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And the Weddings End, Not with a Bang...

10/30/2017

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...but a quiet dinner. After three weddings for three nieces in three weeks, we were glad to sit down last night to an excellent dinner of tri-tip, asparagus and leftover pasta, biscuits and fruit salad. The four of us were almost the only humans left in the campground--there are a couple of other campers at some distance from us. Light rain had moved in and the winds had picked up again, but we were snug.
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The weddings began three weeks ago with a very small ceremony at the Linn County courthouse for niece Leslie and fiance Matt. Afterwards we retired to the Cedar Ridge Winery. Les kept her event small because the next day they took off for two weeks in Dublin, Berlin, and Amsterdam.

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Two days later, we headed north with the camper for Beed's Lake--a park about eight or ten miles east of the church and 30 miles south of the Music Man Square in Mason City, sites of the next wedding and reception. Natalie and Terry were married in a historic Danish Lutheran church attended by her grandparents. The reception at the Music Man square featured an interesting theme with skulls and polar bears.

After ten days to recoup, restock, and repack, we headed south to Lake Darling State Park near Washington, Iowa. I drove my car for a couple of reasons. I had eight sets of sheets, plus pillows and blankets, to help furnish the six year-round cabins for the wedding party and out-of-town relatives for wedding number 3. I also had been invited to do a book talk and signing at the library in Washington on Thursday noon. That was fun hour for me, with lots of questions and comments from the audience.
Then on down to the park where Butch had the camper ready and three other couples had set up as well. We made up the beds in some of the cabins and retired inside our camper to a heart-and-body warming supper of chili, corn bread, crackers and cheese, and gingerbread bundt cake. The day had started out sunny and pleasant but disintegrated into gray and blustery evening. Friday, the bride, groom, and families arrived and we helped set up the wonderful lodge for the weekend festivities. The plan was to hold the ceremony outside Saturday afternoon on a point overlooking the lake, but the weather wasn't promising--temperatures in the low 40s and very gusty winds. Miraculously, the winds died and the sun broke through about an hour before the ceremony.
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So we witnessed another delightful event, followed by the reception, dinner, dance, a s'mores bar, and a sparkler arch for the bride and groom. The next morning we helped serve breakfast to the wedding party and traveling relatives, and then empty the cabins. By afternoon everyone else was gone except us and the Halds. Time for naps and then our cozy supper.

This morning, we will head home to empty and winterize the camper, laundry and, and preparations for the fourth annual Book Bums' writer's workshop at our library on Saturday. Two of visiting authors coming a distance will stay with us Friday night, so a little housecleaning is in order.

A busy month, but full of love and laughter for three wonderful young women and their equally special new spouses.


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Of Caves and Canned Hams

10/7/2017

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Thursday morning, we had perfect weather to check out the trails at Maquoketa Caves State Park. With 14 or 15 in the group, it was a little like herding cats. The first cave, Dancehall, has a myriad of steps down to the cave, at which point one can go left under the parking lot to the north part of the trail, or right to continue the south trail along the east side of the creek, or back up the steps to the trail on the west side of the creek. Our group did all of those things. We never saw the people again who went left until we returned to the campground.

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Three of us returned up the steps to continue along the west side of the creek, occasionally glimpsing the group across the creek. Eventually we joined up again and a couple turned back while the rest continued trying to find the rest of the caves on that trail. Unfortunately, at several points one comes to a fork in the road, and we apparently took the wrong branch, ending up in a stand of prairie grass at the top of a very steep hill. Nothing to do but turn around and retrace our steps.

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We had now been on our trek about two hours, and I thought Russell, a small dog who accompanied us, could surely go retrieve us some donuts--you know, like Lassie--but Russell was having none of it. So we followed the trail back on the east side of the creek, seeing the caves that some of us had missed, and eventually made it back to the parking lot, more than ready for lunch and a nap. However, it was a great morning and the scenery is unmatched in Iowa.

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So far we have only had a tour of one of Serro Scottys in this group and it's a doozie. Mike and Jamie from Pennsylvania have restored this one and the craftsmanship is awesome. Mike built an inlaid table of walnut, oak, and other hardwoods, installed an antique chest of drawers with a glass bowl sink as the kitchen, and used an old headboard to partially enclose the cozy, quilt-topped bed. A copper ceiling and embossed wall covering finishes it off. We also got to see Nancy's Adirondack-styled Boler (she left her two Scotties at home in Michigan) but my camera batteries had died so I have no photos. Stay tuned.

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Good Things, Small Packages

10/5/2017

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We are back at Maquoketa Caves State Park, one of Iowa's most popular and beautiful. The scent of the huge white pines overtakes you the minute you enter the campground. It's a small campground with fairly small sites, but that's no problem for a number of this week's residents. Serro Scotty campers have been around since the 1950s and members of the National Serro Scotty organization are devoted to preserving them. Since they are under 20 feet long, they fix nicely in among the pines.

The owners are from Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Iowa. They caravan together on great trips several times a year. Some of this group just returned from a trip to Acadia National Park in Maine and next month will go to Skidaway Island in Georgia. They have done their own rebuilds and they do their own repairs.

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The forecast for later today and tomorrow is rain but we hope there will be enough dry time to visit the rock formations that give this park its name. Last night was a perfect campfire night. If it rains, there's always the fun shops in Maquoketa and maybe some writing time to work on Trailer, Get Your Kicks!, the next Time Travel Trailer book.

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Literally Speaking

10/3/2017

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PictureSunset on Madison Lake
I love it when fiction intersects with reality in my life. Maud Hart Lovelace grew up in Mankato, Minnesota in the early part of the twentieth century, and wrote a series of books, the Betsy-Tacy books, about that experience. My grandmother knew Lovelace and gifted my cousin and I with signed copies of the books. I read and reread them, feeling that I knew the characters personally and the places around "Deep Valley" (Mankato) that they inhabited. Last weekend, when we were in the Mankato area, we camped at Madison Lake. I thought about how, every summer, Betsy's family would stay at a place she called Murmuring Lake, and each night her father would drive the buggy out from town after work to spend the evening with the family. But there are many lakes around Mankato and was very surprised to discover after we got home that Madison Lake and Murmuring Lake are one and the same.

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In a different twist, fiction intersecting with fiction, last night we watched The Good Doctor, a new series about a young autistic man who is also a brilliant surgeon---a very similar plot to The Savant of Chelsea, by Suzanne Jenkins. Suzanne and I have become email friends in the last year and I really enjoy her books. Her main character is a woman but her special focus as a doctor and lack of social skills could easily have been a basis for the TV series.

Finally, this weekend we will be at Maquoketa Caves State Park, intersecting with my own fiction. Members of the National Serro Scotty Organization, a vintage camper group will be there. The president of the group contacted me last fall and said they were planning this trip because several had read my book, Bats and Bones. We hope we don't intersect with any murders.
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    Some random thoughts about writing, camping, and eating.

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