Carhenge and a different route to Wyoming…

In the 27 years that Al and I have been married, we’ve made probably 60 trips between Iowa and Wyoming. That adds up to 120 twelve hour drives….. 1,440 hours……. 60 24-hour days of my life has been spent sitting in a car driving between Iowa and Wyoming.

We used to go through Des Moines then take I-80 then up through Scottsbluff.  It’s an ok trip, but I get tired of Interstate driving all the time. Going that way we do get to stop at the cemetery where my dad is in Guernsey, which I enjoy because I don’t get there often.

Since they upped the speed limits, we now usually take Highway 20 all the way. It’s mostly two lane, but 100 miles shorter at only 730 miles. You can make pretty good time, and do the trip in 12 hours or so depending on your stops (and how fast you drive….have had a couple tickets over the years I do have to say).

But Nebraska is boooooring. We have already seen pretty much anything of interest to see across Nebraska along I-80 and Highway 20 over the years, so we just drive to get where we are going.  Then I found a website earlier this summer that made me rethink our trip this year and plan a different route:

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/ 

This is a fun site that lists “Offbeat Tourist Attractions”. As my husband would say, I’m a little offbeat anyway, so this was right up my alley! I searched in Iowa, Nebraska and Wyoming to see if there was anything that we could stop at quickly to break the boredom of the trip.  You can get a map of each state to show the attractions along your route.

We could have stopped to see the Largest Crater in the US, or the Castles of Ida Grove, or maybe the Johnny Carson Display or better yet the Hotel Room Damaged by Michael Landon (seriously?).  We wanted to see the Two Headed Calf at the Gage County Museum in Burwell, NE, but they are only open on Sunday, and wouldn’t return our calls.

So we settled for Carhenge in Alliance, Nebraska.

What? You haven’t been to Carhenge? If you’ve ever driven across Western Nebraska, I know you have seen the signs, but have you been there?

It’s a collection of old junk cars that are setup to look like Stonehenge.  It was built as a memorial to Jim Reinder’s father, who once lived on the property, by 35 family members. It’s now owned by a local group that maintains it. They even have a gift shop where you can buy among other things a flattened penny with an engraving of Carhenge.  If you really really want more information here you go: http://www.carhenge.com/

They even used a Gremlin, like I used to drive.

Just up the road from Carhenge, is a “quaint” little rest stop that is also on the Roadside America website:

It’s pretty corny, but makes for a fun photo!

It’s safe to say that we won’t do this route again. It was almost as many miles as I-80 (820 mi) but took much longer. It was a nice change of pace to see some new country through the sandhills, though. I can check Carhenge off my list of things to see (not that it was on there to begin with, but I can check it off anyway, right?).

I also found another website http://www.roadtripamerica.com that has lots of day/weekend trip ideas around the US. I have one marked in Missouri that I would like to do sometime in the next few months, and will keep it bookmarked to see if there is anything that we should see on any other trips as well.  

Check these sites out on your next road trip. Maybe you will find something new and interesting!

(we did get to see the World’s Largest Popcorn Ball through a window in Sac City, but by that time we were ready to get home and didn’t stop).

Beach Finds 2

Mom and I walk on the beach early most mornings while we are here. We enjoy the beautiful sunrises

Watch the shore birds begin their day

The pelicans fly up the beach every morning.

Every now and then find some fun sand sculptures

And look for sea shells

But yesterday morning we found all of the above and more. There weren’t many shells, and there was more trash than normal, so we started picking it up which we do often. By the time we were done walking, we had picked up 6 grocery bags full of trash. Some of it was from the beach goers that were here this week, other things came in from who knows where.

It’s always interesting to see what we find. We have found shotgun shells, syringes, balloons, hardhats, shoes, large tubs, and anything else you can think of. We found a pair of men’s underwear, a glass jar filled with shrimp, and a big rope (that I called Al to come get) this morning. We found buoys and a condom the other morning.  Last year I found a quart jar filled with white rice that had washed up.

