OLYMPUS E-P1 PROJECT
... after a long, long drive across nebraska, and a stop to visit my childhood home in bellevue (there were no signs along the interstate directing us to the house, i'm going to have to call someone about that), we scooted across iowa to a hotel outside des moines ... score one for adrien and the desk clerk, when we had to wait twenty-minutes to get our reservation confirmed we ended up with a free room ... having learned that it was opening day, the next morning we took a side trip to visit the farm where "field of dreams was filmed" ... here you can see the "ray loves annie" carved by kevin costner while waiting to shoot a scene ...
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... near as i could figure, this is the spot ... "if you build it, he will come" ... okay, so the actual spot is about forty or fifty feet further on into the field ... high corn season i'd have walked all the way out, but not this time of year ... yech ...
OLYMPUS E-P1 PROJECT
... after a long, long drive we stopped in columbus where we spent a nice weekend visiting with jon ... we watched movies, both on the big screen and on his own personal big screen, enjoyed eating some fresh cane's chicken, and grilled $3.49/lb. sirloins (there're times i'd move to ohio just because of the price of meat) ... as you can see, we visited all sorts of important cultural attractions ...
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... it seems adrien recruited jon to become a member of her jump team ...
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... for me, at least, rare, in columbus we became instant fans of "sugardaddy's" ...
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... jon and adrien made sure we found the most famous sign in columbus ...
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... naturally, there's no way i'm going to stop in ohio without having at least one serving of most scrumptious skyline chili...
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... with the extra days we had decided to split the 1,000 mile home ride into two segments, so we stopped for the night on the canadian side of niagara falls ... 150,000 gallons every second, 1/5th of the world's fresh water crashes down this cataract into the gorge below ... that's a fact, as is that if the power companies took as much water as they could to generate electricity this would be pretty much "the very damp niagara cliff" ...
OLYMPUS E-P1 PROJECT
... every time i visit this spot i get dizzy ...
OLYMPUS E-P1 PROJECT
... it was freezing cold, with a bitter gusty wind, but we were lucky to find that rather than cloaking the shoreline the mist from the falls was staying over the middle of the river ... because of construction and my unfamiliarity with all the new hotels and casinos we ended up walking about three miles ... i give us a special gold star for this, since by this point in our little wander-about we were getting a tiny bit exhausted ...
OLYMPUS E-P1 PROJECT
... taking a break, we treated ourselves to a ride in the huge ferris wheel ... the heated cars were a special incentive, of course ... it was supposed to be an eight-minute ride, so we considered it a great deal when we got to go round-and-round-and-round for almost twenty minutes ...
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... it was an especially beautiful ferris wheel, so adrien celebrated ...
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... the next morning our plan was to descend into the tunnel that goes behind the falls (to the right in the picture) ... the first lady i asked said, "oh, yes, it's open, but you can only do the observation deck" ... i found adrien and said, "let's do it" ... when we went back to the ticket counter the second lady, a very grandmotherly woman, advised us, "oh, you can go down, but you won't see anything put a great wall of ice because the portal is all frozen in" ... that was enough for us to make the tunnel visit part of another wander-about ...
OLYMPUS E-P1 PROJECT
... since i first came here as a small child the falls remain both fascinating and awe inspiring ...
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... our last major spot on the trip, after this we did a minor wander-about looking for a wal-mart so adrien could purchase some canadian candy ... did you know that cadbury's chocolate in canada is made in canada, while the stuff we buy comes from pennsylvania ... don't believe me, get a sample of the same bar from each country and taste the difference ...
... a long drive home, lake effect weather to both sides but clear skies overhead ... 5,835 miles after we started we turned the car off in front of adrien's cabin ... living in maine, i get to add 240 miles to that figure ... so much we saw and did, this was a most wonderful wander-about ...
... all of you who have been with us on this little excursion, thanks for staying with us ... i hope that our wander-about will perhaps inspire one or two of you to make your own ...