We drove around Red Wing – one of the places we HAD to drive by (a couple of times) was ‘home’. 313 Cedar Street.
They had pulled out the bushes around the house and put in all new windows and siding (wouldn’t dad have loved that?). I doubt they would have liked the way the ‘gravel’ or whatever that is looked around the house. It looks bland.
June 13 – 11:48 p.m.
Well, here we sit somewhere south of the Minnesota border - getting a ticket. Hmm? Randy was driving. The officer said it would be a warning ticket. A warning? That we pay up or else? It is taking a long time.
Our trip to Minnesota -
We decided to drive part way to MN last night (Friday). Stayed along the way at a motel. Waited to sort of the last minute to make a final decision whether to go or not. Once we did decided, our hope was to go to church in Red Wing, see Mary, see Joan, Kirk and Scarlet and go to Amy Arnold's grad party and head home yet Sat. night.
Turns out RW closes church during MN camp meeting, so that option was off the table. We stopped in to see Mary and her nice apartment. The three of us did a nice driving tour of RW. Randy and I hadn't been there since dad died. A lot was the same - but much had changed too.
I wasn't 100% sure we would actually go north or not. So didn’t make contact with Joan ahead of time. When we called her Friday she said they had plans already on Saturday. So we weren't able to see them.
It had been so much fun last weekend to see Smuda’s- it makes us want to reconnect with everyone - so we felt sad to be close to Petersons and not see them. Yet it was our fault for not making definite plans earlier.
We drove over to Prescott WI for the grad party. What a beautiful day and such a pretty town, hadn’t been there before. In order to not appear TOO decrepit and hobbly when we saw friends we hadn’t seen in years - we stopped at their visitor center to potty, stretch, and limber up!
The view was outstanding from the bluff, TOTALLY peaceful and calming. If that was all we did in Prescott on that Sabbath day, it would have been a blessing to have been there. The girl working there toward the CONFLUENCE. We were both polite. Smiled, then walked toward where her finger pointed. Once out of earshot we confided to each other that we didn't know what a confluence was. Randy's friends enlightened us. We now know it is where 2 rivers flow together.
The graduation party was nice. It was so pretty out, a perfect day. The gathering was outside under some tents, the setting was park-like at the graduate’s grandma’s home. There was no blaring music so it was easy to visit, which I appreciated. Amy is a lovely young lady with dreams of college teaching her all about Asian studies so she can participate in the growing connection between world markets … or something like that!
Randy sure enjoyed, as did I, visiting with long-time friends from his days in Red Wing. David Arnold, Gene (and Kathy) Littlefield, and Ken Dickey. How those guys lived to adulthood is a mystery!!!
One of his friends, actually I guess two of OUR friends, work at a company I thought was a power plant – but turns out they make drywall and ceiling tile. Not sure where the disconnect in MY mind came – but I always have thought they worked at a power plant. Anyway, talking about the disasters that have brought business into the drywall business in recent years. I couldn’t help but think that we will be seeing more of these disasters as time progresses. Jesus surely is coming soon.
Now it is 11:48 pm and we are nearly 1/2 way home. YAWN. We Google’d a high school friend whose name came up often in conversation. Found a phone # so Randy called Clark for 30 minutes or so. Sounds like they had a nice conversation.
I think these are sideways - I'll have to learn how to do this better on the blog.
We drove around Red Wing – one of the places we HAD to drive by (a couple of times) was ‘home’. 313 Cedar Street.
They had pulled out the bushes around the house and put in all new windows and siding (wouldn’t dad have loved that?). I doubt they would have liked the way the ‘gravel’ or whatever that is looked around the house. It looks bland.
If you click the pictures in this Ludke-ville they should come up larger on your screen …
June 13 – 11:48 p.m.
Well, here we sit somewhere south of the Minnesota border - getting a ticket. Hmm? Randy was driving. The officer said it would be a warning ticket. A warning? That we pay up or else? It is taking a long time.
