Iowanians

On Tuesday I drove to Iowa to spend a couple of nights with the folks.  The drive down was a breeze, zero snow in Iowa so the roads were great the whole way.  5 hours door to door.
As I pulled into the parking lot here, I noticed a woman taking a picture of the sunset, you know me, I whipped out my trusty Pentax and snapped a couple myself.  I am glad I didn't miss it.

The folks have such a nice cozy apartment here and I keep an airbed in the closet so I can camp out on their living room floor.  We had a little happy hour after I arrived and then ate a late supper.

Today I got their cell phone receiving their emails again, and we also made our reservations for our trip to Las Vegas in March.  More to come on that adventure, but at least we have our flights booked and we are excited.

I'm not sure we have many other chores to do here.  I'll set up their answering machine for their landline but that's about it.  

It is a really nice day here, in the 40s and sunny.  The view out their living room window is a nice one, with some huge blue spruce trees.  

It is also interesting how many jet streams a person sees here.  I see so very few in Rice Lake, but just sitting here this morning I have seen at least a dozen out their window.  I suppose it must the the traffic pattern for Des Moines and/or Chicago.

Dad and Ev are about the best recycling people you will ever find.  The apartments here encourage recycling everything...cardboard, plastic, glass, etc.  Ev is meticulous about putting nothing in the garbage that can be recycled.  It is inspirational and they are really doing what they can to save Mother Earth. 

Dad is always a good problem solver.  Most recently, he wanted to make some legs for a table top to put outside their picture window to hold a bird feeder and maybe a flower pot come summer.

He had held onto 2 floor lamps because the metal tubes were strong and he felt like they could be used for something.  Well, sure enough, he was able to use the metal combined with some wood spindles, to make legs for this old table top and it worked perfectly.

Now if the birds would just find the seeds, so far the weather here has been so nice the birds have not had to go far for their food.  I am sure that will change.

I'll probably head home tomorrow afternoon unless we come up with a reason for me to stay until Friday.  The cats are covered either way, so we'll see what develops.