Yes, Bismarck provided so much fun for Ted and me, I have to tell the story in three parts!

Following the North Dakota Heritage Museum and the State Capitol, Ted and I thought a river cruise would give us a chance to rest our feet.  We bought tickets for a two-hour cruise on the Missouri River.  (Where Lewis and Clark sailed.)  We were right:  the weather was beautiful, the crowd was in a good mood, and cruising up and down a pretty stretch of river was very relaxing.

Here’s our boat.  Gotta love the fake paddle wheel on the side.  The cruise was (surprisingly, to us) sold out.

Here’s the crowd on the lower (but open) deck.

The girl sitting across from us had glitzy shoes.

Two North Dakotans relaxing on the river in their kayaks.

Who doesn’t want a boat with a slide that lets you splash into the river?

We’re having so much fun on this vacation.  (And we’re getting better at selfies.)

We had a wonderful time in Bismarck and finished the day with a delicious dinner at Mackenzie’s.

It was going on 9:00, so most people were finished eating.  The patio seating was tempting, but the air was cooling rapidly after the late northern sunset.

The Dakotas apparently consider themselves to be Western, and the restaurant decor supports that concept.

More Midwestern adventures are coming tomorrow, I’m sure.

Fortified by our shared scotcheroo at the Heritage Museum, Ted and I crossed the street from the museum to the State Capitol.  This is one of four State Capitols that does not have a dome.  Can you name the other three?  The answer is at the end of this post.

Look, Ma–no dome!  The building houses all state offices and the state supreme court. Dome-free capitols provide a far more efficient use of space than domed buildings.  In my opinion, it’s not that North Dakota is short of space–it’s that Scandinavians tend to be frugal.

We were in time for the guided tour.  Our guide was passionate about architecture and made the tour very interesting.

The Capitol elevator doors (four sets) present a pictorial history of North Dakota.

Not much was being done in either house of the legislature; their work for 2017 is long finished.  ND’s legislature meets biennially–and efficiently–in odd years.

The Monkey Room in the Capitol is named for the appearance of its California walnut wall panels.  The California walnut tree is now listed as seriously endangered, so it is very rare. What do you see in this section of the wood?  (My apologies for the reflection–the wood was highly varnished.)

The tour took us to the top floor and this view of the front grounds.  An outdoor deck circles the top floor and used to be open to the public.  Sometimes kids would throw snowballs from the top.  When someone spoiled the fun and changed to dropping rocks, the deck was closed.

Here’s another view from the top floor.  The building with the white tower (right center) is the Catholic church we saw from Fort Lincoln.  The haze in the sky is from the Montana wildfires.  The Missouri River flows through Bismarck.  Lewis and Clark were here.

The ground floor of the Capitol has a North Dakota hall of fame.  It’s a given that Lawrence Welk is included.  My dad used to say, “People laugh at Lawrence, and Lawrence laughs all the way to the bank.”

This picture is in memory of Ted’s dad, who I think owned and read every book written by Louis L’Amour, a North Dakota native.

Could you name the dome-free State Capitols?  They are:  Bismarck, ND; Lincoln, NE; Baton Rouge, LA; and Tallahassee, FL.

Unlike South Dakota’s capital city which is spelled Pierre and pronounced Peer, North Dakota’s capital city is spelled Bismarck and is pronounced Bismarck.  What a sensible state North Dakota is!

We started the day with a visit to the North Dakota Heritage Center and State Museum, the state’s official history museum.  According to the publicity, it has been called the “Smithsonian of the plains.”  We spent three very enjoyable hours in the building, looking and learning.

This is the front entrance to the museum.  It’s called the Northern Lights room.

It took us awhile to figure out where the quiet talking originated.  Speakers above the displays (arrow) are activated when visitors stand beneath them. The sound is loud enough to be heard at the exhibit and quiet enough not to disturb those listening at the next speaker.

This is a bull boat.  It’s made of willow branches and covered with buffalo hides.  The hair on the hides keeps the boat from spinning.  It’s about 4 feet in diameter and weighs about 30 pounds.

My sewing and hand-working skills always make me marvel at beautiful beadwork like this.

The museum wasn’t crowded, and there were no kids in line (they were presumably in school), so Ted and I played with the magnetic tiles and designed a quilt square and a pipe bag.  I bet you can guess which of us made each of these.

This was my favorite display.  The pictures below are three of the stories I found especially interesting in this display.

Before leaving the museum, we stopped at the snack bar.  Lo, and behold!  They had scotcheroos here too!  We shared one large scotcheroo.

The Standing Rock Native American Scenic Byway ends at Mandan, ND near Fort Lincoln, so we planned a visit to Abraham Lincoln State Park.  The park includes the Fort Lincoln historic site.  Within the park, there is a grave marker for Sitting Bull, but we knew he is really buried near Mobridge, SD, so we didn’t seek out the marker.  We took a guided tour of Custer’s house (yes, that Custer).  Lt. Col. George A. Custer arrived at Fort Lincoln in the fall of 1873 as the leader of six companies of the 7th Cavalry.

Custer’s house was very nice and homey.  That’s Ted and the tour guide on the porch.  We were the only two people on this very personal tour.

The parlor (foreground) is just to the left of the front door and opens into the dining room (the bow window in the above picture) and then into the kitchen.

One of the guest bedrooms.  There were several guest rooms and bathrooms for the Custers’ visitors to the frontier.

After the house tour, we had just enough time to scurry across the fort grounds to the Mandan On-A-Slant Village for a tour of that area.  It is called On-A-Slant because it is located on a slope beside the Missouri River.  The historically indigenous Mandan people of the area built this village, which existed as early as 1575.  The Mandan tribe was not nomadic, so they built large, permanent earth lodge homes.  The nearby city of Mandan, ND is named for this tribe and is populated by present-day Mandans.

Some of the Mandan earth homes in the village.  Multi-generational families lived in these roomy homes.   Fifteen people in a dwelling was not unusual.

One of the beds that circled the interior of the home.  The elderly and the sick slept on these beds; others slept on the floor.

The fire was in the center of the home.  An opening in the roof allowed smoke to leave the building.  The doorway (dark space on the left) made two turns before entering this room, helping to keep the cold or hot weather outside.

After the tours, we walked around the fort grounds.  The fort sits on a hill, so the views are wonderful.  This was good for defense in the 1800s; now it provides beautiful vistas for tourists.

This was one of the soldiers’ barracks.  The commanding officer had a separate room of his own at the far end of this room.

The Missouri River borders the fort on the east.  (Naturally, Lewis and Clark were here.)

This is one of the lookout towers.  Of course, we climbed the stairs/ladders to the top to enjoy the views.

Here’s a view of Bismarck (22 miles away) from near the lookout tower.  The tallest building (right center) is the state capitol.  The building with the narrow white tower in front of the capitol is a Catholic church.

We’re nearly 20 miles into North Dakota.  Woo-ee!  We need to go deeper into this previously unexplored (by us) state, so we left Fort Lincoln and headed for Bismarck.

While we were planning today’s activities, Ted and I learned last evening that our motel is within minutes of Sitting Bull’s grave.  We decided to visit the site.  It’s about two miles outside of Mobridge, SD on the Standing Rock Reservation.

Sitting Bull was shot by a Standing Rock policeman in 1890 near Fort Yates, ND and was buried at the Fort.  In 1953, his Lakota family exhumed what were believed to be his remains and buried them at his birthplace near Mobridge.  Fort Yates has a grave marker for Sitting Bull, but he is actually buried in the Mobridge area.

This is the monument at Sitting Bull’s gravesite.  People still leave things at the monument.

This is Sitting Bull’s monument from behind, showing how it overlooks the Missouri River.

Sakakawea is buried in Wyoming, where she died, but there is a monument to her near Sitting Bull’s grave.  We were quickly informed by local people that her name is properly Sakakawea, not Sacajawea, as we learned in school.  Sa-ka’-ka-way’-ah is said to be a more accurate pronunciation of her name.  She is recognized as the most remarkable Native American woman in history.

This is the monument to Sakakawea.

