We Made It!

Despite waking up in Illinois to 60 mph wind gusts, we made it to West Virginia! Yay! I’d planned to post this last night but just didn’t get it done. Its mostly stormy sky photos, like these two:

Though we did drive through Le Roy which was pretty cute.

There were some cities that I can’t remember now…

And we did pull into the candle outlet because I’ve always wanted to see the giant candle and it was dratini day in Pokemon Go. I managed to catch 4 shinies there, so that was a crazy jackpot because we were literally there 10 minutes if that.

And then there were clouds.

But last, and not least, once we arrived, there was wine.

That’s after we’d drank most of it. But it was amazing.

Anyway, I’m off to bed.

Have an arriving wine kinda day!

Jo 🙂

The Weekend

Just gonna dump some photos on you because I didn’t get the blogs done. First we have some pretty sunset pics I took on the way to Council Bluffs, where Lillie Mae, Mel and Monica’s corgi, got her photo taken for the corgi calendar.

Then the next day we visited the new hot dog place in Hamburg. It was so good. I got my coffee made into a shake with chocolate ice cream and raspberry syrup and OMG. It was amazing. The hot dog was also amazing.

We also went to Sinister Sydney again, this time with Mike and Pam. And Pam screamed a lot, haha! Which made it super fun!

And finally here are the last of the good fall foliage pics

And that’s all for now. We got the yard decorations done, but I’ll do that in a seperate one.

Have a hot dawg kinda day!

Jo 🙂

Burning Trees

Yeah, I got busy, but I have some stuff to blog. Time is short, so this is what you get instead. A neat effect caused by the sun and clouds today as the sun set.

Have a pretty fall kinda day!

Jo 🙂

Autumn Photos Take Two – Blogophilia 16.14

I mentioned the other day that I had some autumn photos from Wednesday, but was having upload issues. Well, got them done, finally, so here you go. I’m using them for my blogphilia blog, because I can!

What is Blogophilia? It’s a fun blog group where participants use weekly prompts to write a blog. This week;s prompts are:

Ecrits Blogophilia Week 16.14 Topic: Harvest Moon

Hard Bonus: Incorporate your favorite song title (Wicked Game)

Easy Bonus: Mention fire

So, the first batch of photos was taken on the way up to Council Bluffs along Highway 34 again. There was some nice colors, but nothing that looked like the trees were on fire or anything.

This is a park in…I forget the town name. But, anyway, every time we go past it the bro makes the same joke about the helicopter taking forever to land.

And then we changed directions and the sun became a nuisance… I mean, it made for some interesting photos, especially the ones where it reminds you of the harvest moon, but…

Not top notch quality, but not bad for a cellphone I reckon.

Got some more done on our Halloween stuff, but this is so long I’ll put it in tomorrow instead. It was a bit of a Wicked Game on WordPress’ part, getting these all uploaded and embedded, but I finally made it. I think I need a glass of wine…

Have an autmny kind of day!

Jo 🙂

Surprise Picnic

Tuesday we got invited to a little picnic at Viking Lake for supper. We had a good time, yummy food, and I got some pretty photos. Can you ask for anything better?

And because I’m not sure what else to do with them, here are some random sunset photos from a few days ago.

Have an autumn picnic kinda day!

Jo 🙂

Autumn

Edit: I’ve been promising autumn pics. They’re finally uploaded so here we go. Now I need to do a blog about the Ren Fair yesterday.

Wednesday we went to Council Bkuffs, like usual, and the trees were starting to look good, so I took a billion photos. Of course I’m sharing them here. Aren’t you lucky?

Pretty, huh? Another week or so and I may do some more because the color should be even more pronounced – or else the leaves will just suddenly drop and they’ll all be dead, lol!

While I’m a photos, here are a few random photos from downtown Council Bluffs. Just some pretty autumn stuff.

And for something totally random, we ate at a new place – The Pizza Counter – ast Wednesday. It was pretty good. I had pasta, of course, but the bro had pizza and said it was good. The staff was super nice, and look at the table cloth! I live those, because it reminds me of Pizza Hut back in the day.

Ok. If all these pics ever finish I’ll publish this.

Have an autumn kinda day!

Jo 🙂

Coming Up Roses

Yesterday was spent visiting with family, so with nothing to really share, I have some fewer photos instead. Sadly, these are not my roses, but they’re my pics, so I get half credit, right?

And here are a few I played with. I pay .99 cents a month for the Lens Distortion editing program so I should use it now and then.

And I leave you now. Have a pretty roses kind of day!

Jo 🙂

From Car Wrecks to Rainbows – a Week in One Post

Yeah, I’ve been busy, and lazy, so you get the whole week at once.

First, my bro hit a deer. He’s ok, but the car is not.

Though one good thing on Sunday, we ended up getting to enjoy the spaghetti dinner from the community building. It was a fund raiser for a family who had a fire. It was very tasty, including some strawberry cake that I kind of wish I had the recipe for.

Another thing we had this week was a lot of rain. So much so that the duckies at Dollar General went out for a swim.

I did get some ice cream made though. Chocolate mint, strawberry, blueberry, maple, and vanilla pineapple.

So far we’ve only had the maple. I just used the normal vanilla recipe and added a teaspoon of maple flavor and a half teaspoon of vanilla. Though I don’t like walnuts, I mixed some in Dad’s.

There was also a mystery bug…

Wednesday we went to our weekly Council Bluffs trip. I found the exact carveable foam pumpkins I’m looking for to make man eating plants – for $25 each!!! I did not buy them. I did, however, enjoy lunch at Great Wall. (Mine was the lemon chicken).

Also saw some neat buildings

And a lot of dust.

Today the exciting thing was the sky. It was supposed to be hot and sunny. Instead we had clouds…

And rain…

And finally rainbows

And now I leave you with a dog snuggling a stuffed duck.

Have a rainbow kinda day!

Jo 🙂

POTA

Yesterday hubby and I spent the day at parks doing POTA – Parks on the Air. It’s a ham radio thing, wherein a ham radio operator sets their radio up on certain parks and makes contacts with other ham radio operators who then get the check that park off their list. The goal is to get all the parks in the state, or the country, or whatever marked off, so to speak. But to do that, people have to go sit in the park and operate the radio.

Anyway, so that’s what we did. Because it was a gorgeous day.

We stopped by Viking Lake first.

Though it’s still August, there’s a definite autumn vibe.

Then we headed for Lake Anita because we’d never been there before.

Truthfully, I’ve never heard of it before, but it is a really nice park. It has campgrounds, a large lake, obviously, and a bunch of shelters.

Weirdly, most of the shelters don’t have a bathroom anywhere near them, and since doing the POTA means we have a lot of equipment set up, we like a bathroom close by so the stuff doesn’t have to be left unattended. Luckily one shelter not only had a bathroom, but an actual flush toilet bathroom with sinks and all! Score! Even better, our shelter had some little feathered friends in it.

There were a lot wild flowers and some very cool trees.

Despite the clouds rolling in, we stayed until basically dark because it was so gorgeous out.

So that was it. We had a lot fun, and it was nice to be outside and not bake to death for a change. And, bonus, we got rain today, so even better.

Have a cool weather kinda day!

Jo 🙂

General Dodge House part 2

Here’s the second half of the Dodge House.Ki

Kitchen

Basement

On to the second floor

Bedroom (I think it was Mrs. Dodges)

Another bedroom. I think maybe General Dodges

The red room

Children’s room

Gold bedroom

Bathroom

Art Nouveau room

Ballroom

Head housekeepers room

And that’s it. There’s another house next door, but I’ll have to do it later.

Have a fancy Victorian house kinda day!

Jo 🙂