You Can't Get Lost

  Today was a quiet day.  My stomach has been off a little for a couple of days and sleeping in and reading and doing some computer work this morning made a lot of sense.  Also, it was raining off and on as it did all afternoon.  I love the sound of rain in the motorhome, for some reason, it makes it seem more cozy, especially at night.  Herm had already eaten lunch when I called him a little after noon, so I picked up a sandwich and went over to the cemetery about 2:00.  I thought it would be a quick trip but it wasn't.   The first stop at Lakeview Cemetery is always at Sally's parents graves, Sigvald and Betty Sykora Solien.  The plot was actually Betty's parent's plot, so they are right there also.  Over the years, I've figured out which tree they are under, so I can walk to theirs pretty quickly.     John and Lizzie were Sally's maternal grandparents and that was the farm on which she grew up.  But I've never found Sig's parents, Sam and Kirsti Moen

 Anddddd, Carolyn made chocolate chip cookies for me this morning, and then gave me jars of homemade pickles, spaghetti sauce, and tomato soup!  This is like Harvest Host in reverse.  Not only do you stay at the house, the hosts give you homemade food!  Far Out! However, also that morning, Darlene called me and said that Ralph had a heart attack and was back at Mayo's.  (Thank Goodness, one of the world's leading medical centers is also the local hospital.  I spent three weeks there in 1961. I had pericarditis, an infection in my pericardium around the heart and it affected my lungs and my liver.  I had 54 penicillin shots in 20 days in my butt.  I felt like a pin cushion.  Butt, its a great place to be when you need it. )  He had an angioplasty in his right descending coronary artery and was doing much better and would probably come home tomorrow.  Wonderful news. Today was another "goal" day.  I was heading to Windom to have lunch with some of my classmates.  Now, l

Hello, I am alive and well, just without internet capabilities.  Yesterday (April 27) was Sally's 72 birthday.  I got several emails and FB messages, thank you.  Erik and Liz and I had a threeway phone call and they both agreed to come to Laramie for our 50th anniversary in June.  Jaye and Jere will be there also, so it will be a wonderful family affair.   Wednesday, I worked on the motorhome in the machinery barn.  Not warm, but much much nicer than out on the wet gravel.  Everything appeared to work, maybe too well, and I have to buy an new inverter, which I've been planning for since last summer.   Thursday, Sat with Ray and Darlene in the morning.  Ralph and Wilma had gone to a funeral at their church, so I waited around.  I walked over to their house to make sure they hadn't come home while we waited, but no.  Finally, 2:00ish I decided I needed to get on.  Hooked up and took off without saying goodbye to Ralph and Wilma. I needed propane.  Love's usually have thei

 Last night when I was telling Ray and Darlene that I would be up bright and early after breakfast about 9:30, they both coughed.  Somehow, I got the feeling that  bright and early for them was closer to 7:30, which is still sleeping in for farmers.  On the other hand, I don't think they see too many nights going to bed at 3:30 and calling that early.  There are lots of reasons why I never would have made it as a farmer, but I guarantee that my farm animals would be the most laid back and well rested animals in the county if not the state.  9:30 milking, no problem..... At the dinner Monday night, I mentioned that I wanted to go to the cemeteries around and do some grave hunting.  Ralph said that he and Wilma would pick me up around 11:00  and we would go to the various churches.  The first church we stopped at was West St. Olaf Lutheran Church.  We went briefly to East St. Olaf but we didn't find anyone from the family.  We ended up after lunch at Evanger Lutheran cemetery.  M

 So, today I got to Luther and the Vesterheim.  I walked around the campus for a while before going into the bookstore.  Always dangerous for me, but the bookshelves were cleared out for the end of spring and beginning of summer semesters.  So I got a couple of sale books and called it good.  I had lunch in the student union (a very good Cuban sandwich) and then walked some more.  I took a number of pictures around, but only a few showed up tonight.  They will probably be here in the morning. Some more pictures came in.  Some views of the  campus and the library,  the student union and Admin building The chapel and the pipe organ.  I love pipe organs.  Hard for me not to take pictures of them.   From there to the Vesterheim Museum.   It is a museum about the Norway to America experience.  The first floor is about life in Norway  Again, some pictures still did not come through from my iphone.  You start out looking at some Bunads from different regions in Norway.   Wedding Bunads from H

It rained last night.  It didn't feel windy, so the drops came down vertically onto the roof and slides.  I love sleeping in the rain, its almost like a massage on my brain.  I sleep so soundly, especially when I'm in my warm bed with the electric mattress pad.  Ahaaaaaaa.....snore...... Today was primarily a travel day, going from Spring Green, WI, passed Taliesin and on to Decorah, IA.  The drive went well, except for the wind.  I was heading due west most of the time, but the windmills indicated that the wind was from the southwest, so not only was I driving into the wind, it was blowing at a 45 degree angle from the front and gusting, trying to push me off the road.  It was white knuckle driving almost the whole way.   I got to the campground about 3:00.  I was hoping that there would be time to go over to the Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum, but it was closing at 4:00 so there wouldn't have been enough time to wander.  I talked to the lady in the park registration

 I drove into Madison, WI and met up with Neal Gruber.  Neal was the first person I met at Freshman Orientation at CU-Boulder in the summer of 1968.  He was Jewish from Franklin Park in Brooklyn and his father owned a children's clothing factory.  He was an Architectural Engineer and I was a Mechanical/Aerospace/Civil Engineer interested in cars.  His first job was with Dames and Moore in New Jersey where I was also located with Moretrench.  He became one of their dredging experts.  I was a groomsman in his wedding in Syracuse, NY in 1973 over Labor Day weekend.  I had gotten some time off at work, so Sally and I took a 2500 mile trip to Cape Britten Isle in Nova Scotia that week.  He has had a highly varied career, I don't think one job ever led seamlessly into the next.  He ended up as a water resources engineer.  In the early 2000s, he came to Wyoming to try to setup a low head hydro-electric plant.  The next time I saw him, he was coming through Laramie with a small catamar

 Taliesin Taliesin is the home that Frank Lloyd Wright built on his family's property.  He started it in 1911 and continued to work on it until his death in 1959.  The house has three conceptual zones, the house proper, the office and the farm (he had some fancy name for it, but I haven't been able to find it).  The house is on 800 acres and Wright's concept was that it should be self sustaining.   The tour begins in the farm section, in what was originally the horse stalls.  This is also a part of the area where the Wright Fellows would make their habitats.  They would each have to make their own space to live. But this gives an impressive entrance into the house.  The entryway is at the end of view. The main entryway.  The entry to the house is on the right, to the office is on the left, behind the person. The original carriage entrance in 1911. The courtyard in front of the office. The Office As you enter the office, the ceiling is low and you feel tight.  This is a them