Busy, Busy, Busy......

I has been a busy couple of weeks between getting the Sept Quarterly finished, getting my stuff ready for my brother's birthday dinner and getting ready for the road trip that starts NEXT week. Now that the Quarterly is at the printers and everything is marked off my list for the birthday dinner, I am focusing on the trip. I'm only a couple of days late on the list which isn't bad. Can't believe that after about 6 months of planning the trip is almost here.  We are soooooo ready!

I took the car into the dealer's last week to get a "trip check" before hitting the road in it for 2,000 miles. I always do that before a road trip  so they can check the fluid levels, replace wiper blades, check the tire pressure, etc. The battery was testing a little low so they went ahead and replaced it under warranty.  As he said, "We don't  you to be someplace on the trip and it not start."  I appreciated his concern. It was all at no cost to me!

I am really starting to love Amazon!  I know people who have raved about it for years but I am using it more and more. I used to only order books from them. However, a few of the items I have ordered in the last few months are a hair product that I have used for years and is no longer available in stores, a pair of shoes and last week I ordered a white noise machine since I couldn't find what I wanted in the stores. I go online, order and it shows up at my door 2 days later. Sometimes the items arrive the next day!  Love it....

I see this dog a lot of morning when I'm out walking and it is one of the cutest dogs I have ever seen. She is a chihuahua/dash hound mix so is really small but long.  What is so cute is the coloring of her coat.  The colors are more like a big hound.  I love it!  She has energy to spare and goes a mile-a-minute.

Monday already?

It was 57 degrees at 9 a.m. this morning when I went for a walk - loved it but was glad I took along a long sleeve shirt....

On Saturday night, I went to see Garrison Keillor at Starlight Theater. I missed seeing him in Tucson so immediately got a ticket when I heard he was coming to KC. I read, after I got my ticket, that this is his last year doing the radio show and touring so especially glad I got to see him. The radio show will continue with one of the cast members taking the lead roll.   For you who don't know who he is, he is an author, storyteller, humorist and the host of the PBS radio show A Prairie Home Companion. On the radio show, besides musing about events and music, he provides the latest news from Lake Wobegon which is a fictional little town where "all the women are strong, all the men are good looking and all the children are above average." I used to listen to him and his CD's when I was traveling all the time. So....to the show Saturday Night. It was a perfect night for a show at Starlight - cool, but not sweater weather,  and no rain. He came out by himself, walked down off the stage and let the audience in an acapella rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. Then we walked all the way up the aisle to the back of the theater which is a pretty steep climb and was talking the whole time. If you haven't done that walk, that is a pretty steep climb - I speak from experience. Then he wandered back to the stage and the rest of the cast came out. The musicians on the show are really, really good. However, for me the cast stand out was the older guy who does "sound effects" that range from the sound of someone walking across a room to many, many animal sounds - one right after the other as the script calls for it. The guy is amazing! Garrison is 73 years old and has been doing the show for 41 years.  He was dressed in a tan suit with red tennis shoes. 8-) He did a 2+ hour show with no intermission....

Memo from by my back to me: NEVER expect me to set on wooden seats for that long again without a cushion! I actually had to leave after 2 1/2 hours of setting - by back said "enough is enough".  Part of it was that there wasn't enough room between seats for me to cross my legs, change positions, etc. Guess I will go shopping for a stadium cushion to take along....

Kidney doctor:  I had my annual checkup last week with the kidney doctor and we are both happy campers. He attributes my low creatinine numbers to my loosing weight, eating better, etc. I have his approval for continuing to take ibuprophen as long as my numbers stay good.  He was glad that I did the RF Ablation for pain management and was seeing a pain management doctor instead of just relying on pills. I'm finally done with all the annual check-ups by all the doctors!

Cable TV and Botanical Gardens

New Cable TV system: I am still furious over the system although the TV reception is improved. The picture is sharper and I truly have HD now, the sound is better, there isn't as much lag time when I change channels, etc. However, the guide to the remote only covers about half the functions and my internet for the computer was totally screwed up last week. I talked to 3 different tech people on the phone over 3 days and each one had me do a different thing. Finally the last one said "take your wireless box and ethernet cable to our service center and get new ones". We can't send a tech person out when you are getting service to the house."  Needless to say, I was very vocal with him. However, I drove a very long way to get to their only customer service center in all KC area and exchanged them.  Then I had to figure out how to hook it all up and I was NOT going to call them for help.  I finally figured it out and the internet now seems to be working good.  I just can't figure out everything on the remote, etc.What really irks me is that I don't have a choice in companies since only Consolidated Communications supplies internet/cable service to the whole apartment complex!@#$%^&*(_+.

Botanical Garden in Columbia:  I was looking for something to do in Columbia to do and ran across  the Shelter Insurance Gardens "A Mid-America Arboretum and Public Garden." I have never heard of Shelter Insurance but in researching them I discovered they they bought out the old MFA Insurance Co. When I was a kid, I remember seeing MFA Insurance,  MFA Oil Co, etc. MFA started in 1946 and was bought by Shelter Insurance in 1981.  Their corporate offices are in Columbia and behind the office is the 5 acre garden containing over 300 varieties of trees and more than 15,000 annuals and perennial plants. The Garden also includes a waterfall, rock garden, statues, Vietnam veterans' memorial and a replica 19th century one-room school house. Pretty amazing place to be right in the city.

This is a path in the gardens. I don't think I have every seen as many ornamental sweet potato vines in one place before but they sure were pretty. 

One of the numerous statues scattered around in the gardens.  

Decent size man-made waterfall tucked away in one corner. There were a lot of koi fish in the water. 

