Adios Corn Belt

It was with a heavy heart that I left my parent's house on the 6th of January and headed back to the Northwest. It was a good but all too short visit with my people. I caught the train in Quincy at 6:00am and ended up in Chicago around 11:00am (unfortunately a wee bit late). During my return trip I usually head down to the Art Institute of Chicago and take in their latest exhibit. Because the train got into Chicago late, I felt like I did not really have enough time. Instead I walked around the Loop and down to Lake Michigan to Grant Park. It was a nice day on the way to the lake but on the way back the fog and clouds started rolling in.

The train trip was uneventful. I fell asleep before Minneapolis and woke up in Montana. That is one long ass nap. Oh, and I turned 42 on the train. I now have my first week of the school quarter under my belt. It almost feels like I had no time off at all.

Walter was very excited to see me as were the other 8 dogs that share my home with me. The cats did not give a shit. We are having some extremely cold weather at the moment and I will not be taking Walter outside until it warms up. I probably will not take me outside until it gets warmer. At the moment I am busy trying to keep the pipes from freezing in my 130 year old house. Not an easy task.

These are just some parting shots of Chicago that I took while wandering around. The last picture is of a toilet in Union Station. It has this automatic plastic cover thing and when you push the button, the plastic that was on the seat is pulled over and a clean (presumably) bit is left. It just made me laugh.

Still Stompin' Around

My sister and I took a wee little trip to the St. Louis area overnight to visit my niece, her husband, and three and a half year old son. I now have a new friend. I had a good time playing with Power Rangers and doing puzzles. On the way home we stopped by the Cuivre (pronounced "quiver") River State Park near Troy, Missouri and took a four mile hike around Lake Lincoln. I was quite impressed with the number and lengths of the trails at the park. Though the park is not part of the Ozarks, it appears that way. There are lots of hills and valleys and Ellen and I had fun saying the word "holler" as a geographical term. I would not mind doing some hiking in this park in the fall when the leaves are all changing color. We had Ellen's dog Bandit with us and I really missed Walter while we were hiking. So here are some of our pictures and then one of my visit to my grandparents.

Visiting the Past

SuZann and Kim and I went to our old camp and had a look around at the new construction and stuff. It was kind of sad on one hand that things were changing but at least the area is safe from development for the time being. There are tons of new McMansions going up all over the place in this town, areas that were full of trees when I was a kid. Pretty sad.

At the camp, we followed a new trail that previously did not exist to where it connected up to some other ones that have always been there as long as I can remember. The trails are now these big wide gravel pathways. The cool thing about it is that the entire place is now disability accessable. Except for some of the steep hills, wheelchairs could totally negotiate the trails as well as walkers with big wheels. The old cabin now has an actual functional ramp with big doors and a big deck area on the back. Some of the older cabins are still standing but they are looking in bad shape. I am not sure if they are going to leave them up or not. They even have a huge blue porta-potty that is wheelchair accessable. That is pretty darn cool if you ask me, and it is pretty darn cool even if you don't ask.

So here are some of the random pictures of the place where my friends and I grew up. In is a beautiful place that we all love very much. The pictures of the three of us were pretty fun. In the first one, I did not make it all the way into the pose when the timer went off on the camera. We were laughing so hard!!!!!