We Did It!!!!!!!!

Last Monday was our last full time work day at Adventureland. YAY!!!!!! There were times this summer when I thought we would not make it and my joints sure ache, but we actually did it. From now on we only work on weekends with the exception of Labor Day of course. We ran a bunch of errands on Tuesday and found all of our neighbors sitting outside enjoying a glass of wine and of course we had to join them. We still could not really believe that it was over, since Tuesday is our normal day off anyway.

Wednesday morning we went to a company sponsored miniature golf tournament and that's went it started dawning on me. I was smiling all day!!! And of course, we had to celebrate again Wednesday evening until the mosquitoes finally got to bad.

Thursday afternoon we went with two of our neighbors to check out a farmer's market on the west side of Des Moines called Valley Junction.

I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. Not only was there some really fresh produce, the surrounding stores were actually pretty interesting too. I really liked the big planters.


We sampled the local wines and of course the kettle corn and browsed the stores for a good two hours.

And while strolling up and down the street, we actually got serenaded by various local musicians.

We ended the day by enjoying a nice Mexican dinner with our friends before turning in of the night. Tomorrow it is back to work for the weekend. Knowing that it is only two days of working before we can relax again and start getting ready for leaving here makes it easier to go to work. :-)

Iowa State Fair

The Iowa State Fair is a big deal out here, so we decided to get tickets for it a while ago. Tuesday came around and it started raining about 4 am. We decided that it would not stop us from going to the fair, since Tuesday is our only day off. So we got there about 12:30 pm and just made sure we had our umbrellas with us.

This fair is huge. There is a lot going on in all the different building on the fairgrounds and all that delicious fair food!!! We decided to skip the diet for a day and just have fun. First thing we checked out was a model train exhibit, which unfortunately was still under construction.


Onward to the next exhibit we saw some really cute miniature horse babies and this horse carriage caught my interest.


Next was our first dose of junk food and onward to the next exhibit, which was about the biggest animals. Have you ever seen a bull that weighs 1300 lbs and a really fat big.


Isn't this sheep cute?

And then I got my lesson of the day. I went to pet a calf, which had some really soft fur and next to it was this, what looked to me like, a very malnourished cow.

There was a guy standing next to the cow and I asked him what happened. He actually is the owner of the cow and she is a milk cow. All the food she eats goes towards her milk production and these cows do not fatten up. This cow is #6 in milk production in the whole USA and he was very proud of it. I think I will have a conversation with Larry Moore again when we get back to Mission, since he has been pretty good in explaining this farm stuff to me city kid. :-)

After some more junk food it was on to the agriculture building, which was promised a display of a cow made out of butter.

There was a line of at least 50 people waiting to walk in front of the exhibit and we did not feel like waiting that long, so no close ups. There was so many more things we saw and ate. We had a great time and the rain actually stopped by 4 pm.

Balloons!!

Tuesday is our day off and normally that means Doug goes to physical therapy and I do laundry and clean the house. In the afternoon Doug wanted to go to the park to go on some more rides, since we don't get free access anymore after the middle of the month. So with everything taken care of, we decided to check out a balloon festival in Indianola, which is about 10 miles south of here.

It goes on for a week and we really did not expect much, since it is a small town and it is not really widely advertised. Well, we were in for a big surprise. We arrived around 5:30 pm, rented a couple of chairs and found a good viewing spot. There was a nice line of junk food vendors and a two man band was keeping us entertained. It was like a little "Woodstock".

They had a play area for the kids with a little "tractor pull" and there was a nice line of vehicles with balloon baskets lined up at the top of the hill.


On the hill across from us they were marking the ground with an "X", which I thought was a starting spot for the balloons, but I was completely wrong.

About 6:30 pm the balloons were given the green light to start and to my big disappointment some of them just drove away again. We decided to just pay attention to the balloons that were starting and enjoyed the show.

The way the wind was blowing most balloons were passing right above us. We had some awesome views.






So we were watching for about a hour, figured that it was pretty much over and were about ready to leave when we realized that there was a whole bunch of balloons on the horizon coming towards us.

The "X" is actually for a competition for the balloons landing. Every balloon operator has a yellow ribbon with a weight mounted on it and they toss it over the "X" trying to land in the spot.

This is a picture of a balloon trying to land on the "X". Unfortunately I had shot so many pictures of the balloons leaving and coming back that the batteries in the camera died and I don't have more pictures of balloons trying to land by the "X". It really was a spectacular site and I am glad we came out.