From Mobridge, we headed for Fort Yates to see the Standing Rock monument.  On the way, an exciting thing happened:  We entered North Dakota, one of three states we haven’t visited.

We made it!

It looks a lot like South Dakota.

After taking a moment to appreciate our arrival in North Dakota, we continued on our way to Fort Yates and Standing Rock.  We expected Standing Rock to be a tall pillar of rock standing on the bank of the Missouri River.  What we found was a large rock, mounted on a deteriorating structure in a parking lot.  Stories about the rock say it is a mother and an infant who were turned to stone.  The rock is held sacred by the Dakota/Lakota people.

From a certain angle (this one?) Standing Rock is supposed to show a likeness of the mother and infant who were turned to stone.

Fort Yates is a very small town (about as big as Hingham was when I was a child).  It is located on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation and is populated by Native Americans.  We stopped for lunch at a restaurant called The Rock and were the only white people–and probably the only non-residents–eating there.  The food was very good and the people were very friendly.

Here’s the dining room of the restaurant.  Only the far right corner table is not in the picture.

There was a sign on the wall with Sioux words on it.  I asked the manager what it meant.

This is pronounced “m-nee’ wee-chon’-ni” and means “water is life.”

After lunch, Ted and I started our journey down the Standing Rock Native American Scenic Byway on our way to Mandan, where the byway ends.

My online research for things to do in Pierre, SD included the information that the name of the city is pronounced “Peer.”  When we stopped for gas in “Peer,” I asked the station owner, a native of Pierre, if this is true.  He told me the first time he ever heard the city called “Pee-air” was on an episode of Cheers and “that just sounded weird!”

State Capitol.  The big attraction in Pierre is, of course, the State Capitol, so that’s where we headed.

It looks similar (domed) to 46 other State Capitol buildings.  Do you know where the four undomed State Capitols are?

We were surprised to find no security for entering the building.  Zilch!  We just walked in and walked around to our hearts’ content.  Like all State Capitols, it’s a beautiful building.

Legislators have it pretty good in South Dakota.  They convene each year on the second Tuesday of January and meet for 35 working days in even-numbered years and for 40 working days in odd-numbered years.  In recent years, they have completed their work in 38 days each year.

The 38 working days for this year are over, so the houses are empty until next January.

Soldiers’ memorial.    On the Pierre State Capitol grounds, there is a memorial to fallen soldiers of all six branches of service (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, and Merchant Marine).  The fountain in the memorial is fed by the natural artesian lake behind it.  The water is 92 degrees, so it never freezes in the lake or in the fountain.  The warm water is also used to heat the Capitol.  The water in the fountain used to bring natural gas to the surface, causing the water to burn constantly and making this a “flaming fountain,” but now it’s just water, no fire.  (There are old videos of the flaming fountain on YouTube.)

That’s the artesian lake in the picture.  The soldiers are life-sized and, from a distance, we thought they were live people until we noticed they never moved.  The former flaming fountain is in the foreground.

From the lake end of the memorial, you can see the cascading water flowing from the fountain toward the lake.

Before leaving the city, we went to LaFlamboise Island for a pretty view of Pierre.  The island is in the Missouri River and includes a park and a boat launch.  Lewis and Clark were here.

Here’s Ted, admiring Pierre.

Oahe Dam.  When Oahe (oh-ah’-hee) Dam was built on the Missouri River just north of Pierre in 1948, it was the largest rolled-earth dam in the world.  The reservoir behind the dam–Lake Oahe–is one of the longest man-made lakes in the world.  It’s 231 miles long and goes from one state capital to another:  from Pierre, SD to Bismarck, ND.

Oahe is a either a Nakota or a Dakota (no one knows for sure) word meaning “a firm place to stand.”  A good, solid name for a dam.

The sign affirms we were in the right place to see the dam.

Seven intake ducts in Lake Oahe direct water under the earthen dam.

Seven tailraces release the water from the intake ducts downstream into the river.  The tailraces are less visible than at some other dams because the water reaches them by passing under the earthen dam.

A portion of Lake Oahe.

This mission building was a church and a school. It would have been flooded by Lake Oahe, but money was raised to move it and save it for its historical value.

Pierre was fun to visit.  Now we have to remember to always pronounce it “Peer.”

Flat.  That describes what we’ve seen of South Dakota so far.  It makes Illinois look like a beginner in terms of flat.  I’ve never seen the horizon so far away in every direction.  A 360-degree turn presents a lot of sky all the way around.

Sunflowers and corn are everywhere.

South Dakota is truly a breadbasket.  In one area, I lost count of how many farms had 20-30 huge silos.  The smaller farms had 6-8 smaller silos.

Smaller breadbasket silos.

Our morning drive westward on I-90 presented almost as many Al’s Oasis signs as Wall Drug signs.  Since we were passing Al’s Oasis, we decided to take a break to visit this attraction.  It is obviously a “destination,” since a tour bus arrived at the same time we did.  The picture below shows about half of the Oasis, which is a long strip of stores.  They are all connected by a single indoor hallway for easy access.

The sign and the arrow told us this is the place.

Part of the throughway between Al’s stores.

Lunchtime arrived and the pickings were slim in this rural state.  We chose Pizza Ranch.  It turned out to be similar to Pizza Hut, but with a Western theme and with an extremely friendly and accommodating staff.

Pizza Ranch is a chain, but we didn’t learn that until we saw more of them.

A ranch requires Western decor.  It’s hard to see, but the buffet sign has a picture of a rodeo rider on a bucking bronco.

We spent our afternoon in Pierre (separate post) and ended today’s drive in Mobridge, SD, a very small town on the bank of the Missouri River.  Mobridge attracts fishermen and hunters.  The pheasant is not only the state bird of SD, it is the most popular for hunting and supports the SD economy with hunters from all over in the fall. Our motel room included some rags and the information that no game should be cleaned in our room.  Thank heavens!

We ended our drive with dinner in Mobridge, SD and shared the dining room with Imo, an 11-year-old Pacu fish.  He’s related to the piranha, but his vegetarian diet keeps him calm.

Ted and I spent a night in Mitchell, SD, so visiting the kitschy Corn Palace was a given.  What luck!  We were in time for the city celebration of the newly redecorated Corn Palace.

I didn’t know what to expect, but I found out the Corn Palace is a venue for concerts and other community events.  Every year, the Corn Palace is redecorated with a different theme, using yellow, red, blue, calico, and other colors of corn, plus bundles of oats, flax, and sour dockweed, all held together with over 200,000 nails.  Previous decoration themes included South Dakota industries, Indian ceremonies and games, the Space Age, and Mother Goose rhymes.  This year’s theme is rock and roll legends.

The Corn Palace facade.

A close-up of Willie Nelson to show the decorating detail.

A partial view of the decorated south side of the Corn Palace.

The King made the Corn Palace!

Corn cob-themed pillars in the lobby.

Huey Lewis was playing a concert in the Corn Palace.  Huey is original, but the “News-boys” are younger replacements.  The sound was still good.

Main Street in front of the Corn Palace hosted a five-day street festival to celebrate the new Palace decorations.

I wonder how many people know that there is a sculpture park in Montrose, SD just south of I-90.  Well, according to the guest book, at least a dozen people a day know about the Porter Sculpture Park.  There are more than fifty sculptures in the park, all made of scrap metal.  Some are low (three or four feet tall), but most are at least ten feet tall.  Interspersed with the definitely kitschy sculptures are poems composed by the artist-in-residence, who apparently spends his day sitting in a toolshed on the property while pondering new sculptures and poems.  The entire metal array is arranged in a field (watch out for dried cow pies and jumping grasshoppers).  The poems are actually pretty good and provide philosophical insights about the individual sculptures.

Yellow stick man greeted us as we entered the park.

A blue snake.  With a wing?

Sledding girl going down an apparently very steep hill.

Dancers looking carefree as they dance around an odd animal (a giant seated grasshopper?) in the field.

Plants that bloom fish instead of flowers.

A hammer pulling a nail (see the nail in the claw).

A fly holding a fly swatter.

Titled “Magic Dragon.”  (Puff?)  The artist told us people like to get engaged under the dragon.  Why?

