Some stuff.

At the bark park recently, this toad wanted to learn to fly, so it climbed into my toadapult.




A lost child. The tennis ball is just there to give some idea of scale. It made one heck of an omelet.




At a rest area in Minnesota on the way to a wedding. I guess Minnesotans are flexible.




At the same rest area. I wasn't quite sure what this was supposed to "mean." Is it "fresh" or isn't it?




I guess the drinking age is a little younger in Minnesota.

The Voyage Home

I suppose it may have been a crazy thing to do, but rather than head north out of Pittsburgh, we went instead to Maidsville, West Virginia, about an hour south. Ms. Geranium and I have an old friend, Blanche, who lives there and it was her daughter Coretta's 20th birthday. We've visited Blanche and family quite a few times over the years and Cinderbelle and Coretta have become good friends. Lunch and birthday cake were offered. How could we refuse?




Blanche lives on the top of a mountain outside of Maidsville, in a house built by her ex-husband, before they were exed. The mountain was given to her ex-husband's family by one of the Kings George sometime before the American Revolution. I wonder how the Native Americans felt about that? Anyway, the property has been in the family for 250 - 300 years or so. Blanche will continue to live there until their youngest finishes school, then the property reverts back to her ex's family, who already have agreed to sell it to a power utility who will then rape the land as they have done to almost everything else in the area. Coal country. Tragic, if you ask me.


The road to Blanche's house.





One of Blanche's goats.




Lunch was lamb chops from sheep raised by Blanche. Yum. We got the last of them, since Blanche is taking a break from raising sheep. Followed by birthday cake, of course.

L-R: Blanche, Cinderbelle, Coretta (the birthday girl) and Ry, who, at 15, has become an excellent bassist.




After cake, we said our goodbyes and hit the road. Next stop: my brother's house in Okemos, Michigan.




We got to Okemos pretty late, about 11:00 pm. We stayed the next day for breakfast and a game of Skip-Bo.

My brother Brian (center), his sons Nolan (left, with his duck) and Albie (right) and Cinderbelle's hands (no cheating!) Albie and Nolan are both gifted musicians and we were treated to a bit of their playing both times I (we) stopped.





Then on toward home.




Approaching Chicago from the southeast.




You know those metal and plastic boxy thingies on the road? I think they're called automobiles? They were invented to move people and their stuff from point A to point B faster than a person can walk. Except in Chicago.




The driver of the Saab directly ahead of me is one of those, pardon the expression, dickwads who thinks she's so important that she drives on the shoulder of the road so she doesn't have to wait her turn like everyone else.




A welcome sight.




Almost there.





Home at last.




I hope that wasn't excruciatingly dull. I'll make up for it on my next post: pictures from my colonoscopy.

Stuff from the trip

Cinderbelle and I got home last night. I drove 1,500 miles in five days. I didn't take many pictures, but here are a few.



Somewhere near beautiful Gary, Indiana on the I-90 Skyway. There were some even lovelier scenes, but I'm not too good at taking pictures and driving at the same time. By the time I got the camera out, I had already passed the sprawl of structures made of big black pipes spewing fireballs .




I stopped at my brother's house in Okemos, Michigan on the way there and back. It probably added an hour or so to my total drive time each way, but his house is almost exactly halfway and it was nice to stop and visit. This sign was somewhere in southeastern Michigan. I didn't stop there.




My youngest daughter likes these bridges. Or used to, anyway. So I took this picture for her.




Spring was much further along in Pittsburgh than it was in Madison. Oakland, which is where the University of Pittsburgh is located, has many, many redbud trees, which were in spectacular bloom. For some reason, I didn't take any shots of the redbuds, but here are some flowers outside the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens. I think they might be tulips.




Inside, some orchids.








A koi pond.




A pretty tree outside the Cathedral of Learning (for all you Terry Pratchett readers, I prefer to think of it as Unseen University's Tower of Art, but the tower is unseen in this photo, as it should be. Or shouldn't be. Or.... ummm....)




The rare and ferocious Pennsylvania stubb-tailed squirrel, a genetic mutation caused by the magical run-off from Unseen University.




When I arrived in Pittsburgh, I hit construction and its accompanying Detour from Hell. It took me two hours to drive from downtown to Oakland, which should have only taken about 15 minutes. Leaving town I took a different route which passed through one of the finer neighborhoods, but only took about 15 minutes.




That's it for now. Maybe I'll bore you with a few more from the journey home later.