Oh well!

We are in Oakland, NE tonight. Just over the line from Onawa, Iowa. It's a nice little motel, but there is one problem: our room is too far from the router to get WiFi. I'm sitting on a bench by the front door and it comes in fine here. When I go back to the room, which is at the other end of the motel, I lose it. Unfortunately, the people that run the motel all left at 9pm. It's sort of a family affair. They told us if we got here after 9pm, they would have to leave the key in a hidden place for us. We got here right at 9, they gave us the key and left. No lying in bed and watching a movie for us tonight! The other problem with the room is that the air conditioner is VERY noisy. Ellen refuses to have it on - and I can't blame her. The windows do open, however, so we can have fresh air. At the moment, it is very warm, humid fresh air! The one good thing about this place is that they serve a full breakfast with a menu you can order from - included in the price of the room. So we look forward to that!

The view from where I am sitting right now. Meanwhile, we had a nice trip across Illinois and Iowa. We took Route 20 from Bartlett, got onto Route 64, took that to Savanna, IL, across the Mississippi and into Iowa up to Anamosa, where I went to high school. We went to the cemetery where my mother is buried, and cleaned up her grave a bit. This is the same cemetery where the artist, Grant Wood, is buried. Then we had a picnic in Wapsipinicon State Park. Very nice, and old stomping grounds for me. Then we came west on U.S. Rte 30 (the Lincoln Highway), stopped for an early supper at a Culver's in Ames, and came on to Onawa and over the Missouri to here in Oakland. Tomorrow, we will have a nice ride across Nebraska on some roads we have not been on before. Our new cell phone is working well, but we still use the old one for eMail. At 6:30pm this evening, in the car, I was able to briefly join the Dummerston Church Monday evening zoom session! That was fun, though for some reason, the video wasn't working. It was on, but it was blank. They could hear me, but not see me; I could see them and hear them, but the noise of the car made it hard to hear conversations well, so I didn't stay. Next Monday we'll be at Paul's and should be able to join from there. BTW, I spent the summer of 1954 in Onawa, working as my father's assistant in the church there and in nearby Blencoe, Iowa. That's another story.

photos above: Mother's grave Picnic spot Pellicans near the Mississippi