I like to try new foods… I’m usually very willing.

I write down every recipe…the light ones and the filling.

I buy the right ingredients…no matter what they cost.

Then when I start to make the dish…the recipe is lost.

Did I put it with the others… still waiting to be found?

I know I’ve seen it somewhere… it has to be around.

I look high and low…I search near and far. 

It isn’t in the kitchen. Did I leave it in the car?

Did I write it on an index card? I have to laugh at that.

I usually find it someplace strange… like underneath the cat.

What did I write it on? I wish I had a clue.

It could be written on the back of a bill that’s now past due.

I found a recipe today for a soup I’ll soon be make’n.

Do you know where I can buy a pound of pumpkin bacon?

Please don’t make me move…

Don’t look at me. I hid it last time.

The cat won’t help us, so I’m in her bed.

Don’t worry Kip…I’ve got it covered. No pumpkin bacon soup for us…

Is this stove gas or electric?

She went to the store. It’s Lav’s fault. She told MG she liked bacon donuts.

We’re in high cotton tonight in Georgia, Kentucky. To the Ark tomorrow!

Well, Molly outdid herself. She could outdo me every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Her real Indiana style dinner was scrumptious. I was afraid Kip was going to lick his plate and serve himself dessert. He leaned back in his chair and said, “I can’t remember when I last had a meal like this. It must have been when my mom was still alive.” Kip’s mom was a great cook too, so I wasn’t offended.

The meal was comfort food all the way. Molly served chicken and noodles in a tasty broth over mashed potatoes, with sides of seasoned green beans, cheesy broccoli, and freshly baked dinner rolls with homemade crab apple butter. All that was followed by apple pie alamode.

We enjoyed every bite. Our stomachs have gotten to the point where if they get an inch of room in them, they demand to be filled to the brim again.

Cary, Molly and Kip. (We had dinner in the sunroom of their beautiful home.)

Molly has a sewing room as big as our RV and as I said, their home is beautiful yet comfortable. I have come to the conclusion that she really was robbed of the Betty Crocker Homemaker of Tomorrow award, but what can I say? Those multiple choice questions are tricky.

Earlier, Molly and I got our pedicures. They didn’t have the sparkly orange polish, so I toned it down some. Oh look, I had my Murdo pants on.

This morning Kip and I took Pattie and Sammie to the groomer’s. Cyndie had to stay home with the cat and she was not happy about it! I’m talking about the cat. She likes her alone time.

Molly and Cary met us at the groomers and took us to the Battle Ground Museum where we learned about the Battle of Tippecanoe, which was fought right where they built the museum. William Henry Harrison won the battle with the Indians of Wabash country. It’s a great story.

After seeing the museum Kip and I went back to the RV to walk the dogs. It was such a nice day, we decided to go see the Wabash and Erie Canal near Delphi, which is only a short drive from where we’re parked.

The canal starts here with the Wabash River and goes 486 miles North to Lake Erie where it ties into other canals.

We’ve seen a lot of little old towns on this trip. This replicates the little town built on the canal.

(I like how both of these pictures turned out.)

Tonight, we had dinner with Cary and Molly at Grindstone Charley’s where we consumed another Indiana specialty, grilled pork tenderloin sandwiches.

We have had such a wonderful time with the Clines. They recently sold their business and will be leaving Thursday for a month long vacation. The first stop is Ireland. Retirement is wonderful. They recently purchased an RV as well.

Kip and I will pack up and leave tomorrow. We’ll be headed for Kentucky. We’re excited that we get to see yet another part of the country.

We’ve been having a great time in Lafayette, Indiana. We got here Friday and we’re staying until Wednesday. We love our spot at the Wolf family RV Park. The dogs love it too because we log a lot of steps on the many well kept trails along the Wabash River.

The photos in Saturday’s blog were also taken here.

We ate breakfast at this cafe in the little town of Delphi which is up the road about eight miles.

Our reason for coming to Lafayette was to visit friends Kip met while attending college at the University of Wyoming in Laramie. I met Molly and Cary 36 plus years ago when they came through Casper while on vacation. Although we’ve been in touch off and on, we haven’t seen them again in all those years.

Since we got the RV and began our extended yearly road trips, we have seen family and friends we hadn’t seen in far too many years, and quite possibly might never have seen again.We have great fun exploring this beautiful country of ours and never have to leave the comforts of our own home or the companionship of our fur babies.

Molly and Cary are the kind of people you can immediately feel comfortable with and they’re lots of fun. They have shown us their beautiful city, and we’ve eaten at some great places.

Lafayette is the home of Purdue University.

*************************

The Lafayette Brewing Company was a great place to eat, but my favorite eatery so far is the pizza place we went to for lunch today. The pizza and salads were exceptional and the rooms were decorated with all kinds of antique toys. I can’t remember the name of the place, but I’ll find out for you tomorrow when I go back to get the denim jacket I left there.