 Newcomer School is a replica of a 19th-century, one-room school that is located near Brunswick, Missouri. Construction of the replica school began in 1974 when ground was broke with a plow pulled by a team of Missouri mules. Local grade school teachers often reserve the school for a day of teaching the tradition of their 19th-century counterparts. Below is the inside of the school complete with a wood stove. 

Rocheport, MO

A couple of weeks ago I saw a list of the "Top 10 Little Towns in Missouri".  I have already been to some of them but 2 caught my eye and I made a note to visit them - Parkville, MO was #1 and Rocheport, MO was #4. I stopped at Rocheport last week on my drive to Columbia. Population is 244 and I'm not sure what makes it so popular but I suspect that it is a weekend get-a-way since there is a larger winery there, lots of beautiful old Victorian houses that have been restored and turned into B&B's plus the Katy trail goes through town. The town was originally founded in 1825.

This is main street in Rocheport. The main store is a General Store (black awning) that sells everything from antiques to new bowls made of bamboo or kitchen spoons made of recycled plastic bottles. Yes, I got one of the bowls and spoon sets. 

I did my usual walk around looking at flowers and there were lots of them in yards and containers on main street. 

However, this was my favorite find and what I will remember Rocheport for! It is a 1928 Gypsy Wagon that has been totally restored and updated. 

Dutch doors at the back of the wagon with stained-glass windows and stained-glass turn signals. . 

Inside the wagon looking back at the living space. 

Front seat. The wagon is Solid Red Oak Wood Body, Red Oak Wood Floors, Copper Roof, 21 Stained Glass Windows; Stylized Wooden Sink, AD/CS Refrigerator, Antique Buggy Lantern Lights, AC/DC 12-Volt Lights, 30-Gallon Water Supply, Double Bed and 15 MPG. The Wagon has been updated with a 4-speed automatic transmission, power steering  and power brakes. I love it!

Busy weekend!

Trip to Columbia: I drove over to Columbia, MO on Thursday to attend the annual conference of the Missouri State Genealogy Society. Me and about 165 other people had 2 full days of genealogy techniques, etc.  The speaker is one of the top speakers in the country and she was really good. I leaned how much I don't know! I was going to stay over yesterday, Sunday, and go on over to Jefferson City to do some research today before coming home.  However, besides being really brain tired, I learned that there are more records available in Jefferson City at the Missouri State Archives than I knew about. I didn't have all the info I would need to search them so will do it another trip.

New GPS:  I got a new Garmin GPS unit for the car before the road trip in September. The one I had was very old with outdated technology in it.  The new one is great and the screen is larger. However, the BEST thing is that they have taken the "Recalculating" out of the voice directions.  I HATED it when I would take a wrong turn, turn to get gas, etc and this condescending voice would say "Recalculating" in a voice that was really saying "Stupid"......  The new unit just gives new directions from where ever I am and her voice is much more friendly.

New Cable TV Box: I have been having some problems with my cable box so last week they upgraded me to a new system. I can now have 5 channels going at once - recording 4 and watching the 5th one.  The old box would only do 2 at a time. That part is great since I record a lot of shows and watch them later.  However, I HATE getting use to a new cable system.  It is o.k. if all you do is watch TV. I have to learn all new prompts, what buttons do what on the remote, the steps to set up shows for recording shows is all different, etc.  Eventually I will get the hang of it but for now and just plain frustrated!

Powell Gardens

Last Friday I spent the morning at Powell Gardens with Karen, my niece. We got there when it opened at 9 a.m. to beat the crowds and it is a good thing we did.  By 11 a.m., when we left, it was getting very crowded.  When we scheduled the day, I didn't realize that Friday was the opening day of the Butterfly Festival in addition to the ongoing Lego sculptures which is what we going to see. We went to the butterfly exhibit first before it got too crowded. I saw the butterflies in Tucson several times but this was the first time Karen had been to see the live butterflies. After the butterflies, we walked part of the gardens and saw some of the Lego exhibits before it got too hot for me. Below are some pictures of the day.

Here are some of the butterflies and a caterpillar in the exhibit which was in an enclosed room where they added trees, flowers, bushes, etc for them to land on. In the top right picture, that is a butterfly that landed on my hair and wouldn't go away until the volunteer moved it.  She said it liked my hairspray. 

Here are some of the sculptures from the Lego's Exhibit. They had a Lego's exhibit in the gardens a couple of years ago by the same artist. Here is a list of how many lego bricks are in each item: Top row l-r: Hummingbird and Flower = 31,565 legos; Bald Eagle = 42,198 legos. Middle row l-r: Milk Snake and Mouse = 12,069 legos; Monarch Butterfly on Milk Weed Blooms = 60,549 legos. Bottom row l-r: Kneeling Gardner (life size) = 34,340 legos and Roto-Tiller = 20,903 legos. I absolutely cannot imagine the patience it would take to put 60,000 legos in place to make something!

Misc flowers in the gardens. Top right, middle left and bottom right pictures are from the Water Garden. Middle right is an artichoke plant. 

We got a lesson in biology from the volunteer in the Butterfly Exhibit. The cycle of a butterfly is that a butterfly lays eggs which "hatch" and turn into caterpillars which become pupa (cocoon) which "hatch" and a butterfly emerges. In the above pic, these are pupa with two butterflies that have been "born". After they emerge from the pupa, it takes s1-3 hours for the wings ton "inflate" and dry before they are ready to fly. The butterfly on the right is older than the one on the left. After they are "inflated" and dry, they are then released into the open area where they try out their wings and get the hang of flying. We could watch the ones flying around and tell which ones were still learning.....