First and Last Farmers Market Visit for 2019

Robby drove us down to the farmer's market this morning.  We parked in the Nationwide ramp as I have free parking there and then we walked down to the market.  On the way there, in front of one of our favorite restaurants, Malo, we had to wait at a stop light.  It was fortuitous that there was a piano to be played while we waited!

Rob's second attempt at backing into a parking spot in the ramp.  The first attempt, several weeks back, saw the yellow lines almost perfectly centered under my pickup.  This was a good step up and I assume he'll get even better the next time.

Fall Football 2019

Tonight, August 28th was the night for football tryouts for the 5th and 6th graders.  It was yet another unbelievably beautiful summer day with very low humidity and temps in the mid 70's (all the while during one of the "hottest summers on record, EVAH!!!, if you watch mainstream news).

They broke the boys up into 6 groups as there will be 6 teams in the league.  There was to be only 5 teams until they had enough late sign-ups this week to support the 6th!

They rotated thru drills by group and were graded as they went.  They were not told their grades but all of the info will be compiled and I'm guessing, entered into a computer, and that there's an algorithm to "draft" the teams, in the hopes to keep them somewhat even.  

The caveat to that being that most, if not all, of the teams are coached by parents of kids playing in the league.  So it's obvious that the kids of those parents are going to be on their parents team and as we have requested in the past, our kiddo to be on a specific team due to that parent coach and co-transporting them to practices and such.

No matter, the boys are 10, 11 & 12 years old so there's no matter too important here. Just play the game, do the best you can and most of all, have fun!!

Soccer in the foreground,  football in the background...  A guy who's had back surgery can't help but notice the lack of places to sit.  And don't tell me that there's lots of grass to sit on!  They'll be hauling my crippled arse out in an ambulance if I sit on the ground for more than about 3 minutes.

So what's a fella to do when there's no seating?  Go for a walk, of course!  I walked around the practice field a good number of times while keeping an eye out for Caleb's bright orangish/pinkish shorts!  This is him running the square cones.

Finishing the same... that's him on the left of the picture.

Caleb just above middle center of the pic.  This drill was sprint down to the first cone, turn and catch, throw the ball back, drop the second cone, turn and catch, drop to the third cone, turn and catch.  Calebber caught the balls on cones 1 & 2, dropping 3.   I watched a LOT of this drill from many of the groups.  I would say that about 15% of the kids caught all three balls, about 80% caught 2, and about 5% caught 1 or less.

Wide shot where I walked over to the fields to take a wide shot of the "going's on".

3-cone drill.  

Standing long jump #1.

Standing long jump #2.

Push the tackle back drill.

This was taken around 8:25pm, which is a time I figured that we would at least be on the way home, if not home and comfy!  But those little dots way the crap out there are football players and of those little dots, one of them is Caleb!

In an inevitable mercy kill, they brought the rest of the boys in so they can now wait in line at the shed (on the left of the pic) to get measured for shoulder pads and helmets...  Sweet. Mother. Mary.

And so went the night.  Other than my back bothering me mightily, it was kind of fun to watch!

Keep'em Coming!

We're up to 30+ quarts now!!!

Grandpa and the great wide open

Grandpa getting down to the river where he likes to watch the eagles and the fellas fishing.

Furst Day Uv Skuol, 2019

It's that time again for first day of school pictures! Can't believe that summer is over already but it's even harder to believe that 2019 is nearly 2/3 complete!

Time keeps on tickin', tickin'...

Both young gentlemen are starting in new buildings this year.  Rob is entering high school and Caleb is starting 6th grade.  Here in Southeast Polk, all of the elementary schools go up thru 5th grade and then dump all of the kids into the 6th grade center. 

It's kinda of cool in a way so that 6th, 7th & 8th grades are all spent with mostly the same kids.

Robby is a Freshman in high school this year!  To my old eyeballs, he looks a little nervous here.

Caleb is starting 6th grade this year and to hear him talk, he's excited to get going on another year and is ready for summer to be over.

Pride and Joy!!!!

2019 Mini-Vaca2, Eastern Iowa, Pt 4 - The Mines Of Spain

Sunday was our first full day of this mini-vaca as we did all of the driving, tent assembly, and overall getting settled on Saturday along with the Bluff Lake Catfish Farm and Maquoketa Caves State Park.

So after the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium visit,  it was off to the Mines of Spain.  We had little to no idea of what the Mines of Spain was really about so we also knew very little of what we were getting ourselves into.

We knew they had hiking trails, and lots of them, and we knew it was nearly 100 degrees.

So, lets go hiking!