Molly is going to fix a traditional Indiana dinner for us tomorrow. It sounds like she’s a wonderful cook, so we’re looking forward to it. They came to our place tonight for a cook-out. In fact they brought the hamburger meat for Kip to grill. I put together some broccoli salad, potato salad, and a wonderful warm peach cobbler served with vanilla bean ice cream. By put together, I mean I bought them all at Walmart and put them together on the table. 

Cyndie and Molly

Cary, Molly and Kip. It was pretty dark. I’ll get some better pics tomorrow.

*****

This brings to mind an irony of sorts. You might remember a blog I wrote last year about the award I won in high school. It catupulted me to new heights and now my name is recognized all over Murdo, SD and Mabank, TX. I don’t think I would be where I am today if I had not been awarded the Miss Betty Crocker Homemaker of Tomorrow pin. (I received the award again post-humorlessly at the reunion last summer. It was given to me by Patti and Judy…the Dykstra sisters. I thought Patti had sacrificed her BCHOT pin, but she later told me she found it on ebay. I lost mine, so either way I was touched. Plus…Judy made me a delightful collage featuring symbols of all the qualities Betty Crocker must have expected the winner of her award to embody.

Well, I don’t want to belabor the point, but sadly, Molly got beat out of the award she thought would surley be hers. It happened fifty years ago, but I can tell she still harbors some resentment. Sorry Molly…that had to hurt.

Molly and Cary recently bought a traveling home. Kip and Cary are taking it to Indianapolis tomorrow to get it fixed (long story). Molly asked me if I wanted to go with her to get a pedicure. Do you think she read my blog about my orange nail polish with sparkles in it? The stuff I spilled on my kitchen floor while painting my toes.

I’m going with Molly and I’ll treat myself to a pedi, but not a mani-pedi. My manis aren’t in good enough shape yet.

Well, it’s late and I must get some rest or I’ll fall asleep tomorrow in the middle of my very first traditional Indiana meal… made by a BCHOT wannabe.

It’s already Friday night again. The days and weeks are flying by, but I don’t like to think about that. I don’t want to believe that we now have more of this road trip behind us than ahead of us.

Have you ever looked forward to something so much that you dread the time it will be over, before it even starts? Am I getting too deep into the weeds here?

***********************

I took every picture in this post just today!

Mother Nature has taught me some things.

Don’t forget to look up…

Don’t forget to look deep inside

You never know when you’re going to run into the past.

Even cats have bad days

God always says good night and good morning.

If you feel like you’re dying, surround yourself with life.

If life becomes a tangled mess, get back on the right road…and get a dog!

This one has me stumped!

If it hasn’t moved in 3 hours, it probably isn’t real.

If you have no idea where you are or where you’re going, and your GPS looks like this, get off the road and reboot!

We moved from Illinois to Indiana and I set foot in another state for the first time…Awesome juice!

44% Chance of Rain Today

We drove into Green Bay this morning. I guess we assumed the weather would not deteriorate, but the temperature dropped, the wind came up, and it rained off and on most of the day.

We had already planned to go out for breakfast. For the most part, with the exception of Walmart, we have tried to avoid chains and go to places unique to the area. 

I googled restaurants near Lambeau Stadium and found Heavenly Cheesecake. It said they served breakfast and lunch as well as desserts, so I hit the directions button on my phone and the lady’s voice said, “You are there.” It turns out we were pretty close. The food was to die for, though I really wouldn’t want to die for food.

These ladies were most likely the Packer’s football player’s wives. I tried to over eavesdrop but I couldn’t hear anything interesting. 

We took a pastry to go…

The dogs never took their eyes off of us. We try to park and sit where they can see us. It’s not like the chipmunk no one could find in the picture last night. They’re all there except the cat.

Next we went to Lambeau Field. Kip looked around inside, while I walked the dogs around the outside.

Kip is sneaking in extra steps…

After checking out the stadium,we drove up the penninsula to Sturgeon Bay. It was fun looking around downtown and seeing the bay area with all the beautiful yahts.

I took all of the photos below on the drive there and back. All were shot through the car window.

            The Barns of Wisconsin

                **************

               Nature takes her turn

                   “See” Worthy

With thoughts of those in Texas, Montana, Wyoming, and Florida.

               What can we do?

Nature’s power is impossible to restrain.

Mortal’s efforts to control are all in vain.

The storm will come no matter what the worldly say or do.

And it will leave when a higher power says it’s through.

Should we fear that which we can’t control?

Or should we search deep within our soul…

And find the truth? The faith we must possess…

To feel the comfort of natures gentleness.

We pray for those who suffer and ask what we can do.

It’s hard to face..to see what those affected must go through.