But the thing I hate to see most are the pieces of plastic washed up on the beach that the sea turtles have tried to eat.  The Texas Gulf Coast is home to many types of sea turtles. You can see them swimming along the jettys and canal, and occasionally they are washed up dead or sick on the beach, or can be seen nesting on the sand starting in April.  Several organizations that protect the sea turtles encourage everyone to call if they see one on the beach. 

From what I have read, the reason they try to eat it is because they mistake the floating plastic for jellyfish, which some sea turtles eat. This can often lead to death for the sea turtle.  For more information see this site: www.seaturtles.org

It is very evident when you see the bite marks on everything

They are the diamond shaped holes. Almost any piece of plastic that we pick up has the same holes in it.

One website I found said that as many as 1/3 of dead turtles found washed up on shore had ingested plastic. Many communities have started banning plastic bags for grocery stores which is at least a step in the right direction not just for the turtles, but for everyone’s benefit. I have many re-usable shopping bags that I keep in my purse and use them as much as possible. (in case you are interested I found some great ones at www.baggu.com!)

I’m sure tomorrow when we go out again, we will find even more trash and more plastic with turtle bites.

Pick up your trash people!

Red sky in morning….

It was a beautiful sunrise this morning

Red sky in morning, sailors take warning.

Red sky at night, sailors delight.

We’ve all heard this old saying. But is it true?

Here is a quick link to a weather site that says that this might not just be an old wives tale. It does say that if you have a nice red sky in the morning, that rain may be on the way. And we just happen to have rain in the forecast for today.

http://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/mysteries/weather-sailor.html

While I was looking for this, I found a Wiki that lists all kinds of weather old wives tales:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_lore

That’s your lesson for today!

A little of this...A little of that

I have been slacking lately, so this is just a bit of everything that has happened lately.

1) We were headed up to the campground last night to see some friends and as I was pulling out of the garage, I saw a painted turtle laying eggs right on the edge of the driveway. I'm a bit confused as to why she chose that spot, it had to be pretty hard to dig through the gravel, but she liked it for some reason I guess.

 

It was pretty fascinating to see. We looked up the incubation time and it is between 72-80 days. It would be neat to see them hatch and head back to the pond, and I'm thinking we should put a little fence around the nest. But the big problem is, it's right on the edge of the driveway. I can just imagine that pulling the camper out, it will crush them all. I guess we will see what happens.

2) I was weeding some of the gardens the other evening and I heard a buzzing noise that made me jump. It was a Cicada.

So far this year their noise hasn't been too bad, although some years you can hardly talk over their buzzing noise in the evening.  We put him (it?) on a leaf so that the chickens wouldn't get it and I went back to weeding and I found a hole in the flower bed.

And then I found his old skin:

From what I could find out, this is a periodical cicada that comes out every year as opposed to some that only come out from 3 to 17 years (which is really hard to imagine that a bug can live under the ground for 17 years and come out for just one year to breed). Just thought it was kind of interesting to see the whole thing.

3) IT'S MONDAY! I worked from home today, and I had to move some of Al's things out of the way so that I could get my work stuff out.  I evidentially thought we really needed to spend some more money before the wedding because I dropped a quart of wood stain on the carpet. And of course it didn't just land on it's bottom, the lid came off and the entire can emptied onto the floor of the the porch.

I immediately ran to the kitchen to get some water, because I thought that would at least dilute it somewhat, and grabbed some towels, and called Al in a panic to please come help. Unknown to me though, it was oil based stain which doesn't clean up with water. I tried some carpet cleaner and used towels  to try to at least get some of it up, but none of it worked.  Al said that we could try paint thinner, but it would probably just burn the carpet which wouldn't be any better.  The larger stain is about 2 feet around! There is no way to hide it or fix it, and it's not in a spot where we can just put a rug over it. Damn! I didn't have new carpeting in my summer budget plans.

4) And lastly, just in case you forgot who the park rangers were:

It's definitely spring....