Oversized flowers in an oversized pot standing on the SD prairie.

“The Scream”?  This one must be the birds’ favorite.  Check out the white streaks.

Little Miss Muffet and the spider that frightened her.

This bull is over 60 feet tall and is the signature piece.  It’s the single piece that can be seen from I-90 to tempt visitors.

This was my favorite, but the sharp object (a thorn?) stabbing the palm of the hand is a little off-putting.

Vermillion, SD is the home of the National Music Museum.  The New York Times described it as “one of the largest and most important collections of historical instruments in the world, whose galleries teem with masterpieces.”  We saw countless beautiful and unique musical instruments, narrowed down to a very few pictures below of the ones we enjoyed the most.

If you have a broken leg, but need to make music.

A nickelodeon with stained glass panels.

Decorated pipes on a pipe organ.

A guitar neck with historic Parisian scenes between the frets.

Eddie Peabody’s lavishly decorated banjo.

The trumpet specially designed for the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” movie.

And finally, . . .

It’s South Dakota.  A music collection wouldn’t be complete without Lawrence Welk and Myron Floren.

Vermilion (less commonly vermillion)–A vivid reddish-orange color; a brilliant red or scarlet pigment.

–Merriam Webster/Wikipedia

Vermillion, SD, in the southeastern tip of the state, is a charming small town, and home to the main campus of the University of South Dakota.  The city has embraced its name.  The red/vermilion theme begins with the welcome sign which spells the city’s name in large, red letters.  Everywhere we looked, we saw red.

Red flowers are abundant, often accompanied by white flowers for contrast.

All the park benches and public trash cans are red, not to mention the USD flags around the campus.

There are red bike racks everywhere (there’s not a hill in the city).  This one included red bikes.

USD’s school colors are red and black.  The mascot is the scarlet tanager.  (Go figure!)

Another beautiful feature of Vermillion is its architecture, in private residences and on the USD campus.

This is one of the campus buildings.

This building on the campus looked like a dormitory.  What a gorgeous place to live!

Speaking of red, South Dakota must be set on a layer of rose quartz.  There is plenty of rose quartz to use for buildings, stone benches, etc.  It’s not truly red/vermilion, but it’s a derivative of the city’s theme color.

Townspeople call this the “main building” on the campus. It is built of rose quartz.

Here’s a rose quartz bench on the USD campus.

Rose quartz is so plentiful, there is even enough to use it for road surfaces.  We saw rose-tinted blacktop, rose-colored interstate ramps, rosy highway shoulders, and even rosy roads as we traveled through the state.

These are some of the interesting things Ted and I saw and did on our MAT today.

We had Sunday brunch at Hy-Vee.  There are no Hy-Vee grocery stores in St. Louis, but I have heard from Kathy and from another friend of mine that people flock to Hy-Vee for the Sunday morning brunch.  Our hotel in Vermillion, SD was next door to a Hy-Vee store, so we walked over and asked a store employee about the brunch.  We learned that you can either have brunch ($8.99) or order from the menu (the deli is right beside the dining room).  Brunch is served from 6:00 am until 1:00 pm, but the best time to come is before 10:00 am.  The woman told us that the Christians come after church at 10:00, the Catholics come at 11:00, and the Lutherans come at 12:00.  The brunch was wonderful!  There were pancakes, waffles, a variety of breads to toast, two kinds of eggs, two kinds of breakfast potatoes, sausage, bacon, at least a dozen kinds of fruit and just as many kinds of bakery sweets, plus almost any kind of non-alcoholic beverage you can name.

This is the Christian crowd.  A stream of Catholics came in a little while after we were seated, and the Lutherans started appearing as we were leaving.

As we were paying for our brunch, I noticed scotcheroos for sale at the cash register.  I’ve never known anyone who made scotcheroos except my college roommate, who gave me the recipe.  They are one of our family favorites and whenever I serve them to people, I’m always asked for the recipe.

The size of these commercial scotcheroos makes one of my size at home worth $0.50.

We visited the National Music Museum in Vermillion after lunch.  I’m going to post pictures of some of the beautiful musical instruments we saw in a separate blog, but I saw something familiar as we walked through one of the display rooms.

The front porch railing of my parents’ house had twisted iron posts like these.  My dad and my grandpa (a former blacksmith) heated the metal and twisted it themselves.  The porch railing at home had a twisted “S” attached in the center for “Soerens.”

We’re in South Dakota, so you know what that means.  Yes, Wall Drug!!!!  The signs appear with regularity along the interstates.  We saw the first one (“Wall Drug or Bust”) just north of Vermillion, SD.  Wall Drug qualifies as pure South Dakota kitsch.

Too bad it’s 150 miles out of our way; otherwise, we could have this signature South Dakota experience on our MAT.  We haven’t been to Wall Drug since our one and only visit in 1971.  Do you think it has changed much?

The next stop was the Porter Sculpture Park (also coming up in a separate blog).  From the park, there was a beautiful view of South Dakota.

You can see the clouds from the thunderstorms that are building over north central Iowa.

Farther down the highway, we stopped at a rest area.  A sign informed us that South Dakota celebrates its history at its rest areas.  The concrete tipi is a tribute to the native people of South Dakota.  It doesn’t show in the picture, but at the feet of the tipi posts are triangles that form a thunderbird.  The stone building is designed to be reminiscent of the South Dakota settlers’ sod houses.

There are floodlights around the tipi to light it at night.  It must be a beautiful sight from the highway after dark.

We closed out our day with a quick stop at Wal-Mart.  As we were leaving, we noticed a group of campers in a corner of the parking lot.  One of our friends told us that Wal-Mart allows people to park their campers in the parking lot overnight, but I’ve never actually seen one.  It was about 8:45 pm and there were a dozen campers settled in for the night.

Good-night, everyone.

More MAT adventures coming up tomorrow.  We’re having lots of fun.

The word loess comes from the German löβ, pronounced “luss.”  It is what the Germans call the silt deposits in the Rhine River valley, and means “loose” or “crumbly.”

The Loess Hills in western Iowa rise up along the Missouri River and are a product of the Illinoian and Wisconsinan glacial periods.  The silt particles of loess were formed by the grinding movement of glaciers on the rock underneath them, and were carried downstream by rivers.  When the river flow decreased (as in winter), exposed loess deposits dried up and were carried by the wind to be deposited in great, rolling drifts.  The drifts in western Iowa were later shaped by erosion to create the topography of the Loess Hills.  Loess itself is not rare, but loess deposits greater than 200 feet deep are found only in the Loess Hills of Iowa and in the Yellow River valley in China.  Even where loess is less deep, it is some of the richest soil in the world.  Most of Iowa is covered with loess.

The Loess Hills National Scenic Byway is 220 miles long with 15 additional excursion loops to access natural, historic, and recreational attractions in the area.  This network links the most spectacular scenic areas in the Loess Hills and provided a beautiful drive through western Iowa for Ted and me today.

The Loess Hills National Scenic Byway–an American treasure.

A view of the Loess Hills as we approached them.

Overlooking the Missouri River plain to the west of the Loess Hills.

A typical scene as we drove through the Loess Hills.

The top sign says “Caution: Minimum maintenance road.”  The bottom sign says “Level B service.  Enter at your own risk.”  The picture fails to capture how steep and narrow this road is.Ted and I plan to drive several National Scenic Byways on our Midwest Adventure Trip (MAT).  The Loess Hills Byway was the first and it was so beautiful, we are looking forward to the others on our itinerary.

The first overnight stop on our Midwestern Adventure Trip (MAT) was Kirksville, where Ted and I spent the evening with Kathy and Annette.  The girls treated us to dinner and we had several hours to catch up on what’s new with each of us.  After all, we hadn’t been together since the eclipse two days ago.  Before settling in for our talk time, the girls took us to see a Kirksville home with many unusual yard ornaments.  The objects definitely qualify as kitsch–a developing theme of this vacation.

Can you see the spider in the lower right center?  There is also a praying mantis hidden in the bushes, and don’t miss the smiling face on the center tree trunk.  You can see smaller sculptures ahead of the bushes on the left.

Yes, those are jello molds and yes, they spin in the wind.