We find strength in numbers and ways to show our love.

We help the helpless with help from up above…

        ***************

The pictures below speak to me of natures gentleness…

               **************

Tomorrow we head for Illinois. We’ll drive down the coast of Lake Michigan and see Milwaukee, and Chicago…

Today was a travel day so there isn’t a lot to write about until we go into Green Bay tomorrow. We hated to leave Rushford, but after one final walk around town, we finally headed out. I kept busy on the drive trying to find a good RV park. We wanted to be reasonably close to Green Bay, but not right in the city. I finally settled on one just in time as we were about five miles from it. I’m always a little nervous as we pull into the park I’ve chosen, but I’ve only been way off a couple of times. This one is pretty nice and it was about the same price for two nights as we’ve been paying for one night on a pretty regular basis.

Anyway, about tonight. I have received so many compliments on my photography, I thought I would show you some pictures I took today.

 

You might be able to tell that we’re in the RV in this one. In the second picture, we’re still in the RV and we’re entering the town of Houston, MN. You can see the sign on the right of the highway. It says Houston. I didn’t want Kip to put that FMCA sign on the window right in front of my face because it interferes with my pictures. That and the blue anti-glare stuff on the windshield have messed up some mastetpieces.

This was originally supposed to be a photograph of a water tower, but I got distracted by all the cars parked behind each other on the side of the street. It brought back a memory. Cousin Valerie will remember this occassion.

Val’s daughter, Caitlin, Valerie, and I drove from Rapid City to Deadwood to attend a family gathering at our cousin Blake Haverberg’s Martin Mason Hotel in Deadwood. I drove because I know the area really well. I might have been telling a story at the time, but it seemed like the traffic in Deadwood wasn’t moving at all. When I said something about it Caitlin said, ” Um…you pulled up behind a parked car.” Embaaarassing!!

As far as the picture goes, I didn’t get the name of the town, so scratch this water tower.

I blew this one up big so you could see the chipmunk I photographed. He’s in front of the car tire. Isn’t he cute? It’s hard to take a bad picture of a chipmunk.

 

Sometimes you have to just keep snapping before you find what you’re looking for, which in this case was a barn. The third picture is of the same barn after my picture app self corrected me.

Well jeez…I don’t remember taking this one. I must have been looking for something else. What a happy accident!!

This is Kip on our walk tonight. He was bragging because according to his new fitness watch, he already had 11,000 steps in. I acted like it was no big deal. I see him walking around the motor home when he’s supposed to be hooking up the electricity so the animals and I can have air conditioning.

This is my best one of the day. I call it “The Yellow Flower.”

Well, that’s it for tonight. We’re going to pile into the Jeep and head for Green Bay tomorrow. Kip wants to see Rambo Field. I’ll take lots of pictures.

 

The day was sunny and 75 degrees so we decided to spend it exploring the town of Rushford. We had seen a map that showed a trail that led to something called Indian mounds. After looking for a while with no luck, we decided to ask a lady who was jogging along a path by the Rush Creek if she could help us. She didn’t know what or where they were, but she directed us to a trail where a lot of the town folk like to go for walks.

Looking back, I think she must have been upset that we interrupted her vigorous excersize. Some people are so dedicated they wouldn’t take a call from the Queen if she called during their work-out.(smiles)

We’re suckers for a new experience, so we drove to where the lady told us we would find the trail. We found it easily. It began at a cemetary which also should have set off a warning bell. 

The trail looked pretty steep, but we decided to go for it.

I forgot to mention that we brought the dogs. “This should be a lot of fun,” I thought. “I’ll take lots of pictures along the way.”

I don’t know what this building is or was, but I was glad to rest for a minute.

Kip loves to hike now. He and Cyndie are a little ahead of me, but then I have two dogs with me and they’re little. Kip only has one.

“Can you pull on me a little harder Sammie and Pattie? I need some help here!”

What’s the use of marrying an older man if he’s going to take up hiking at this age?

“I’m almost there Kip. I’m photographing a pretty flower!”

That wasn’t so bad, but I already knew my knees were going to hurt going back down.

Look what we saw on the way back. She just stood there and looked at me.I have a video too but I can’t get it to transfer to the blog. It was so awesome watching her.

It was a three doggy poop bag walk. That’s pretty long.

“I’m hungry!”…:”Me too!”

The end of the trail…literally for some. The Oak Grove Cemetary is very serene.

We went to a fun place for lunch. I ordered a chicken pesto panini sandwich and iced tea.

“What am I supposed to do with this?”

Hiking fool or not I’m keeping this guy. He knows how to scope out the good desserts.

I’ll end this with some shots of the beautiful little town of Rushford. We’re heading for Green Bay, Wisconsin tomorrow. 

Can you tell we’re really enjoying this trip? We hope you are too!