All the apple trees and lilacs are blooming (and of course filling the air with pollen and making those of us with allergies miserable!)

 

The geese in the pond by the house hatched their babies this morning. They were so noisy! Mom and Dad were just honking and honking and chasing everybody else away. They were so proud that they had their babies. I didn't go too close, but I think there are 4 little ones. They will stay in this pond for only a few days, then they will head to the big lake for the rest of the summer.

For some crazy reason the deer are everywhere all day long. This picture was at 5:00 tonight. At noon they were there as well, I just didn't get a picture. It's strange to see them this close to the house this time of day. Several of them look like they are ready to have their fawns, they are all nice and fat. It's cool to be able to sit on the deck and be able to watch them with their fawns in a few weeks. When we first moved to the park (18 years ago!!!!!) you never saw deer this time of year.

But of course with all the nice things of spring, there are always the dandelions! It looks to be a record crop this year, I think.

Hoar Frost

It was so foggy here all week. That's the part of winter in Iowa that I hate. January is so dreary. You don't see the sun forever and spring seem so very far away.  As I headed for Waterloo yesterday morning, I just had to take a drive around the park, though.  It was gorgeous!  Schnack on KWWL said it was "hoar frost".  From Wikipedia: Radiation frost (also called hoar frost or hoarfrost) refers to the white ice crystals, loosely deposited on the ground or exposed objects, that form on cold clear nights when heat losses into the open skies cause objects to become colder than the surrounding air.

Whatever....I just thought it was very pretty. Almost surreal.

This picnic table at the end of one of the jetty's looks very lonely.

 

The campground is patiently waiting for campers to come back. (although I do like this time of year when we have the park all to ourselves and it is so quiet!)

The animals didn't seem to mind the quiet too much. They were just waiting for their breakfast. (Al did you remember to feed today?)

I think this buffalo already found his. He just kept putting his head in the hay and throwing it around with his horns. He was covered with it.

Al is ready as well for something warmer. He has been getting ready for spring and for camping (although if you ask him in the middle of summer, he will say he can't wait for winter until everyone leaves!).  He made this cool tabletop for outside to hold your beer or whatever. And of course, he included the dogs on it!   I'm sure the guy and slogan are copyrighted, but I don't think they are going to care about this copy. I thought it was very cool.

TTFN!

They're back....

I like the fall. It's usually a nice relief from the heat and humidity of the Iowa summers and it just seems slower for some reason. (Maybe that's because the kids are out of the house now and we don't have football or cross-country to deal with anymore). I don't like the winter, and do not look forward to the snow and ice, but fall is nice. Maybe we can just go right into Spring? The thing it HATE about fall are the lady bugs, or more specifically the "Asian Beetles" that we get in our area. For those of you in Iowa that live in town, you kind of get what I'm talking about. For those of you that live out of town, you REALLY know what I'm talking about.

From what I read, they may have been accidentally brought to the US on a ship in the late 1980's. You see them on the first warm day after the first frost. Monday must have been that day. They usually stay in the corn and soybean fields, but now that the farmers are in full harvest, they start flying.   It was very warm and sunny and they decided that our porch and side of the house was the best place to be for the day!  Al called me at work and said they were so bad outside that they were even bothering the dogs (although, to be honest, any bug is going to bother Tai anyway).

There had to be thousands and thousands of them. They were crawling on everything. We spray around the windows, doors and everything twice a year, and it does kill them, but they just keep coming and keep coming.

They don't actually sting, but every now and then when one lands on you, they will bite. And they stink. The whole porch smells. I can't really tell you what it smells like, but it's terrible.  They must taste bad, because even the chickens won't eat them. Every sq. ft. of the porch has at least 15 or more, calculate that by 1,000 sq. ft.! And this is just one porch. When you really get to thinking about that, you can't even count how many there are in the area.

And the worse part is, you vacuum them all up, the next day you just get to do it again.  And the next day and the next day until finally it gets cold enough and they go wherever it is they go!

 

I'm ready for them to leave already!