A carved wooden figure welcomes visitors at the front door.  Note that there are elves under the bench on the left.

The entire width of the back yard fence is lined with sculptures–also constructed of jello molds and also capable of spinning in the wind.

After this kitschy stop, we found more kitsch at the girls’ house.

Annette made this for an art sculpture project while attending Moberly Area Community College.  It now serves as a storage shed for the girls.

We are definitely viewing a different kind of scenery on this vacation.

kitsch—also called “cheesiness” or “tackiness.”  Applied to objects that appeal to popular or uncultivated taste because they are garish or overly sentimental.  These objects are considered by other people to be ugly, without style, false, or in poor taste, but are enjoyed or appreciated by still other people in an ironic or knowing way or because they are funny.

–Wikipedia

In search of adventure as we started our midwestern vacation, Ted and I stopped at a place we’ve driven past countless times.  Never before have we entered . . . Ozarkland!

Just as predicted from the outside, the building has some of nearly everything inside.  After marveling at the thousands of items on the first floor, we discovered there is a second floor with many thousand more items (not an exaggeration).

This is less than half of what’s available on the second floor.

And here are a few things from the well-stocked first floor.

Decorative hens and roosters for your home.

Route 66 themed items–even though Ozarkland is roughly 100 miles from Route 66.

Simple, declarative door mats.

Fireworks.  But don’t smoke in this area.  That could bring an end to the tourist wonder that is Ozarkland.It’s going to be a kitschy vacation.

There were a few things along the way on Ted’s and my Spring Break Road Trip that I found interesting, amusing, or at least worth a picture.

The Biltmore gift shop offered wall hangings with bits of wisdom.  Here are two of them.

. . . and we’re proud of it!

Never underestimate the power of new shoes.

The Cummer Museum in Jacksonville also offered gift shop-based advice.

Yes!  Groove like the King!  Forever!

On our way home, we stopped at a rest stop and couldn’t help overhearing a lady on her cell phone.  She was standing in the parking lot and giving an update to her listener.  “I’m not sure where I am.  I think I’m in Missouri.”  (She was.)  If she’d been in Mississippi, she would have had no doubt.  All the restrooms at the rest stops provide location information.

In case you’re wondering which state provided the bathroom you’re using.

The Blue Angels are garrisoned at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola.  When we pulled into a rest stop near Pensacola, we saw this in the parking lot.

Go, Navy!

The goal of the Spring Break Road Trip was to find warmer weather.  That didn’t happen until we got to Jupiter, FL.  Temperatures were in the mid- and upper 70s in Jupiter and in the Keys, but we finally hit the 80s in the Florida panhandle.

We had to travel 2,687.4 miles to get above 80 degrees.  The thermometer actually got up to 90, but I was zipping along on the interstate and it dropped before we reached a stopping point.

Now that we’re back in Missouri, it’s time for spring.  Twenty-eight days until we open the pool.

New Orleans was the last stop on Ted’s and my Spring Break Road Trip.  It’s been many years (1996?) since we’ve been to New Orleans and we were hungry for beignets.  We arrived in the city in the late afternoon and spent the evening walking around, enjoying the sights.  Yes, it was warm.

Our hotel was in the French Quarter and had a pretty courtyard.

The line to hear the Preservation Hall Jazz Band was a block long.  The sign above the door says “Preservation Hall,” in case you’re wondering.

It didn’t take long to find the Preservation Hall Jazz Band.  They were jivin’ in the street prior to their performance time in Preservation Hall.  (Drumming up business?)

The trombone player with the white hat is a PHJB member doing some impromptu jamming with the band in one of the bars on Bourbon Street.

It’s fun to walk up and down the streets of the French Quarter, listening to the live music coming out of so many open doorways.  We enjoyed that for awhile, but then got down to business:  beignets.  We’ve had beignets at Café du Monde on previous visits to New Orleans, but I don’t remember the Café being open 24 hours a day on our other trips.  Well, there’s such a demand for beignets that they are now available all day and all night.

This is the place–the home of the world-famous New Orleans beignets.  The open-sided outdoor seating was beautiful on this warm evening.

Two orders of beignets, please.  P.S. Don’t inhale before taking a bite.  The thick powdered sugar is a choking hazard.

Before heading back to the hotel and packing up for the drive home tomorrow, we went to the top of the levee and watched the Mississippi River flow by, then admired the night beauty of New Orleans.

It seems wrong that the river is higher than the city.  One year, we watched the Fourth of July fireworks from this levee.

The St. Louis Cathedral in Jackson Square was a beautiful evening sight.

In spite of the cold start we had, it was a wonderful Spring Break Road Trip.  The good times and the good memories are abundant, and a destination birthday was certainly a great way to celebrate.

After the Cardinals game, we drove to Key Largo.  I wish we’d have planned another day here.  It was warm and there were more things to do and more ways to relax at the resort than we’d known about.  Now we have an idea for a future spring break trip.

The weather was so nice, we spent the evening getting to know the resort and spending some time relaxing outside.  Then we found other things to do around the resort in the morning.

There was live music so we found a seat, ordered margaritas, and put ourselves into “island mode.”

I even got my margarita free.  Hahahahaha!

The conch (cahnk) shell is an icon of the Keys.

The resort pool was pretty in the sunshine, but more striking and romantic at night.

Island life at its best:  relaxing on a warm night in a hammock under the grass roof of a tiki hut beside the water.

Some of the resort property, complete with tiki huts.

Mmmmm!   Yet another way to relax while looking out at the water.

Where I would have spent a chunk of time if we’d stayed longer in Key Largo.  I wanted to swim out to the raft.

After lunch, it was time to board a glass-bottomed boat to seek out a coral reef in the Atlantic Ocean.

Here we go!

The water is beautiful green, turquoise, and blue.

Because of the type of water here, the coral is earth-toned in color.

We saw several sharks.

We returned through the “bowling alley”–an old, narrow, dredged channel marked by buoys.  It’s illegal to dredge in this area of water now because of the coral.

Mangrove roots are so dense that, over a hundred years, they collect enough sediment to form new islands.

We were in John Pennecamp Coral Reef State Park.  There were a lot of people enjoying the park waters.

Two years ago, Ted and I went to a Cardinals Spring Training game in Jupiter, FL.  We enjoyed it so much, we bought tickets to do it again this year on our Spring Break Road Trip.  Just like last time, it was sunny with a temperature in the mid-70s–a great day to sit outside and watch baseball.  We were hoping some flying objects would leave the field, and they did–twice.  Unfortunately, both were hit by the Mets and the Cards lost the game, 5-4.  It’s Spring Training, so no big deal; just being at the game was fun for us.

One of the things I like best about Spring Training games is that the stadium is much smaller than Busch Stadium.  There are only about 4,000 seats and no more than 20 rows.  We were in the eighth row behind home plate looking directly down the first base line.  We could see all the players’ faces and could even hear them talking.  I believe this is referred to as an “intimate” setting.  Whatever.  It’s more fun and more personal than watching from hundreds of feet away.

Here we are in cardinal red, ready to have a good time.

It wouldn’t be a Cards game without a full stadium and a sea of red shirts and hats.

Jhonny Peralto got one of the Cards’ hits.

Greg Garcia also got a hit.  He was safe at first.

The Mets had a sidearm pitcher.  He reminded me of Randy Johnson back in the day.

Tim Tebow, a former NFL player, decided he’d like to try playing baseball.  The Mets are giving him a chance.  He wasn’t spectacular, but he got a hit.  His jersey has a number (97), but no name because he doesn’t have a contract with the Mets yet.  If they keep him, will he get a new shirt, or will the team seamstress just add his name to this one?

Here’s Tim.

I can’t believe what good timing I had on this picture.  You can see the pitcher after releasing the ball, Matt Carpenter showing the bunt, the catcher in position, the umpire focused on the ball, the first baseman running into the infield to play the bunt, and the ball just in front of the bat.

Carpenter was out, but he advanced the runner.

It was a good game and fun in the sun.  We’ll have to do this again.

