Serendipity

So we were just driving along yesterday, about to relocate to Iowa. Then Gregg notices a sign for a Threshers Festival. We'd only been on the road about an hour but, heck, we have several days to get to Iowa from Minneapolis. So we pulled in and found a fun little weekend long festival with free camping on a shady, grassy lot. Gregg's been wanting to find one of these - a Threshing Bee or Thresheree. The old-time steam and gas engines demonstrate threshing, the separation of grain and chaff. Flea market, craft fair, cloggers, music, fair food, and more. Hundreds of tractors are here and there has been a 60-90 minute parade of them each afternoon.

When we first arrived we walked in, saw a sign for wagon rides and hopped on the wagon. We rode with them around the festival grounds right to the start of the parade - what luck we thought, perfect timing! Then the lady sitting in front of us struck up conversation because she wondered who we were. We told her we wanted to see the parade and then she informed us that we were IN the parade, riding on the quilting ladies' wagon that always starts their parade! We laughed and laughed and jumped off that wagon at our first opportunity...

Having a good time here.

Crazy route to Iowa

We did some rejiggering of our plans the last couple of weeks. I wanted to attend a cousin's Memorial service in Illinois at the farm where my Mom was born. So I took the Greyhound (fun experience...) to Chicago and joined my sister and niece there. We had a great couple of days and squeezed in attending the musical Billy Elliott (Wow!) downtown.

We had a great time with family remembering a very colorful aviator, 87 year old cousin, seeing his ashes spread over the farm where Mom was born and where he grew up.












Then, being near a big airport, I decided to fly to Phoenix for 3 days with my kids. I miss them! Andy and I even did an overnight in Prescott. Was so good to see them.

Meanwhile, Gregg finished out the week in Oshkosh and drove the motorhome to Minneapolis. I flew back there from Phoenix and we had a couple of days to see friends there. So that is how we find ourselves in Minnesota this weekend...still
headed toward the southwest.

That yellow boat is on Lake Minnetonka, a restored street car boat. The street car line used to continue over water to the island in the lake. Beautiful!

Oshkosh EAA Airventure

The last week of July each year, the largest airshow in the world is held in Oshkosh, WI. The small airport there is the busiest in the world that week. A small city grows up around the airport with visitors totalling more than 500,000. More than 10,000 airplanes attend. Neighborhoods of tents and RV's of all kinds pop up within biking distance. They had had 7 inches of rain the week before resulting in muddy campgrounds so many, many of us were in satellite campgrounds in parking lots. We ended up really liking our abandoned KMart parking lot with 100+ neighbors. Met lots of fun people and enjoyed evening happy hours in our campgrounds. Watched a Chicago concert from the shade under the wing of a Ford Tri-motor plane that had been flown by Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart. Found some small planes with folding wings that can be towed in a trailer behind a motorhome...hmmmm.
Click here if you would like to see what Oshkosh is like!

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