Day 4 - Chris Ellis & Lorelle Lindo, Chicago, IL

There is always something to do when planning a wedding. So, on the schedule today for Joe was to get fitted for a tux. He was leaning strongly towards a fedora and zoot suit styled tux, especially when the attendant said he’d throw in a watch and fob. Chris put the kibosh on that. While Joe will not have the fedora and zoot suit, he will look just dandy.

With the wedding invitations completed, addressed and stamped, the Post Office was the next stop. This turned more into a social event as Sandy took this opportunity to compare notes with the Clerk at the Post Office. Did you also know that there is no single international rate? Different countries have different rates and Australia’s rate is considerably higher than most.

Tonight we played Trivial Persuit - a well fought game, with Chris and Lorelle winning. We had a yummie vegetable stir-fry dinner at home.

Day 3 - Chris Ellis & Lorelle Lindo, Chicago, IL

The distance from Jamie’s house in Crystal Lake to Buck Town in Chicago is 45 miles. We will be staying At Chris and Lorelle’s for 4 days, leaving Saturday. There are also a number of other people we are planning to see while in Chicago. Joe grew up in Chicago before he made his home in Iowa. Those Chicago ties still exist. Also, nephew, Rashid Ali lives in Chicago and we’ll be seeing him during this stay as well.

We settled in at Chris and Lorelle's place and visited with Chris for a while before we headed to a Lorelle’s first game in a volleyball tournament. Her team won and the victory celebration was a trip to McFadden’s Sports Bar where we joined the celebration with the team. This also gave us an opportunity to meet a number of people that will be at Chris and Lorelle’s wedding and in the wedding party.

We ended the evening by helping stuff the wedding invitations and do the last minute preparations for mailing them. It’s always great to have a Postmaster in the family, even if retired. The invitations are absolutely beautiful. Chris and Lorelle spent a lot of time on these and it certainly shows

Day 2 - Jamie & Chris Ewing, Chrystal Lake, IL

After our visit with Nathan and Amie, we headed off to our next stop: Jamie and Chris Ewing and their two boys, Owen and Elliott. Jamie was a close high school friend of our son Chris and was frequently at our house. What a delightful family and home he has now. Jamie and Chris met when they were working at Sam Goodys in Iowa City. They've been married nearly 10 years now.

So often kids are shy with strangers, but Owen and Elliott were our new best friends right away. Even their dog Dexter tried to get into the act. Owen gave us a tour of the house - or at least the parts of it that were important to him: his room, his library books, his trains in the basement family room. And through all of this, brother Elliott followed close behind. Owen did show us the room we would be sleeping in also.

Jamie and Chris commute to Chicago everyday, so we waited at the house until their trains arrived, updating our blog and downloading some pictures. Just sitting in their driveway while waiting for them, it was nice to see that this is a very family oriented neighborhood they live in. We had a nice visit over dinner (lasagna, salad, bread and wine), catching up on their life and reminiscing over old times and discussing plans to meet again.

Day 2 - Nathan & Amie Gieseke - Madison, WI

A non-scheduled - but very much welcomed - stop! We had a full day to drive just 220 miles, so when Joy suggested we accompany her to her son's house we jumped at the chance. Nathan was a classmate of our daughter Kate's, and we haven't seen him since he graduated from college about 8 years ago. He has since married Amie, a lovely young woman who went to Central College at the same time he did. Nathan has lived a few places around the United States before coming back to the Midwest, and he and Aime now have a very active one-year old son, Oliver. What a delightful child Oliver is!

We left as Nathan and Amie headed off to the doctor for a check up. It looks like another Gieseke is on the way.

We stayed only long enough for lunch, but it was a very enjoyable visit.

Day 1 - Joy Gieseke, Mineral Point, WI

Arrived at Joy’s around 3 p.m. She was waiting for us at the door. She lives in an apartment overlooking Mineral Point’s downtown main street. Just two doors from where she works as the Executive Director of the city’s Chamber of Commerce. Joy has been here in Mineral Point for 8 years! It just doesn’t seem possible that she’s been gone from Huxley that long. Her apartment is full of natural wood trim, built in bookcases and cabinets and two sky lights. It is a very homey, comfortable place.

We had a wonderful visit – talking about our past lives, our kids, people we know in common, Huxley, our jobs and grandchildren: actual, anticipated and hoped for. We noticed books in every nook and cranny of her beautiful apartment – and she told us the story of how they came to be. Besides the fact that she loves to read, and hasn’t owned a TV in 8 years. She went to an auction, where there were 3 flatbeds of books among all the other household belongings. I guess the woman selling the stuff loved to read also. She bid on books that were auctioned on a cost per book basis. Got those. Then they continued to auction the books. At the end, she bid $1 for 1/3 of a flatbed of books. The auctioneer told her she could have the whole flatbed for $3.00, so she said ok. She conservatively estimates there were 600 books. She had to borrow a friend’s pickup to get them all home. She has since given many away (even gave one to Joe), but still has lots and lots and lots and lots of books.