It’s not my imagination that it’s been surprisingly cold on Ted’s and my Spring Break Road Trip.  On Wednesday night while we were there, Jacksonville tied a record low temperature of 28 degrees.  The record was set in 1871–146 years ago!  Today, however, the car thermometer hit 73 degrees on our way to Jupiter.  We walked around the area near our hotel without jackets and ate dinner outside without jackets.  After eight days of travel, we have reached Southern Spring at last!

Our hotel is handy to the stadium for tomorrow’s Cardinals/Mets spring training game.

The hotel is the green building on the left; the stadium is the red brick on the right.  Yes, we’ll have to walk all the way across the street.

We arrived early enough to walk around in the warm weather for awhile before dinner, so we checked out the stadium and the nearby restaurant/shopping area.  The Cardinals and the Marlins share this stadium for spring training.  We talked to a resident of Jupiter who told us that when the Marlins play in the stadium, parking is plentiful, but when the Cardinals play, parking is hard to find.  Dedicated Cardinals fans fill the 4,000-seat stadium.

Here’s the main gate to enter Roger Dean Stadium.

We’re hoping the Cardinals’ batters will send some flying objects out of the field during tomorrow’s game.

Today is St. Patrick’s Day and the Marlins had a ball game, so there were lots of people in the area.  Many of them were in green St. Patrick’s Day t-shirts.  One street was obviously going to be the party street tonight.  There were games set up, sidewalk vendors, live bands, and lots of restaurants and bars.  There were also many policemen–I assume to handle the D&D’s that are likely this evening.  Families with younger children settled on blankets and in lawn chairs in the amphitheater area, leaving the party street to the party people.

The party street with St. Patrick’s Day revelers.  It was still early, but it was already very noisy and getting very crowded.

The family fun area, where the boisterous voices of green beer drinkers were replaced with the squeals of younger children.

When we decided it was time to eat, we selected a restaurant on a street filled with more “adult” diners than the party street restaurants and had some awesome bread, beef tips with fettucini, and peach melba for dessert.  Yum!

Our more sedate restaurant.  The empty table in the center was ours.

When we go to the game tomorrow, for the first time on our trip, we’re looking forward to wearing short-sleeved shirts and no jackets instead of long-sleeved shirts and fleece-lined jackets.  We’ve already unpacked the sunscreen.  Yes!!

We spent today in Jacksonville, FL (JAX) and we think/hope it was our last day of winter.  People in JAX have been telling us this is the coldest weather they’ve had all winter.  Well, thank you for sharing your cold weather with us!  We still needed warm clothing today, but it was sunny and pleasant outside–for late winter.  There’s another freeze warning out for tonight for JAX, but we are heading for Jupiter tomorrow and it better be warm!  Jupiter is just north of Miami, and that’s pretty far south for winter to visit.

We enjoyed our afternoon field trip to the Cummer Museum of Art and its gardens.  It’s rated as a gem by AAA, and we agreed.  We saw very nice artwork.

By the all-American sculptor, Remington, of course.  This piece is “Bronco.”

This is a picture of Mt. Washington in NH.  We were at the top of Mt. W. in October 1972.

This room displayed some of the modern art.  The photo at the left honors African Americans who struggled to achieve the right to serve in the military in WWII.  Notice the piles of old AM radios on the floor beneath that painting.

The portraits below were done by Andy Warhol.  They are:

Left to right, top row:  George Gershwin, Gertrude Stein, Franz Kafka, Louis Brandeis, and Golda Meir.  Left to right, bottom row:  Martin Buber, Albert Einstein, Sarah Bernhardt, Sigmund Freud, and the Marx Brothers.

No Campbell’s tomato soup can in sight.

The picture below is by Normal Rockwell.  I found the story behind it bittersweet.  The woman needs to go to the Mayo Clinic for some detailed tests, so she and her husband decide to treat the journey as a vacation.  They talk about it excitedly with their friends and finally make the trip.  The woman knows something is seriously wrong with her, but decides to spare her husband and keeps that knowledge to herself.  The husband finds out that his wife is seriously ill, and decides to keep that information to himself to spare her.  Shades of “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry.

This should probably be titled “True love.”

After viewing the works in the gallery, we went out to the gardens.  The azaleas were in full bloom and the designs of the gardens were beautiful to see and relaxing to walk through and enjoy.

The English garden.  Spanish moss is growing in the tree on the left.  The tree hasn’t leafed out yet–it’s been too cold!

The Italian garden.

This is a huge live oak tree.

And this is the live oak from the inside.  Live oaks are monstrous, majestic Southern trees.  I wonder how old this one is.

Between the museum and the gardens, we saw a wall decorated with fish sculptures.

After the Cummer Museum, we went to see Fort Caroline.  The short story is:  The Fort was originally established by the French, who hoped to develop the entire eastern Florida coast as a mercantile enterprise.  The Spanish came and massacred the French.  The French (not the dead ones) got mad and came back to massacre the Spanish.  After that, the Fort was abandoned.  My opinion:  This is a perfect illustration of the waste of wars.

There is written history of the existence of the fort, but no artifacts have been found.  The National Park Service has re-created a fort to provide a feeling for what things might have been like, but there are no claims of authenticity for the recreation.  Our tax dollars at work.

The fort is actually (and historically) triangular.  Speaking of no authenticity, it doesn’t look like any fort we’ve ever seen before and I doubt if it would provide much protection from any enemies.

The (non-authentic) cannon was aimed at the gate, not at the river.  I guess it kept enemies from getting in by land.  No gunnery was pointed at the river on the other side of the fort.  Definitely not authentic.

The farther south we go, the colder the weather gets.  I don’t think that’s how it’s supposed to work.  Sure, it snowed in Nashville and Asheville, but the temperatures were in the 30s overnight and in the 40s during the day.  Not to mention that the latitude wasn’t too far south of St. Louis.  Hilton Head, on the other hand, is in southern South Carolina and not only was it cool while we were there yesterday, but today’s high temperature was five degrees cooler than yesterday’s and there’s a freeze warning out for tonight.  We’re in Jacksonville, Florida now, and there’s a hard freeze warning in tonight’s forecast with the low temperature expected to be in the mid-20s.  Luckily, we brought plenty of warm clothes with us, so we’re having fun anyway.

Today we visited Okefenokee Swamp Park in southern Georgia.  Of course it was cool (low 50s), but the sun was shining, so we were comfortable with jackets.  The swamp is over 500,000 acres in size, so we saw only a small part of it.  Due to drought conditions, there was no water in the swamp rivers in 2007 or in 2011, resulting in several large fires.  There was water today, however, so we were able to take a boat tour.

The front end of our boat as we traveled down the Suwannee River.  The Suwannee and St. Mary rivers drain Okefenokee Swamp into the Gulf of Mexico.

Mirror Lake. .ekaL rorriM

A pretty view under a walking trail bridge in the park.Our guide could name every plant in the swamp.  Now we can name some of them as well.

Several varieties of water lilies are native to Okefenokee Swamp.

This is soapweed.  Our guide made his hands wet, rubbed the weed vigorously in his palms and produced a generous soapy lather.

These are the smallest plants in the swamp.  Look at the next picture to see some individual plants.

Ted has dozens of the plants on his fingertip.

This plant is called “never wet.”  It actually repels water and never gets wet.  In a swamp!

The green clumps in this tree are mistletoe, a parasitic plant.

The bald cypress has very shallow roots, so it grows “knees” to help support itself. The knees–the knobby things growing upward–can grow as far as 100 yards from the tree’s trunk.We saw a half dozen alligators.  None of the alligators was out when we visited the Everglades two years ago, so this is the first time Ted and I have seen alligators in their natural habitat.  We learned that the females are much smaller than the males.  The male alligator will fight and eat any other male alligators he encounters in his territory so he can have all the female alligators for himself.  We had a glimpse of a baby alligator in the water, but it hid in the plants while our boat was nearby.  Our guide said if you try to grab a baby alligator with your hands, it will rapidly bite you a half dozen times before you can let go.  Ouch!

The bull alligator on the left is estimated to be 110 years old and is about 20 feet long. One of his many wives (on the right) is about 35 years old and 6-8 feet long.

