Welcome Fall

It’s fall as of today but it doesn’t feel like fall at all. Yesterday and today we experienced the hottest temperatures since last summer, 93 degrees. And humidity! Oh it has been unbelievably wonderful not to have had the humidity all summer long. I can tell you I did not miss it, and yesterday in particular, reminded me of how fortunate we were to have escaped that hell for one year. When we were setting up in the campground today, I went straight to opening all of the windows. I was taken aback when I saw this little guy huddling into the corner of the window above my side of the bed. A bat!            I tried to get him to fly away but realized he would when dusk came.  To my delight, he did fly away.

Going through Iowa and Illinois we were still amazed by the size of the farmlands.             I have written before about the acres and acres of farmlands but I need to change it to miles and miles. It is so big and wide open that I think instead of selling property by the acre they sell it by the mile! In Iowa and Illinois you expect fields of corn and soy bean, but here in Illinois the also grow these. Wind farms. As far and wide as your eye could see were these wind mills turning and turning. We saw the parts being trucked in on tractor trailers. I know these windmills are big but when you see the size of the sections close up, you cannot believe how big the really are.           I think they are pretty. I guess because we are not used to seeing them.  When the one fan blade points straight down and the other two are out to the side, they look like angels to me. I think the artist is Steven Lavaggi who designs angels that look like that. I wonder if this is where he got his inspiration for them. Tommy and I figure that outside the few pockets of population dotted throughout the center of the US, most of the people are jammed in on the coasts leaving the rest of the US open for farmlands, ranches, and good living.