that is life itself.  I just love it.  In many ways, everywhere else, I’m just a tourist.

Our sweet dreams didn’t last very long – our train pulled into Sacramento a little ahead of schedule at 6:15am.  Somewhat bleary-eyed, we found our way into the station where we were met by one of our best friends, Kim Hofer, who is the sort of good friend who doesn’t mind losing sleep if means she can get together with her buddies.

Kim Hofer

After a breakfast that doesn’t bear close scrutiny, we repaired to her car where we could talk and knit.  Kim is knitting, what else?, a Kim. In fact, this is her first real live knitting project ever.  She is seen here learning how to do a provisional cast-on which she mastered handily, with only a few bumps in the road.

We love Kim because she is one of the most upright, straightforward, funny and loving people we’ve ever met.  And because she’s the sort of lady who puts bumper stickers like this one on her car:

Perhaps the best advice we've heard so far . . .

Getting to see Kim was the best way we’ve ever spent a travel layover.

We must be getting old because once we got back on the train that would carry us eastward to Iowa, we basically napped all the way through the Sierras.  Hard to believe, but true.  I’m sure they were as beautiful as last year and I trust that they will be there next year when I’m also trusting that we’ll be less tired.

We awoke in time to say hello and farewell to Nevada’s silver-laden desert, which this year was sunny and dry.

Nevada Farewell

Thursday (May 21) was the beginning of our annual trip back to Iowa. As always, we were very excited to be able not only to visit my mother, but also to have the fun of another Great Train Ride Across the Plains (and over 4 different mountain ranges and so many rivers that I have already lost count).

The journey of 3000 (or so) miles begins with a single train station

Bob amused himself by admiring the freight trains in the yard, and enjoying one of the nicest sunny days we’ve had so far this year.

Bob, Train Watching

I filled my time by admiring what I call “Amtrak Art.”

Bike Racks

This is not the stuff great civilizations are made of, but it is a vast improvement over most of the graffiti on the freight cars. I especially like the bicycle racks that look like bikes – charms me no end.

Then, we were off, travelling through the beautiful pastoral surroundings of our Oregon home.

Where sheep may safely graze

Our part of the universe is home to some of the most diverse and wonderful sheep – grown both for fiber and for food. Those blurry dots in the photo are all sheep – with many, many lambs gambolling about. Unfortunately, by the time I got my camera ready, we had moved almost past them. They were a wonderful sight, though, and I said thank you to them as we went by.

Oregon Farm

Ever since moving here, Bob and I have seen Oregon as the Iowa of the West Coast. This farm is typical of the Willamette Valley, and very reminiscent of the place I call home.

We weren’t long in the valley, though. We quickly left the flatlands behind and moved up into what are some of the most beautiful mountains anywhere: The Cascade range.

The Cascades from our window

Once again we felt very grateful to the old Southern Pacific Railroad for gifting all of us with the opportunity to see this wonderful part of our planet from a vantage point that would be extremely difficult to get to otherwise.

Lake high in the Cascades - we are still looking for its name

Scenery is not all that we love about train travel. When the sun goes down, there are new friends to meet.

Julia Choi

This lovely young woman is Julia Choi, an architect who also teaches others to become architects. We discovered in talking to her that she has amazingly artistic sensibilities – we talked of how one might approach creating buildings at a site that was one of great conflict historically. Her responses were simply gifted, and very sensitive to the nuances that place and history offer. As we talked, it came out that she is a graduated of the Garden City Waldorf School. So then we talked about education and music and so very much more. Julia was the highlight of our first day’s travels.

And off to bed we went, with smiling thoughts of mountains and lakes and a world filled with amazing people sending us into the land of dreams.

The Amtrak Station at Albany, Oregon

Once again, we are on our way back to Iowa to visit Nancy’s mother.  Because we know this will cause delays in shipping your orders, we are happy to offer you a discount as a thank-you for your patience while we rest and reconnect.  We will take 10% off all orders placed from this afternoon (May 21, Thursday) through June 1 (Monday – also Memorial Day in the US).  Orders placed during that time will ship between June 2 and June 5 - with our gratitude to all of you for allowing us this time off.

Downtown Burlington, Iowa

Although we are taking the same route to the same place as last year, it will, of course, be a different trip.  We are very excited to discover and rediscover what has changed, what surprises are in store for us, and especially we are excited to see my mother again.

Photo copyright The Burlington Hawkeye.  Used with respect and support.
My mother is the woman in blue, shown packing first aid/gift packages for an orphanage.

My mother, Helen Parsons, is one of the finest people I’ve ever known.  It is a gift being her daughter.  I have to share with you that she was recently nominated for the first-ever Burlington Lifetime Volunteer Achievement Award, in recognition of her more than 30 years’ volunteer service, mostly on behalf of the Des Moines County Historical Society.  It warmed me all over that others recognized her goodness in that way.

As with last year’s trip, we’ll stay in touch as we go and share what we find interesting.

And again, thanks to all of you for your patience and the goodwill you’ve shown us over the years.

It has indeed been awhile since I posted anything here.  It’s been a very busy past couple of weeks.  First, we made a quick weekend visit to the Bay Area where we saw 3 of our children and their spouses.  Lovely! 

While we were there, we also attended the 25th Anniversary Celebration for the Waldorf School of the Penninsula in Los Altos, a school that we worked with closely “back in the day” and that lives brightly in our hearts.  It was a glorious day of seeing old friends, making new ones and watching with joy as class after class of students performed with grace and beauty for the friends and families of the school.  I had intended to take photos to share with you, but found myself feeling too moved by it all to be able to “step back” for picture taking.  I hope you all understand.

And now, we’re both back in the saddle, riding happily along and focussed once again on yarn and knitting.  Thanks for your understanding!