On the road again!!!

After we hiked more than 9 miles on Friday we hiked another 3 miles the next day but this hike included 410 stair steps. We felt great that we could do that and weren’t sore at all. I did get bitten by some kind of bug which really made a big swelling in my neck and itched like the dickens. It is still somewhat swollen and red but getting much better. After doing all that hiking we emptied the tanks and filled up with water and went to Bily Clock museum in Spillville, IA. A very interesting place. All the clocks were carved by two bachelor brothers who spent weeks and/or months carving the clocks in their spare time as they farmed also. But there was no distraction like t.v., wives or kids so there was plenty of spare time. Henry Ford offered 1 million dollars for one of the clocks but the Bily brothers refused to sell it to him. We then went to the smallest church in the world near Festina, IA. It consists of only 4 pews and seating for 8. There was a grave stone there from a man who had fought with Napoleon at Moscow and Waterloo. We then went on to Raymond, IA where our friends live on a farm and where we are parked against the cornfield again. Just like in Nebraska. One night we had a nice campfire at our friends’ place. They had to get the wood by tractor (see picture above). We went into Amish country and saw some really nice furniture made by the Amish people. Gary saw a beautiful chair that was also very comfortable and wish he could have bought it. Maybe someday! We did get to buy some brown eggs and gooseberry jam. Haven’t tried the jam yet as we want to really savor that. Haven’t had gooseberry jam forever. Spent a nice afternoon in Oelwein City Park with our friends and then saw another old friend in the evening whom we hadn’t seen for over 40 years. We also saw other friends we hadn’t seen for 10 years. We are having fun catching up with friends we haven’t seen for so long and are looking forward to Gary’s reunion on the 4th of October. Winter is coming though, we can tell by the wind and the leaves.