Everyone was here for Christmas, but Maggie was sick. We never had everyone together, healthy and happy at the same time, but there's at least one picture of each of us (including Mr. Toad).

Merry Christmas

Road Trip Pictures on Flickr

I finally looked at all the photos we shot on our road trip. A lot have been discarded or ignored. But I still processed a bunch -- over 500 -- which are now up on Flickr in a medium resolution format.

To see them in a slide show, click here.

If you'd rather navigate through them on your own, click here.

Clara Lee's Quilts and More

On Sunday CL participated in A Classical Holiday 2010, offering her quilted goods (and more) for sale. Even though it seemed that most of the attendees took the tour but didn't do much shopping, she had a reasonable outing.

Thanksgiving with Maggie

Iron Horse Music Hall

Friday night we went to the Iron Horse again. This time to see rani arbo & daisy mayhem. This is rani,

and this is her with daisy mayhem (the group).
Opening act was May Erlewine and Seth Bernard, but they were on-stage with rani for about half the concert.


Both groups and the combined group were very good.

Trip Wrap-up

I finally got around to calculating all the vital info from our roadtrip.

Total miles: 7785

Gallons of petrol: 250

MPG 31.14 (I attribute this low value to the speed -- much of it over 80 mph -- and the unavailability of high octane gas west of the Mississippi)

Number of states driven through: 24

U.S. License plates spotted: 50 states plus DC

Number of national chains eaten at: 1 (we were in a hurry on the Ohio Tpk heading east, but we'll never eat at a Pizzeria Uno again.)

Pennsylvania-New York-Connecticut-Massachusetts

Final leg of the trip - a quick ride home on Saturday.

(It was getting dark by the time we got home.)

A few more Angstrom pictures ...

... taken last Friday.

Angstrom likes his vegetables.

We went for a walk; he was impatient to get going.

Back home again.

Angstrom and Prosciutto

Fuddle & Fuel

Yesterday we went to lunch with Mona Lisa, Jesse & Angstrom.

Indiana-Ohio-Pennsylvania

Quickly through two entire states and a bit of Pennsylvania

to get to Angstrom.

Nebraska-Iowa-Illinois

We covered about 650 miles today - from Kearney, NE to Harvey, IL. We're a few miles from the Indiana line and positioned to get to Pittsburgh tomorrow afternoon.

As we started out this mornling, we stopped briefly at a grain elevator in, we think, Shelton.

It's so full of corn, that they're putting it in piles under plastic wrap.
And there are many other piles, too, some open to the elements.

This reminded us of King Corn, a video everyone should watch.

Eventually we got to Iowa, and this picture is probably identical to last year's.

In Iowa, I again enjoyed watching the windmills. Is this an AT&T ad?
Mr. Toad and I were both glad that his tires aren't this big.
Also in Iowa was the (self-proclaimed) World's Largest Truckstop.

Next state: Illinois. With Daylight Saving Time gone it got dark before we took any pictures.

A Winery Tasting and a Fire

This afternoon we visited Miletta Vista Winery in St. Paul, NE. Red, white & blue in this shot.

The view from their deck.
Us on the deck, eating bread with olive oil and brie with cranberries and nuts.

After we returned to Kearney, we heard sirens approaching and then stopping very near to the house.
Apparently a neighbor started his antique (I think, from the picture below) MGB, which hadn't been used for a while. He went into the house while it warmed up, and this is what he came back to. Mr. Toad and I both feel his pain.