Our trip to Minnesota -
We decided to drive part way to MN last night (Friday). Stayed along the way at a motel. Waited to sort of the last minute to make a final decision whether to go or not. Once we did decided, our hope was to go to church in Red Wing, see Mary, see Joan, Kirk and Scarlet and go to Amy Arnold's grad party and head home yet Sat. night.
Turns out RW closes church during MN camp meeting, so that option was off the table. We stopped in to see Mary and her nice apartment. The three of us did a nice driving tour of RW. Randy and I hadn't been there since dad died. A lot was the same - but much had changed too.
I wasn't 100% sure we would actually go north or not. So didn’t make contact with Joan ahead of time. When we called her Friday she said they had plans already on Saturday. So we weren't able to see them.
It had been so much fun last weekend to see Smuda’s- it makes us want to reconnect with everyone - so we felt sad to be close to Petersons and not see them. Yet it was our fault for not making definite plans earlier.
We drove over to Prescott WI for the grad party. What a beautiful day and such a pretty town, hadn’t been there before. In order to not appear TOO decrepit and hobbly when we saw friends we hadn’t seen in years - we stopped at their visitor center to potty, stretch, and limber up!
The view was outstanding from the bluff, TOTALLY peaceful and calming. If that was all we did in Prescott on that Sabbath day, it would have been a blessing to have been there. The girl working there toward the CONFLUENCE. We were both polite. Smiled, then walked toward where her finger pointed. Once out of earshot we confided to each other that we didn't know what a confluence was. Randy's friends enlightened us. We now know it is where 2 rivers flow together.
The graduation party was nice. It was so pretty out, a perfect day. The gathering was outside under some tents, the setting was park-like at the graduate’s grandma’s home. There was no blaring music so it was easy to visit, which I appreciated. Amy is a lovely young lady with dreams of college teaching her all about Asian studies so she can participate in the growing connection between world markets … or something like that!
Randy sure enjoyed, as did I, visiting with long-time friends from his days in Red Wing. David Arnold, Gene (and Kathy) Littlefield, and Ken Dickey. How those guys lived to adulthood is a mystery!!!
One of his friends, actually I guess two of OUR friends, work at a company I thought was a power plant – but turns out they make drywall and ceiling tile. Not sure where the disconnect in MY mind came – but I always have thought they worked at a power plant. Anyway, talking about the disasters that have brought business into the drywall business in recent years. I couldn’t help but think that we will be seeing more of these disasters as time progresses. Jesus surely is coming soon.
Now it is 11:48 pm and we are nearly 1/2 way home. YAWN. We Google’d a high school friend whose name came up often in conversation. Found a phone # so Randy called Clark for 30 minutes or so. Sounds like they had a nice conversation.
Sunday – 1:53 p.m.
We thought strongly about seeing if we could find the spare key at Ryan and Rhiannon’s as we sailed by there at about 1:30 a.m. this morning. So tired, thinking that extra bed in the extra room sounded like it was calling our name (the kids were in Illinois camping this weekend). Not wanting to waste time by trying to find it in the dark, we continued. Finally got home about 2:36 am – I’m sure I was in bed asleep by 3 am.
Needless to say it was good sleep in this morning. We got up and threw all four dogs into the van and went for a drive over to the arboretum and walked them. Figured it would be fastest for both of us to take two and get it all done in one fell-swoop. Otherwise Randy would have been out with dogs for the next hour or so … one at a time. Yes, I think Nick is still dog-sitting. Somehow though our presence allows him to believe we are in charge!
A thoroughly lovely weekend—hope yours was equally as nice.
Take care – keep safe – love Jesus!
Vonda
PS – Our friends asked how Ryan was doing. I guess when things seemed DIRE, I kept you posted. The news is … we still don’t know what ‘got him’. The lymphoma oncologist does not believe it to be lymphoma. Then they thought it was the histoplasmomsis. Nothing ended up growing in the culture they did, so they ruled that out and took Ryan off the antifungal medication. He is feeling better, and it appears that we may not ever know exactly what made him so horribly sick. As he continues to get stronger and back to 100% -- Thank you for your prayers. God has been good and answered our prayers for his healing.