Look carefully. There is an alligator in the water.At one point on our tour, we got off the boat and climbed a viewing tower.  I don’t know how high it was, but there were over 100 steps to the top and we were above the treetops.  We had a small tour group and took pictures of each other.

Ted and me in the viewing tower.

Here we are in the boat.We had a very nice afternoon and enjoyed visiting Okefenokee.  We also greatly enjoyed our time in the Everglades two years ago.  Are we weird to like swamps?

After clearing today’s snow off the car, we drove to the Biltmore Estate.  Guess what we saw on our way to the main house.

In honor of today’s three inches of snow.

The first sight of Biltmore is impressive to visitors as they enter through the gates at the end of the 2.5-mile driveway.

It’s not much (hah!) but it was home for George and Edith Vanderbilt.

We had lunch in the Stables Cafe, right next door to the main house.  It was really a stable.  The Vanderbilts kept their horses here in the 1890s.

Our table was in one of the stalls below the windows.  No horses were present.

It took six years to complete the major portion of the house, and many more years to finish everything.  It cost $5 million and has 175,000 square feet with 250 rooms and 65 fireplaces.  The fireplace in the library is 6 feet high and 10 feet wide.  About 60 rooms have been restored and 39 are included on the public tours.  Biltmore was a private residence with 125,000 acres of land (now 8,000 acres).  It was opened to the public in 1930 to help increase tourism in the area.  Biltmore is a working plantation with about 2,000 employees.  Some of the Vanderbilt family still live on the grounds.  It was designed by three major architects and was obviously the home of a very wealthy family (shipping and railroad money), but is not ostentatious.  It feels welcoming, warm, and comfortable.  Season passes are available to the public for $99 and allow people to picnic on the grounds and to use the estate trails for walking, hiking, running, and biking.  The season pass also allows admission to special events held at the estate.

We toured the house, the gardens, and Antler Hill Village.  Biltmore has its own winery (wine tasting and purchase available in Antler Village), greenhouses, and horticultural buildings.  We also saw horses, cattle, and fields of farm crops.  We spent nearly six hours at Biltmore and enjoyed every minute of the time.  It helped a lot that the weather was sunny with the temperature in the upper 40s.

This is the room I want to have–filled bookshelves all the way to the ceiling and all the way around the room, with a balcony to reach the upper shelves (see the railing).

Check out this ceiling.

This is a basement room called the Hallowe’en Room.  It has murals painted on all the walls.

The dining room table was designed to seat 64 people.  The room includes a pipe organ–for dinner music?

This is a part of the gardens where spring bulbs were beginning to bloom.

The grand staircase.  In one stairwell, Ted and I counted seven floors.

I must get a dress and headpiece like this.  Peacock feathers are so me!

Ted and I left home this morning, heading for the southeast U.S. and warm, non-wintery weather.  St. Louis had such an early spring this year–nine days above 70 degrees in February and four in March so far–we wondered why we felt we needed to get away.  We’re going to miss lots of the early spring blooms.  Then the forecast for next week came out:  it’s going to be unseasonably cold next week.  In fact, St. Louis will be having its coldest temperatures of the year while we are gone.  The low temperature one night is going to be in the teens, so all those early blooms are going to freeze.  Well, at least we’ll feel like we’re escaping from winter to bask in southern sunshine!  Or so we thought.

Today we drove to Nashville.  We’ve been here several times, so didn’t plan any activities beyond getting here.  We had the worst lunch we ever remember eating:  horrible sandwiches with toasted bread literally as hard as croutons at Applebee’s in Marion, IL.  Dinner was much better at a restaurant near our Nashville hotel.  It’s Friday night, so we had to wait about 20 minutes for a table, but it was worth it.

After dinner, we checked the forecast for Asheville, NC–tomorrow’s destination.  The plan was to spend some time driving and hiking in Great Smoky Mountains National Park one day and to visit the Biltmore Estate and historic Hendersonville the next day.  We might get Biltmore in, but the weather doesn’t look promising for doing anything in the national park.

Yes, Saturday and Sunday are our scheduled days in Asheville.  This is not an escape from winter weather!  We’re planning an early start for tomorrow so we can arrive in Asheville before the worst of the snow hits the area.

I’ve always wished to be a more creative  person.  I can think of a hundred ways to adapt an idea, but the idea is nearly always someone else’s brainchild.  It always amazes me what a creative mind can think of, especially when I see art or listen to music.

Today, one of my Facebook friends posted a video of some unique sculptures.  I only check Facebook occasionally, so I suppose it’s making the rounds, but it was new to me.  My favorite of these amazing sculptures was the lady holding onto the world as she blows away from it.

I went online to see what I could find out about the sculptures and quickly found that there are several websites related to the topic.  Each has a few different sculptures in its gallery.  I especially like the “Mustangs” in Texas, . . .

. . . the kids jumping into the river in Singapore, . . .

. . . the “Break Through” people in Philadelphia, . . .

. . . and the tripping man in Brussels.

Last summer, Ted and I saw the “Shoes on the Danube” sculpture in Budapest . . .

. . . and “A Man at Work”  in Bratislava.

We’re surprised we didn’t see the “Unknown Official” in Reykjavik earlier this month.  It’s a small city and we had a pretty extensive two-day tour.  Maybe next time.

Yes, we had adventures from the first day to the last day of our vacation.  We chose to keep a positive attitude and to call the events “adventures” instead of asking “What else can go wrong?”

The first leg of our journey was our flight from St. Louis to Atlanta (June 27).  It’s summer, so afternoon thunderstorms are not unusual.  Tennessee, northern Mississippi, and Alabama were getting hit hard, so we had to fly due south along the Mississippi River until we passed the storms, then turn east to reach Atlanta instead of taking the diagonal.  This added 30-40 minutes to our flight time, but we had no problem catching our connecting flight to London.

Paris was a very “adventurous” city for us.  On Bastille Day (July 14), security was so tight that we needed a police escort to return to our hotel.   Twice we had to wait on the sidewalk before continuing on our sightseeing way.  One time we had the “opportunity” to observe a march for racial equality in Paris; the other time we watched hundreds of Scandinavian bicyclists pass and exchanged conjectures about the riders with other bystanders (July 16).  Then there was the scary cab ride from our hotel to Charles DeGaulle Airport (July 17).  As we were in the process of checking in at the airport, we were informed that we had to evacuate that area of the terminal.  Someone had left untended luggage in the area.  No bombs exploded.

When we arrived in Stockholm (July 17), we went to our pick-up point and discovered our name was not on the transfer list to be taken to the ship.  They took us anyway and said everything could be straightened out after we were onboard.  No problem–our documents proved our name should have been included.  The same thing happened when we were arranging the shuttle pickup from Bergen to Reykjavik.  We showed our documents again and all worked out well.  An adventure, not a calamity, right?

When we were in St. Petersburg, we temporarily lost our tour group in the morning of the first day (July 20).  At the end of the second day (July 21), high winds delayed our hydrofoil boarding and our return to the ship.  The result was a late departure from the port, but the ship waited for all of us.  No big deal, right?

We had another late departure from Berlin (July 25) because the train arrived late and all but eleven passengers from the ship were onboard the train for the various excursions of the day.  The “welcome back” event when we finally arrived at the ship was so heartwarming, it might nullify the “adventure” status of the late arrival.

In Flåm (July 29), we were unable to take our much-anticipated “Norway in a Nutshell” railway excursion because of mud slides from a storm the previous night.  We saw one of the most beautiful fjords in the world instead.

Flying from Bergen to Stavanger (July 31), I had an attack of claustrophobia in my tiny little personal airplane space.  We changed seats.

When it was time to come home (August 2), Ted’s boarding pass printed very nicely, but mine didn’t.  For some reason, “government regulations” required that I print my boarding pass at the airport.  It printed fine at the airport

After only a few hours of sleep, we were up at 4:30 am for the 5:00 am shuttle to catch our 10:30 am flight home (August 3).  Just before boarding, eleven other passengers and I were informed that we were randomly selected for an additional deep security check.  Our flight was already delayed for two hours, and there was another delay waiting for some passengers.  The cabin doors on the plane were being closed before Ted–and about 100 other passengers–got on.  Everyone was onboard before takeoff–at 1:00 pm.

