This week...

Here is where we are this week...and loving it. SE Minnesota.

Lanesboro is a town of about 767 but with lots of tourist attractions. Bike trails, canoe rentals, tubing, summer theater (we saw The Rainmaker last night), farmers' market today, arts & craft show tomorrow.

We'll post more pictures later. It's a picturesque kind of place.

For now...if you like flowers, click here for some Lanesboro flowers:

http://picasaweb.google.com/sschin999/Flowers#5349519998523351026

Sally's movie production

Here's my attempt at movie production...from Granddaughter Taylor's dress rehearsals for dance recital. Wish I could get a bigger size file on here - it plays much better that way. But hey, what can I expect from free wi-fi connections?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUcTmSCoZw0

Green Fields & Green Machines

Yesterday began with an 8AM tour of the John Deere tractor factory in Waterloo, IA. The factory is the second largest building under roof (50 acres) in the United States, surpassed only by a Boeing facility in Seattle. The tour was fascinating and I had to constantly grab Sally's sleeve to keep her from climbing on one of the big green machines and driving off. John Deere only builds tractors to fill specific orders; nothing is built for inventory. They have a "gold key" program whereby customers can visit the plant on the day their tractor is assembled and actually start it and drive it off of the assembly line. After the tour we visited friends Gib and Jan Glasson before heading north where we spent the night at Calmar, IA in the parking lot of Northern Iowa Community College. Just to add to the excitement, the security guard informed us that a tornado had been spotted some 40 miles west, but he thought that it was going to miss us! This morning we will visit the clock museum in Spillville, IA (pop. 386) before heading off to Lanesboro, Minnesota for a few days of biking on their spectacular network of bicycle trails.

On the Road Again

We're traveling again now ... stopping for a couple of days with friends Chuck and Jan Moore at a beautiful Army Corps of Engineers campground at Saylorville Lake, IA, near Des Moines. Headed toward MN now with stops planned in Waterloo and Spillville, IA.

Last stop was Omaha, NE for Granddaughter Taylor's dance recital. She was fabulous, as was the entire show. See her here - center front - in their ballet number. She also danced jazz and tap.