Road trip, Stevens Point here we come

We haven't been on a road trip in quite a while.
We love to visit the surrounding states and just enjoy the time together, and see fun things.
There is always something for each of us.
Ron is good about finding quilt shops for me.
All in all, you never know what you may find.
Ron and Andy love trains.
This locomotive is in Stevens Point, and a landmark of the area.
Trains were important to the economy of this area.

How many times do you see racing pigeons?
They looked pretty big.
Their coop is on the outside of the house and ready for the release.

One of the small towns we drove though must have had a pumpkin festival over the weekend.
There were several huge pumpkins in the park.  Somehow this one was away from the rest of the big ones.
Ron had to stop, so we could watch how they were going to move it back with the rest.
Check out the size.  The forklift actually lifted it enough to put a pallet under it, then the fork was fable
to lift it and take to another truck for hauling away.
Ron was impressed with the shear size of the "pumpkin".

Several of the towns we drove through had murals on the sides of the buildings.
There were pieces of  mirrors in this mosaic.
A lot of the towns were decked out for Halloween, and were setting up for
festivals for the fall season.

We were in cranberry country.  Neither of us had ever seen cranberry bogs and how they are harvested.
What an operation.  Some of it is done by hand, some by machine.
We must have spent a couple of hours watching the process.

It was so interesting.  The plants are in shallow bogs, that they fill with water
for harvesting.  These fellows were using a vacuum  to suck them up, the water is released,
and the cranberry loaded into trucks to go to the processing plant in town.

Ocean Spray must do their commercial from here.
It was so interesting to see the bogs and watch the harvesting.

Love how they float!
Naturally I had to buy some, now to figure how to best use them.
Oh, and if you haven't ever tried it, cranberry wine is pretty good.
Indulged in it too.  Did try a cranberry beer, not as impressed with that.

Babcock is where we got to get up close and personal with the cranberries.
These towns are small, but there is a lot of industry around them.
Plus, the weather was beautiful.
We had hoped to see a bit more color, but I don't think it has been cold enough yet.

Like I said, you just never know what you will run across.
Hope you are having a super week.
We are.
Mary