The fuel pump on our car died on our way home from dinner.  We had it replaced with a new one that works fine.

Everything always turned out well, but it seems to be true that you have to be prepared to go with the flow.  I would do it all again and I know Ted would too–even with the “adventures.”

I’m finally caught up with recording our awesome northern European vacation in this blog, but there are still some thoughts and events I want to remember when I look back on these entries.  (Any regular readers?  Maybe you want to scroll backwards to read the formerly missing entries.)  To any grammar nerds reading my posts, I think I’ve corrected all (most?) of the mistakes I made.  If you found one, go back to see if I caught it.  If it bothers you, let me know and I’ll fix it.  After all, I’m a grammar nerd too.  And maybe a little bit of a perfectionist.  Maybe.

Every time I went to the laundry on the ship (two or three times, but three trips each time–load washer, load dryer, empty dryer), there was at least one man ironing.  I never knew so many men ironed their own clothes.  Ted does, because I hate ironing and, many years ago, he got tired of waiting for me to get around to it.

In downtown London, at least one car in five must be a Prius; in Denmark, Teslas were easy to find on the streets.

It was odd to see kids wearing Mickey Mouse ears in Paris until we remembered there’s a Disneyland in Paris.

On our coach trip in Britain, our tour guide told us that by the time we went home, we’d all qualify for a degree in operating plumbing systems.  She was right!  I had no idea there were so many creative ways to turn on a faucet or to direct the bathtub faucet water to the shower head.

It’s not unusual for men and women to share restrooms (toilets or toilettes) in Europe.  This isn’t as personal as it sounds.  Most restrooms have stall-size “rooms” with walls to the ceiling and the floor, so privacy is complete.  There is usually a male or female icon on the door (I assume the difference is the urinal) and you choose the appropriate one.  Then you wash your hands in a general area with multiple sinks.  In practice, it’s fine, but it felt a little weird for both Ted and me to go into the same area together.  It is also not unusual to have to pay anywhere from 20-70 cents/pence/whatever to use a public toilet.  In England, it cost 20 pence.  Our tour guide described it as “20p to pee.”  We always kept change in our jacket pockets.

Good news:  While we were away, we missed six weeks of election phone calls, six weeks of election advertising, and both political conventions!  Yea!

I’ve never worn a jacket for so many consecutive hours!  We wore at least one jacket nearly every day (only four exceptions) and we had them on all day and all evening because we were outside all the time.  At home, when we put on a jacket, we go somewhere, we come home, and we take it off.  Maybe we put it on again later to go somewhere else, but we don’t wear it all day.

I’ve never set an alarm clock for so many early risings in a row.  We had only one day to sleep late–when we were at sea all day between Talinn and Gdansk.  I have always planned at least one day a week to sleep late and/or a day with fewer activities to give myself a break.  We were up early and busy all day every day.  The good part:  We had no trouble falling asleep at night!

In Britain, we never had a wash cloth in our hotel rooms, but the bath towels were huge!  A bathroom safety fact:  Europe does not allow electrical outlets in bathrooms except for electric shavers which have special prongs to fit the outlet.  I always had to dry my hair in the bedroom.

In Stockholm, two young women crossed against the light in front of our bus.  Our tour guide remarked sotto voce, “You are breaking the law and we have the right to kill you, but you are young and beautiful, so you may cross.”  In a face-off between our bus and a van (the bus won), our Berlin tour guide noted that “We are stronger than a van.”  The traffic lights in the cities turn yellow before they turn red and also before they turn green.  Drivers take green lights very seriously and horns will honk at anything that requires a delayed start or the use of a brake pedal.

A double bed in a European hotel means two twin beds pushed together.  The beds are usually made up separately, but sometimes have a shared blanket.

In Scotland, it’s appropriate to “address the haggis” before eating it.  Robert Burns, a Scottish poet, wrote Address to a Haggis.  The poem is read before the haggis is eaten at formal meals.

There are enough hedgerows in England to circle the equator two-and-a-half times.

Hay bales were wrapped in plastic everywhere we went.  Given the frequency of rain showers, my guess is the plastic keeps the bales from rotting.

In Iceland, there are earthquakes every day.  They are small and not usually noticeable, but the ground is always shaking.

The onion-shaped domes on the Russian palaces and churches are onion-shaped for the simple reason that onion shapes don’t collect snow.  The snow slides off, so its weight does not become a structural problem.

English was spoken nearly everywhere we went, but it wasn’t American English.  Sometimes it was easy to know the “translation”; other times, I had to see/hear it repeatedly to figure it out or ask a native.  Here are some words we heard frequently.

Pop in = drop in (pronounced “pope in”)

Way out (signage) = exit

Give way (highway sign) = yield

Bend (highway sign) = curve in the road

Circus = roundabout

Takeaway = carryout

No overtaking (highway sign) = no passing

Dual carriageway (highway sign) = divided highway

Ring road = beltway

Child minder = babysitter

Towel = sanitary napkin

Semi-skimmed milk = 2% milk

Zebra = a white-striped crosswalk (Russia)

Ted and I are really glad we flew home from Reykjavik on Delta last week instead of this week!  We took off only two-and-a-half hours late.

Even after nearly six full weeks of traveling, neither Ted nor I was eager for our vacation to end.  At the same time, when today arrived, we were ready to go home.  I think that’s the best of both worlds:  we’re still having fun, but we look forward to home.  Too bad it wasn’t quite that easy.

Our shuttle to the airport was arranged yesterday.  Three shuttles were going to serve our group, taking us to the airport according to our flight times:  4:30 am, 7:00 am, and 1:00 pm.  Our flight was at 10:30 am.  Guess which shuttle we were assigned to.  In the end, only one couple had a 7:00 am flight, so they were assigned to a cab and the rest of us were given a 30-minute reprieve and didn’t have to report to the shuttle until 5:00 am for the 45-minute drive to the airport.

We went to the hotel business center to print our boarding passes and the next “adventure” began.  Ted’s boarding pass printed just fine, but mine brought up an error message informing me that “government regulations” required that I print my boarding pass at the airport.  Fine, we’d have plenty of time to do that before our 10:30 am flight.  Then, around midnight, we had an email from Delta announcing that our flight would be delayed an hour and fifteen minutes.  At 7:00 am another email arrived to tell us the flight would be delayed an additional hour.  Of course, these were useless communications to us since the shuttles were already set up and we were at the airport by 5:45 am after only a few hours of sleep.

Ok, we’re at the airport, drinking coffee and hot chocolate with a sweet roll (no breakfast at the hotel before 6:00 am) and basically killing time with our new friends, Jim and Jory from North Carolina.  They were on the same flight as Ted and me.  Jory had to print her boarding pass at the airport too, but all was going well.  As we neared our now 12:30 pm departure time, we headed for the gate.  We would have gone sooner, but we couldn’t get near the gate until one hour before our flight.  Security or something.

Fine, we were waiting to go to the rest room for the last time before we boarded when the gatekeeper came on the PA and announced a dozen names of people who were to report to the check-in desk.  Jory’s name and mine were included.  All twelve of us were mystified.  We were told to bring our carry-on luggage and to surrender our passports to the gatekeeper.  Then we were taken through the airport and on an elevator to a secret (to us, at least) room where we saw a sign that explained what was going on.

We are apparently security risks to the U.S. government and the TSA.

In pairs of men or women, we were taken into an adjoining room for an additional pat-down and our luggage, purses, etc. were opened and the contents carefully examined.  When all twelve of us passed inspection, we were taken back upstairs to the gate area and told we could go to the head of the line for boarding.  Our passports were returned and we moved along.

Reykjavik is a small airport and does not have jetways–you have to climb stairs to get into the plane.  The larger international planes, however, are parked farther from the terminal, so we had to take a shuttle to get to the stairway to get on the plane.  I waved at Ted and Jory waved at Jim (they were standing in line as we were leaving to board the plane) and I gave Ted a thumbs-up so he wouldn’t worry (much).  When we tallied things up afterward, Ted had been through five security checks between arriving at the airport and boarding the plane (showing his passport, answering security questions, and getting his luggage scanned) and I had been through six.  I thought TSA in the U.S. was bad, but Reykjavik takes security very seriously.