For supper she fixed homemade bread (recipe to follow), a spinach-artichoke-chicken casserole and salad. Yummie! She said the bread was really really easy to make, a yeast bread that requires NO kneading! So I asked for the recipe and here it is:

Joy’s No Rise Bread (from Sullivan’s Bakery in NYC)
3 cups flour
1½ tsp salt
¼ tsp yeast
1 5/8 c. warm water
Mix flour, salt and yeast. Add water, mixing by hand. Cover w/plastic wrap and let set for 18-20 hours. Stir it down and let it rest for 15 minutes. Fomr into loaf the best you can (use flour if necessary). Use flour to form loaf. Place on a towel covered with flour (NOT terry cloth!!). Use plenty of flour because it’s really sticky. Let rise 2 hours. At 1½ hours, place covered roaster or dutch oven in oven at 450 degrees. Let it warm in there the final ½ hour that dough is resting. Place loaf intopan with corn meal on the bottom. Cover it, Bake ½ hour. Take lid off and bake an additional 5-10 minutes.

Joy is rightfully proud of the work she does – and got Joe’s attention with a map/brochure/website (in the works) that details 30 bike tour routes within a 3 county area in south west Wisconsin. Some of these routes will be quite challenging – and are being considered in Chicago’s bid proposal for the Olympic bike rides for 2016. We have all the information and I’m quite sure that this will be a separate trip in the future. There is also a new theater here in the community that performs all original works. We’re anxious to try this out too.

Day 1 - Thom Mahler - Parkersburg, IA

Our Family and Friends Tour (Part 1) has begun! We left the house at 8:20, later than we had planned, but, duh, we forgot about Daylight Savings Time! LOL! Thanks to Sandy’s mom at 7:21 (“why is she calling us at 6:21??”), we got up and got moving. Fortunately the car was all packed and it didn’t’ take much to finish the last minute stuff – AND change all the clocks!

We stopped at Casey’s, filled up the gas tank, set all the controls to “0”. We also picked up a copy of the Ames Tribune which has a BIG front page picture of the Ballard Girls Basketball team winning the State Tournament. (Kate, we’re bringing it to you!)

It’s a wet, rainy, dreary day. But our spirits are up and we are excited to start this trip. The car is riding smoothly, we’ve got XM Radio and a new Verizon card that allows us to use the internet while driving. We’re slow to get new technology, but we really really love this!

First stop: Visiting our 23 year old nephew Thom (Sandy’s sister Kathy’s son). He lives in Parkersburg Iowa, the town that got wiped out by a tornado last year. An interesting thing about that: he got his first teaching job as Band Director after graduating from Central College and shortly after that the high school was destroyed by a tornado. So he is now teaching in temporary quarters in Aplington while the new school is being built.

We arrived at Thom’s about a ½ hour early – and found out that we weren’t the only ones whose alarms weren’t set for Daylight Savings Time! LOL! His phone didn’t convert over to the new time. He thought we were 1½ hours early! But it didn’t take long for him to whip up breakfast – crab omelets, toast and raspberry tea. And we quickly learned that he has a new roommate. In addition to his pet rat and fish, he now has a tabby kitten named Lilly. Cute little thing! We had a wonderful visit. Thom showed us all the things he’s done with his house and what he plans to do. He’s got a good start on his future.

We’re now on the road headed to visit with Joy Gieske, and old friend from Huxley. She now lives in Mineral Point WI. She has a son that was a class mate of Kate’s, and a daughter that was a class mate of Chris’.

The Day Before - Huxley, IA

It's Saturday, March 7, and we are finalizing getting ready for the trip. Everything we touch has to be finished, for we won't see/deal with it for 5 weeks. Perishable food must be eaten or given away, laundry done, house picked up (nothing worse than coming home to a messy house!), linens fresh, talking to the neighbors to keep an eye on things. Mail has already been stopped and newspaper on temporary hold.

We are really excited to be going. This is a long over due trip that goes back to before we were married even! When our VISTA projects ended in 1971, we took a trip to Florida to visit Joe's mom. We had money in our pocket and all the time in the world (no jobs yet). But we were still back to Iowa two weeks after we left. What were we thinking?? NOW we are taking a longer trip and time wasn't a factor. In making our plans, it worked out to 5 weeks, and that's just fine!

And since we're doing Route 66 in the fall, on our way home we will do Part 2 of our Family and Friends Tour in the Southwest.