One of the first sights that you see once you've gone up and over the first hill (it was mildly difficult!) was this!  You can't argue with this.  That tiny bit of light-blue'ish color just to the right of center is the Mississippi River way off in the distance.

Similar view.

Similar view again but we're about an additional 20 yards down the path from the last one and now we can see trails way down below us.  We have to figure out how to get to those!

We're closer to finding a way down and the bluffs were quite beautiful!

This is me standing about as close to the edge as I could get myself and looking mostly straight down.  The tops of the trees were 30 - 40 ft below us...

Ah, somebody was kind enough and thoughtful enough to build steps for us!  That's the boys and Mama on the steps.  Mama is about halfway down...  maybe. 

Now we're down...

This was stunning.  What else was stunning was how long we hiked next to these beauties!

Some backwater with a chorus of toads singing.  This was also the last picture I took on this hike as the rest was pretty much just forest on the way back to the parking lot.  Turns out we hiked a big loop.

The Mississippi again.  Hard to tell in a small picture like this, but the hwy 20 bridge from Dubuque, IA to East Dubuque, IL is visible and if you really knew where to look, you could spot the river museum that we were at previously.   This is at the Julian Dubuque Memorial Monument.

Memorial for Chief Peosta.  The stone reads, "Chief of the Mesquakie and friend of Julian Dubuque".

The monument itself!

I'm sorry...  I love pictures of the river from the surrounding bluffs. 

Quite the grave marker, if I don't say so myself!

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This was the start of another hike within the Mines of Spain.  I can't recall which trail it was tho...  We were alongside this creek for some time.  I think, after looking at the map, it may be catfish creek, but I'm not sure.

I like funky trees!  This hike was REALLY, REALLY long and was mostly forest so this is the last picture since this post is getting a little long in the proverbial tooth.

So after a failed visit to 7 Hills Brewery and a somewhat successful trip to Dimensional Brewing and slightly less successful trip to some restaurant with pretty horrible service, we made it back to the camp ground to find out that everything had been rained on.  But we had a fire anyway, and a pretty dang good one too!  I put fire sparkly colors crap on the fire.

Playing with the fire-poking stick and my camera.

More...

No kidding, everybody else went to bed and I stayed out to watch the embers.  I was also watching the moon behind the trees and when it finally lined up with the hole thru the trees,  the coyotes began howling.  Coincidence for sure, but a pretty cool coincidence none-the-less!

That pretty well does it for day two.  We'll have to wait a bit to see what day 3 brings.  Thanks for reading my silliness.

End of Summer Doldrums

This boy has been complaining for about a week that he's bored and ready for school to start.  He seemed a bit nervous on Monday night visiting the new school for this year, but mostly excited to get it going.

Grandpa's Big Day Out

This is a pic of Gpa's buddy Kevin pulling out of our yard after a full day of fishing and playing poker.  The ol' boy collapsed into bed shortly after this picture was snapped.

The 2019 Iowa State Fair

I wasn't planning on going to the Iowa State Fair this year... frankly, I never plan on going to the fair as there's too many people and not enough interesting stuffs to see... in my humble opinion.

This year though, we planned on taking Grandpa with us with the understanding that when he had had enough, I would take him home while Momma and the boys would finish their fair experience and ride the shuttle home.  I would pick them up from the shuttle drop-off which is not quite a mile from our homestead.

So this morning, we're about ready to head out the door when Grandpa decides that he probably shouldn't go.

I stopped getting ready as I would just finish my day of work from home and move on with life. 

But Caleb asked, "Is Daddy still going?".

I had a realization that these boys are going to be done with K-12 in a blink of an eye and out of our house, which will be a sadness that I cannot yet imagine.

I decided to go to the fair and I did NOT regret it!  Oh sure, I was irratated with the slow moving people and a whole host of other stuff, but a great day was had overall!

I had to laugh at the banners...  One with the farmer holding the baby pig and the next showing a wonderfully cooked pork roast all sliced up and ready for consumption!  My apologies to the family that I captured in my pic...

Piglets are freakin' cute!!!

That's a lot of people...  and this is just one building!

We exited that building and happened upon the start of a parade!  Caleb heard drums and was immediately intrigued!

The HUGE flag.

VR about vehicle safety.

The skylift which always makes me wonder if they conduct safety/weight checks every year...  Yikes.

The big boar...  lazy boarstard!!!

The biggest bull.  We got to watch him poop.

Caleb's in this pic, but it's his buddy Max who is throwing the axe.

There's Caleb tossing the iron!

Again...

The Des Moines skyline from the Craft Beer and Wine tent.