The first-in-line priority for those of us who were super secure ended when we boarded the shuttle.  At that point, it was everyone for him/herself.  It took us twenty minutes after arriving at the plane to actually get up the stairs and into our seats.  Since the extra security check and the boarding process had taken most of the hour Jory and I had planned to wait in the boarding area, allowing no time for a restroom stop, I used the restroom on the plane.  As I was returning to my seat, I heard an announcement telling the crew to prepare the cabin for takeoff and to lock the cabin doors.  My first thought was “Ted isn’t here!”

I spoke with one of the stewardesses and she used her phone to call another stewardess who had apparently heard the same thing from other passengers.  After a quick check, another announcement told the crew to leave the front cabin door unlocked.  It was probably at least 20-30 minutes before the second shuttle load of passengers (half of the passengers on the flight, including Ted) arrived at the plane.  Ted said they spent at least 15 minutes at the gate waiting for four passengers.  Maybe those passengers were on a delayed flight like ours and it was easier to wait for them to make the connection than to put them on another flight.  Anyway, by the time the passengers from Shuttle No. 2 were finally seated (with only one door open to enter the plane instead of two), the plane was full instead of half-full.  Our 10:30 am flight took off at about 1:00 pm.  Delta:  Don’t Expect to Leave The Airport.

Question:  Don’t you think the crew would know before take-off how many passengers are expected on the flight?  Did they not notice that half the seats on a fully booked flight were still empty when they received the order to prepare for take-off?

As it turned out, our seats were directly behind Jory’s and Jim’s, so we could exchange comments during the flight to Minneapolis and, when we arrived, the four of us went through customs together.  This time we were able to head for the “U.S. Residents” line and I heard my favorite words from the customs officer:  “Welcome home.”

Luckily, we had a three-hour layover in Minneapolis so, even with our delays, we still managed to be on time (just) for our flight to St. Louis.  Kari and Teddy were at the airport to take us home, and the vacation was over.  The adventures, however, were not.

We got home from the airport around 3:30 pm, having been awake since the equivalent of 11:00 pm the previous evening with nothing to eat except the sweet roll at the airport and lunch on the plane hours ago.  We were hungry, so we went out to dinner and were eating pizza (six weeks without pizza!) by 4:30 pm.

Our plan was to go directly home without passing “Go” and go to bed, but that didn’t work out too well.  We got within a half mile of the house and the car died.  We walked home to wait for the tow truck and, two hours later, it arrived.  After that, we went to bed and slept twelve hours.  No early wake-up call in the morning, no sightseeing scheduled.  The vacation was fun, and it’s good to be home.

Many thanks to Kari, who stocked some essentials in the refrigerator so we didn’t need to make an immediate grocery run.

Ed. note:  The fuel pump on the car died.  The new one is working fine.

Our second day of touring in Iceland was a two-part day.  The morning was spent sightseeing in Reykjavik; the afternoon was . . . well, I’ll get to that.

Before I go on, I forgot to mention in yesterday’s post that our guide sounds like he’s from Minnesota.  He has a northern accent in his English and his favorite expression is jajaja, as in “We should stop for lunch.”  “Jajaja.”  Or “That’s an amazing sight.”  “Jajaja.”  Just say ja three times as quickly as you can:  jajaja.  He says it so often that most of us on the tour are saying jajaja to each other and smiling when we do so.  He said he is often critiqued for telling stories that are too long, but we all found them interesting.  Stories about gremlins, trolls, etc. are good for the long winter nights in Iceland (or for amusing passengers on tour buses), so there is an abundance of these tales.  Sometimes he goes off-track a little and uses his second-favorite expression:  “. . . but that’s another story.”

As a Lutheran, the closest I’ve come to Lutheranism as a way of life was growing up in the upper Midwest where the German and Scandinavian populations make Lutheran churches a familiar sight.  In northern Europe, however, the Reformation had a profound impact, and in most of the countries we visited on this trip–including Iceland–Lutheranism is the state religion.  As a result, the Lutheran churches are huge and many are converted (not really a pun) Roman Catholic churches.  In fact, they are often referred to as simply the “Protestant” church with no further denotation, as opposed to the Roman Catholic church.

The largest Lutheran church in Reykjavik.

The sanctuary of the church. At first glance, it appears stark, but there are many beautiful sculptures and designs throughout the building.

The pulpit is in the front; the huge pipe organ is in the back.  The seat backs on the pews can be flipped to allow the congregation to face the altar for worship or the organ for concerts.

Reykjavik made the news in 1986 when President Reagan and Premier Gorbachev met there.  We stopped at the house where the meetings were held.

The Reagan-Gorbachev meetings in this house were the beginning of the end of the Cold War.

As we were driving around the city, we saw this person on a bicycle.

How many bags can a bag lady bike?

We went to the Pearl (so named because of it’s dome-shaped roof) and had the opportunity to see Reykjavik from its highest point.  It’s a very pretty city and we lucked out–it was a sunny day.

One view of the city.  See the Lutheran Church?  You can’t miss it!

We had a chance to see an old restored farm just outside the city.  It was very interesting to go into the buildings.  Many have sod roofs and the main house is attached to the stable with a tunnel-like hallway so that stock can be tended in bad winter weather.  The rooms are very small, and the furnishings are very cozy.  Small also means easier to heat in the winter.

Some of the houses and the attached stable.

The parlor.

The upstairs bedroom for the children.

The farm had a small church, complete with a model ship.  The church’s capacity was about twenty worshippers.  Men sat on the right, women on the left, and criminals (if any) in the front, facing the congregation.  One man from our group asked about the “fence” around the altar.  He must not be Lutheran or he’d know it was the communion rail.  The kneeling space is pretty minimal.

I’m not sure all the parishioners could see the pastor’s face while he was in the pulpit, especially since this guide was quite short and his head is above the crossbeams.

The model ship in the church.

And then it was time for a lunch break and the afternoon treat:  the Blue Lagoon.  I had never heard of the Blue Lagoon, but it is apparently a defining experience of visiting Iceland, as in “Did you swim in the Blue Lagoon while you were there?”  It was about a 45-minute drive from Reykjavik and, on the way, our guide pointed out that we were passing the Swedish embassy:  IKEA.  (Laughter from the group.)

The Blue Lagoon is on a peninsula of Iceland.  Of course the ground is lava, so it is porous.  There is a salty hot spring 300 meters below the surface of the Blue Lagoon and it is believed that regular use of these lagoon waters promotes youth, health, and longevity.  There is even a special line of skin products to enhance your experience.  My enhanced experience included the first “gang” changing room I’ve used since I graduated from high school.  When in Reykjavik, . . .

Ted was skeptical, but took the plunge (literally) and we had about two hours to enjoy the warm (99°-106°) water.  Afterward, Ted agreed that it had been a very good experience and very relaxing.  Not to mention that we both look younger now.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t take pictures in the actual Blue Lagoon because it would be stupid to bring a camera into a swimming area and there was no place to leave it once you exited the locker room.  As a result, I only have a picture of the sign at the entrance.  I can’t really describe the experience–maybe that’s the magic of the special waters–but it was a wonderful afternoon and a highlight of our Iceland visit.

This one is self-explanatory.

Not the actual Blue Lagoon, but a pool just outside the lagoon with water just like that in the lagoon.

My friend, Elaine, took this picture in the Blue Lagoon in November.  It was 30 degrees and windy.  She had a warm hat on her head.

Finally, as we were walking in downtown Reykjavik on the last day of our vacation, I saw a sign at a bus stop that fit our trip.  There is a brand name of sportswear in northern Europe called 66° North (the rounded Arctic Circle latitude).  The company has a variety of advertising posters, but this one perfectly described the cool weather (mostly mid-50s to mid-60s) we experienced as we traveled, wearing one, two, or even three layers of jackets, in countries at approximately the latitude of Anchorage to Fairbanks, Alaska.

Where we spent our vacation.