We came to Iowa to hang out with Tracy’s people, and Iowa is continuing to deliver. Or, to overuse that Field of Dreams reference, if you show up with your weird new travel trailer, the friends will come! We’ve walked, driven, and biked through old neighborhoods here in Cedar Falls and its sister city, Waterloo, […]
Special Banjo Edition
For my friend Whit, here’s a compilation of recent Banjo photos, plus a few new ones. Yowl! Sing with me. B A – N J O B A – N J O B A – N J O And Banjo was her name, Oh.
Finally, a Sunrise to Ourselves
Turns out that’s what Banjo and I were missing the most here in this full campground without an easy place to walk. Don’t get me wrong: there are beautiful trails around the lake and all over Cedar Falls, but everyone else thinks they’re great, too. Dawn Walk This morning I got us out of the […]
So Far in Cedar Falls
We’re in Tracy’s hometown, and I tell you what. You know when you’re driving through someone’s old stomping grounds and at every corner they say things like, “Well that entire complex is new,” and “I think my dad had a special dinner there once,” and it goes on and on and is annoying? I actually […]
Photos from Des Moines
We leave here tomorrow, and I can’t sleep because we stayed up late playing that Firefly board game. It wasn’t until we were cleaning it up that I saw a severe storm on the radar, so we had to pack away all the outside living room stuff while being pelted by moths and beatles in […]
Old Ties and Companions
The title here is from a Mandolin Orange song with lyrics that are quite melancholy, but the music and title make me think warmly about old friends, so it works here. The first time I drove up to Iowa with Tracy, I was overwhelmed by his high-school friends: their sheer number, how many of them […]
It’s Hard to Photograph a Prairie
Especially when a certain someone is wearing a ginormous hat to ward off mosquitos and insists on getting in the middle of the photo. It’s also hard because there’s something about the whole of the prairie, with all the different flowers and grasses, that I can’t capture on my phone. You’ll just have to see […]
Iowa Mead? Yes Please.
This place. I don’t want to spend any more time on my laptop writing this entry than I have to because it takes away from my time gazing at the green land and blue sky. Everywhere. So I’ll just describe my photos briefly. East Grove Farms These ~800 acres have been in the same family […]
Lincoln’s New Salem
As we make our way to Iowa and Wisconsin, we’re sticking to our plan to stay at campgrounds for the weekends so we know we have a sure-fire camping site for Friday and Saturday nights when campgrounds are often full. The pattern is to arrive Wednesday or Thursday to get a good spot and then […]
What It’s Really Like on the Road
Right now we’re in Illinois staying at the campground beside the state historical park called Lincoln’s New Salem. I’ll post about this place once we figure out anything about it—I’m not even sure if it’s a state or national historic park or what because much of it is still closed. Stay tuned. In the meantime, […]
