Post-Labor Day

Back to work, thankfully not back to school. :) Iowa was pretty fun, although gas prices made the trip in our new Durango rather expensive. I remember moaning a few months back that I had never paid $2/gallon before. Now, I've paid over $3.

We didn't get to Muscatine until after 11pm Wednesday night. We had to drop off Madison in Rochester and it seems like Hwy. 63 at night takes forever to drive on. Thursday morning I took off for Toledo, Iowa which is just under 2 hours from Muscatine. It was a nice drive, mostly all on I-80.

I enjoyed meeting Janet and Richard, who live on a farm at the edge of Tama and Toledo, which are two cities basically joined. To the West is Montour, where my grandfather was born. The rest of his siblings were all born in the area of these little towns as well. The house that Grandpa was born in is now gone, but I did see two other homes in the area that are of historic importance to our family. They are old, but well maintained and are still in use.

There isn't much to Montour anymore. There is a lumber yard and a restaurant, but that is pretty much it. My best explanation is that it looks much like Burr Oak does now and is about the same size.

I did get to visit the Maple Grove Cemetary, which is where Jake and Sina Webb are buried. These would be Grandpa Vance's parents. Also buried here are Vance's first wife (and Ethel's mother) Ingrid, Sina's sister Aunt Sadie, Grandpa's little brother Glendon who only lived a day, and a few other relatives.

Janet and Richard are a hoot and I enjoyed spending time with them both. They took me out to dinner at the Meskwakie Casino where they are both well known because they eat there often. What was most enjoyable was that they are quite liberal and we had many of the same views of current politics. For their age (early 70's) and occupation (farmers) I guess I would have thought they would have been more conservative. As I was leaving Richard said, "Well, Janet said you would be a delight, and you certainly are. Please come back and visit." Janet's response was, "Well, of course she is, she's a Webb isn't she?" :)

I didn't get back to Muscatine until about 11pm Thursday night, where Mike, Uncle Mike, and cousins were having a good time together. On Friday, I slept in and we pretty much just hung out through the day. Mike and Uncle Mike went to cousin Mitchell's sophomore football game and proceeded to embarrass Stephanie (Mike's daughter age 14).

Saturday morning the boys all got up bright and early and headed to Iowa City for the Hawkey vs. Ball State game. With a Hawkeye win of 56-0, they had fun. We left Sunday afternoon and headed for Rochester.

Madison was VERY happy to see us, enjoyed her stay with Grandpa and Grandma, and behaved really well. For some reason they have the best luck in wearing her out, so she slept all the way home and most of Monday too. We actually left her out of her kennel for an hour on Monday while we went to the grocery store and Menards, and she did not mess up anything. We were impressed and I hope that its a sign of things to come. Either that, or she was just too tired to get into trouble!

And so, our travels went well and it was nice to have a 5 day break. I'm officially entering my 6 month this week and head to the doctor next week for a check-up. The baby continues to be active and I'm feeling good.

No words for the Katrina devestation-it's overwhelming to watch and my heart goes out to all of them.