A Trip To The Midwest

Time for our annual trip to Iowa to see the relatives!  And who can complain when we have $50 round trip tickets with a nonstop flight from Denver to Sioux City!  Frontier had a great special that we took advantage of - good thing we booked early as the flight was full AND right before we left, we found out that Frontier is discontinuing flights to Sioux City for the winter season!

We had never flown into Sioux City before and there was no choice of flights as only one flight a day goes that route - the times weren't great but we weren't complaining.  Our plane was to arrive at 10:15 that night and since it's such a small airport, Patty suggested I call the rental car company and make sure they would still be open at that hour.  So I pull out my paperwork on the car and duh, I had booked it out of Omaha, not Sioux City (we had always flown into Omaha so guess that's what was stuck in my brain when I booked the rental car!!).  Anyway, I got the Omaha car cancelled and a new one set up out of Sioux City and they would be open till 10:30.

When we arrived, Glenn had the rental car paperwork in hand so he could go right to the counter to get the car before it closed and since we were seated in row 5, it worked out pretty good - I was to go get the baggage.  Well, we had NO IDEA how small this airport was - there was only ONE baggage carousel and it was right beside the rental car place.

Luckily the Sioux City airport is at the south end of town and only a mile off the interstate so it was easy to get to Soldier from there - Omaha would have taken us longer as there is still a bridge out.

We made it to Patty and Leonard's NEW HOUSE about 11:30 that night and I couldn't wait to get the grand tour of their home - I had seen lots of pictures but had a hard time piecing the layout all together.  Their house is beautiful and what a joy it was to stay there!

 Friday night Jim and Brenda came in so we could have our farm meeting and eat together.  Jim brought some great steaks with all the trimmings and we had fun catching up and eating!

 Saturday noon we headed to Onawa to meet Todd, Neal and the gang!  Did I forget to mention that it has rained a LOT in the midwest lately!  We were meeting at a park and parts of it were underwater - you even had to step through water to get to the picnic tables!!  Here's Jenn and Maggie!

 The 3 cousins:  Maggie, Nedelle and Chance

 Maggie just wouldn't stay out of the water and her parents finally just gave up and let her play - the water was so deep in places, she could almost swim!

 Neal cooked us up some yummy brats, hot dogs and zucchini!

 After we got back to Soldier, we headed uptown that evening to eat a chicken dinner at the community building and then checked out all the motorcycles!  Since it was Labor Day Weekend, the big rally was in town - all kinds of campers and tents all over town (despite the rain) - and lots and lots of bikers!  We headed into the bar to check out a new poster that had been put up recently.  Patty had told me about this poster and I can't for the life of me remember having posters printed up like this but we must have!

Below is the poster of the band that I used to play in - and someone had written down all the members names that had been in the band at one time.  Calvin, Barry, John and I were the original members - oh what memories I have during that time back in the 60's!!

 I KNOW I look a whole lot different than I did then - in fact, I was just in jr high and many people who saw me playing the guitar on stage thought I was a boy as it was pretty rare to have a girl in a band those days...............

We didn't stay long downtown as it started raining again..............Patty's couch was a whole lot more comfortable than a crowded noisy bar!!  To Be Cont'd..........