Decorah

Bluebird? 

All the photos today are from last week at Morgan Creek County Park near Cedar Rapids, IA.

Walking trail

We had another busy week in Cedar Rapids. It is really nice being back “home” especially spending time with family and friends but I do miss the slower pace of life out on the road. I think many of the RVers out there will agree that the slower pace is why we chose this lifestyle. We tend to go out more here too which stresses the budget a little. Good thing I will have a small paycheck for part of the summer. 

I am about ready for my class. All the printing is ready and first class day things prepared. I still need to get a grade spread sheet ready and some quizzes rewritten.  My other big project for the summer is rewriting the midterm. This will be the first class I will walk into that I don’t already know the students, that is a little daunting. One of the things I like about that is that I have no preconceived attitude towards the students. As a teacher you always try to stay impartial but it can be a challenge sometimes. I’ve tried in my teaching experience to try to treat each new day as a separate teaching experience, no matter what happened with that student yesterday, today they can excel. A good teaching friend Kathy taught me that and it was one of the most valuable pieces of advice I was ever given. In the clinical setting that is a must and it applies to the classroom as well.

Our rig from the bridge over Morgan Creek

I hope everyone had an enjoyable Mother’s Day. We spent it with family and it was wonderful. We haven’t seen many of them since last summer. Gabe and Melissa were able to join us  and I talked to Mitch on the phone. I am a very lucky mother. Mother’s day is always a little bittersweet for both John and I. I lost my mom when I was 21 years old and John lost his when he was 25. The hardest part about that is loosing them before we were of the age to really appreciate them, to say thank you for putting up with us as teenagers. Until you are parent and go through all those tough moments you just don’t realize all they did for you and all the lessons they were trying to teach you. I miss my mom more than I ever thought possible and I hope she can see her grandkids and what wonderful men they have become.

Morgan Creek 

We have moved up to Decorah and to one of our favorite parks, Pulpit Rock. We will be here 13 days and since they only have electrical hookups we will be on our best water saving behavior. I think we have enough hose to reach the water if we run out of fresh water but we would rather not hook up to dump if we don’t have too. We don’t have a blue boy to dump grey water we don’t feel it is worth the space it takes up for the few times we would need it.

We are here for my son’s graduation from Luther College, although that is not until the 21st. We really like this area and there are lots of things to do. There is some good hiking nearby and about an hour north is our favorite bike trail, the Root River Trail. The upper Iowa River is a great place for kayaking too. We hope to do a little bit of all that if the weather cooperates. It is suppose to rain most of this week but next week looks beautiful. The weather in Iowa has been cold and rainy since we returned until about middle of last week. Yesterday was a game changer, we went from early spring weather to mid summer weather. It was 90 and muggy. What a switch. The leaves are finally on the trees and it is beautifully green.

Praire burn at Morgan Creek 

Happy Trails................................