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

Road Trip!! Heading to Buffalo

We started our annual road trip to Buffalo, New York for the Baker and Winegar family reunions.
Andy had decided to drive along with us.  It was fun, just like the old days when he was little.
At least he did not keep asking if we were there yet!
First stop was to visit with our friends Jane and Hiliary in Lansing, Michigan.
Since we had seen them last, they had bought a new home, not far from their old one.
It was so good to see them and catch up.
It was Jane's birthday that day, so we celebrated and had a great time.

Andy is a dyed in the wool Michigan University fan.
He wanted to take a ride around the campus and get in the grove for football season.
This is Bo Schembechler.  Andy was in his glory.

The maze and blue
Have to say we had a great time in the "M Den" store, picking up a few Christmas presents.

Our goal for that days travel was to Cleveland to spend the night.

Only got one row from Ohio.  Stopped in Mentor, Ohio and picked up this cute fish row.
It is called "Fishy" and was at Quilts & Sew Forth.

You never know what you will see in quilt shop bathrooms.
I love this version of a crazy quilt.
Controlled and the stitching is beautiful.

Love this mini quilt too.  

We did "have" to stop at a brewery to taste the local brews.
Some of these are so good.
You just get a small sampling.
Some are pretty good, some, not so much.

Tried the brews at a second brewery.
This place was interesting as it really had been a train station at one time.
Some are small factories, some take over  great old buildings and rehabilitate them.
You just never know where you may find on.

Have a wonderful day.
Mary

Tuesday of the road trip

Some of the snowy view  from the Starved Rock Lodge in Utica, Illinois.

There is a porch all along the backside of the lodge, overlooking the Illinois River.

According to the weather report we were supposed to get another inch of snow. It was a bit hard to tell.

This is a top view of the visitors center down by the river.  There are all sorts of trails to hike. There are caverns, waterfalls, and lots of wildlife.  There is plenty of forest, and prairie.  I was surprised at how large the area is.  I want to go back and explore more.

There is a great room in the lodge with this inviting fireplace.

This is the lobby.  A lot of the furniture is made from the wood from the forest.

To top it all off, there was eagles.  They have started coming back.  I sighted at least 8 along the river.

We went to the lock and dam that is part of the canal system on the river.  As we arrived this barge was just interring the lock. You can see how low in the canal this one is.

See the eagle flying!

Here are the gates getting ready to close.

The gates are closed.

Now the water is being allowed to fill the canal 

See how much the boat has risen.

It is at the top level, and getting ready to be let out of the canal.

Here are two of the eagles watching the action.

The barge is now going out of the canal.  There were several  other barges waiting to all be hooked together. Each barge that goes through can only be so many feet long.  I think there were 6 that this boat was pushing up the river. It is such a simple method of getting a ship from one level of water to another. I love to watch this procedure.

Then we had to stop by the house being built for the sequel to the Superman movie.  This is going to look just like the house in the current movie. They are supposed to be filming in February.

There I had to see my favorite barn quilt.  It is here in Oswego!

These little road trips we take are so much fun.  We get to go to some awesome places and do fun things.
Have a great day.
Mary

A little overnight trip

On the spur of the moment we decided to do a little overnight trip.  On Monday morning we started our drive to Arthur, Illinois.  Ron says it is about a 130 miles.  We were going to take back roads like we usually do, but we had had snow, and he was concerned that some of them may not be real clean.  We started out by taking route 47 south, to Mahomet where we did pick up an expressway.  This cool barn quilt was not far from the interchange.

Once we got to the Arcola interchange, off we got and headed toward Arthur.  There are a lot of Amish that live in the area.  After we had lunch at Yoder's Kitchen, we went down one of the county roads.  The Amish use draft horses for their farm work.  These beautiful horses were sharing a field with the cows.

Laundry needs to be done.  It was interesting to see it hanging outside.  We are so used to having our dryers and modern conveniences.  

The whole time we were in the area, there was fog.  It gave a strange quality to the day.  This is the country road we went down to get to our next stop.

This place is so neat. They sell all sort of bulk merchandise.  Someone makes the best hard candy that is sold there.  We had to replenish our supply from the last time we were there.  I also got the ingredients to make a pretzel, nut, mix to serve for company.  They have it in small or large quantities.

You can purchase all sorts of great things, pic filling, all the ingredients to bake, or make soup.  There is all sorts of candy, nuts, jello, things needed for making pickles.  I think they are everything! It is so much fun to see what they have.  There is no electricity in the building, lighting is by kerosene lamps.

The whole day was so strange with the fog, The trees looked like they had frost covering them.

We headed north again as we were going to stay in Utica at the Starved Rock Lodge.
On our way we ran across this quilt on a silo.  I did make Ron turn around so I could get pictures.  This was a first.

Don't you just love this quilt.  It was worth the turn around.

Ron is in our room.  The original lodge is going to celebrate it's 75th anniversary.

When Ron made the reservations, he found out that there was going to be trolley ride to see Christmas lights in the surrounding towns.
We had a two hour ride.  The fact that we had all this snow made it so magical.  It is so pretty to see the lights shining through the snow.  After we got back we did run into town to get a bite to eat. Andy had told us about a great little bar in town to have burgers.
We had a super great day. I will update our Tuesday morning in my next post.
Have a great evening!
Mary

Road Trip part 3

Wednesday morning we were up early and on the road. First stop was the quilt shop in Morton, IL.  Let me tell you, it was one of the best I have been to.  The ladies were so friendly and kind.

I was surrounded by fabric and wool creations.  One of the ladies said it was so much fun working there, as they got the chance to play with so many of these great patterns.

They had a full supply of threads, and quilting stencils, wool, towels and specialty fabrics for embroidery.  The quilt patterns and books are fresh from the publishers and fabric the newest from the manufacturers.

The displays are so well thought out.   It was hard to limit my time and money!

We traveled through the countryside to the town of Arthur.  It is an Amish community.  Ron found out about this restaurant, Yoder's Kitchen.  Oh my, the lunch buffet for $8.50 was absolutely delicious.  I ate chicken, Ron honed in on the meatloaf. Everything is fresh cooked, no instant potatoes here! 

This was as close to a barn quilt that I got. It was on the side of a store in the town.  Arthur's slogan is, "Welcome to ARTHUR you're a...stranger only once."
Again we had another beautiful day, a little cooler, but sunny and beautiful blue skies.

Next stop home.  This was the sunset we encountered on our way home.  It was beautiful.  We had such a beautiful two days.  Ron and I do enjoy taking this little trips.  Mom always said you need to explore the area around where you live.  So many people in your own state have no idea of the wonderful hidden treasurers there are.
I hope you did not mind this adventure. Maybe it will give you ideas of places to go in your own area.  We don't spend a lot to do these things, but we sure do have a lot of fun. 

Have a great rest of the week.  Now to get busy on some sewing.
Mary