My day off started with all the right things...fruits, vegetables, sunflowers, carmel rolls and coffee! I went on another biking adventure-this time at the Iowa Great Lakes. In a sort of spur of the moment plan, a friend and I headed to 'the lakes' on Thursday evening so we'd be ready early to try out all the bike trails at Okiboji. We planned to bike from Spirit Lake to Milford (20 m. round trip) in the morning. We fortified ourselves with the carmel rolls and coffee in the morning. It was a wonderfully cool morning and the bike trail up there is great. Lots of other people must have thought the same thing because there were plenty of people out and about-jogging, riding, walking, skating! They've planted wildflowers along the way and we aren't the only ones who enjoyed it-plenty of birds were singing to beat the band. At noon we enjoyed apples and a piece of chocolate, then more biking, some swimming, and a visit with friends. Then to top off the whole day we finished it off with a Bananas Napolean at Minerva's. Wow! It was a sweet sandwich of a day! I'll take a day off like that anytime.

Die Hard and Onstar

Well, this was some excitement-I locked my keys in the car. On the 4th of July no less. I was pondering my fate, and what I was going to do about it when my husband reminded me that we have 'Onstar' in our vehicle. How fun is that! It almost made it worth it to have done such a stupid thing in the first place. And sure enough they unlocked my doors in a swift jiffy. It was really easy and the only pain involved was my initial dismay at discovering the keys inside the locked car. Anyway on to...Die Hard. They have a scene in the new movie where Onstar starts a car after the young man says his father( really Bruce Willis) is having a heart attack, "please please please help him" cry cry sob. That looked pretty easy too, and was pretty funny in the movie. But After using the service, and having to give name, address, phone # pin and the last time I'd run the vehicle, I think the movie got it wrong. Not to mention the fact that the whole country had been shut down because the bad guy had turned off all our computers. How did this kid think Onstar was going to work, too? Oh well. That's the nature of the movies. Too bad we don't keep realize that the fiction of movies is just that... It seems every nation in the world knows what America and Americans are like because they've watched our movies.

Fourth Fun

Happy 4th to all: this weird, middle of the week 4th will bring no fireworks for us, no outdoor grilling, not even a family time. I will get in some shopping and a flying trip to Omaha but with work butting up against both ends of the holiday there won't be much else...including relaxing. Oh well.

Fireworks remembered: at the Pickeral Lake in Wisconsin when I was 14
In Chicago during the summer of 1969
At Ft.Riley Kansas in 1970 setting off forbidden cherry bombs.
Multitudes of fireworks with my brothers setting off bottle rockets
and firecrackers.

Hope you get to enjoy a great firework display this 4th and lots of time with family

Tour de minnesota

I've always thought riding in RAGBRAI would be such fun (the Iowa 400 mile trek from river to river). After this weekend I know I would never survive. (or I would have to do one heck of a lot of training for it!!) We did a biking/camping weekend in a campground on the Sakatah Bike trail near Mankato, Mn. What a beautiful area. What a wonderful campground we were in! But we were in the middle of two small towns and biking either way was going to be a distance. At 10 in the morning it didn't look so bad, but by the end of the day I was wiped out. I peddled slower and slower and slower. It got hotter and hotter. We biked 16 miles. We took a picnic lunch and then were able to explore the small town of Elysian. We checked out their ice cream and the new Elysian Queen was serving. That always helps the taste- it was pretty good. They were having a bean bag throwing contest while we were there and, darn, we were going to miss the 4th of July turtle races. (bring your own turtle) I brought back some great pictures, sore muscles and lots of dirty laundry. i have to say, too, that I love our camper.