Monthly Archives: June 2013

Ed’s Love Affair {with the outdoors}

28 Friday Jun 2013

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Ed loves spending time outside. I like being outside, too, but Ed LOVES being outside. He spends 10 hours a day as an engineer in a machine shop, so for his vacation time, he wants to be outside as much as possible. Because of this, he literally plans our vacations around National Parks. The summer before our wedding, we drove to Yellowstone National Park, which started it all. We stopped at every possible stop on our way; the Corn Palace, the Badlands, Mount Rushmore, Devil’s Tower, Wall Drug, and then six days in Yellowstone. One day, we told each other, we were going to take the same drive with our kids.

The summer I was pregnant with Lily, Ed planned a trip around Lake Michigan, which included camping at Twelvemile Beach up at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. The campgrounds were remote; the dirt road leading up to the campsite was extremely bumpy. (I hear it’s now a paved road.) On the shore of Lake Superior, this is not the beach vacation you may be imagining. We were plagued by insects; mosquitoes up at our campsite, biting flies on the beach. Somewhere in the woods, I got a huge spider bite on my arm, which alarmed me, but it went away after a few days with no harm done. The water was frigid, and it turned my legs bright red when I went wading. I also made Ed get up with me every time I needed to use the outhouse at night. I was pregnant, remember? Plus, it rained. It rained, and rained, and rained. If anything made me realize that our marriage was going to work, it was being stuck with Ed in a tent for eight hours. I cannot tell you the relief I felt when we checked into a hotel in Mackinaw City. I took a long nap on a real bed while Ed went swimming in the pool. We still laugh about that trip.

The next time I was pregnant, we traveled with our two-year old to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We rented an amazing little cabin close to Cherokee, North Carolina, and we went into the park everyday and hiked. Lily was an amazing hiker. We hiked up and down trails to waterfalls, picnicked by streams where Ed and Lily walked on the rocks in the water, and saw a black bear with two cubs, along with a variety of other wildlife. Ed insisted I could hike anywhere, even though I was six months pregnant.

smoky mountains cabin

Our cabin on the mountainside

When Emmy was almost two, we went back up to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and explored the Porcupine Mountains and other state parks up by Lake Superior. It is simply gorgeous up there, and on this second trip, we didn’t notice the swarms of mosquitoes that we had experienced before. I also refused to camp this time around.

Exploring Presque Isle with Emmy

Exploring Presque Isle with Emmy

The next year, we were off to Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado for a family reunion. The following summer, a trip to Cook Forest in Pennsylvania and Niagara Falls. Last summer, we traveled the farthest yet, and took a trip to Alaska. All our vacations have involved outdoor activities of some kind; whether it’s hiking, canoe rides or ziplining. This August, we’re off for another National Park adventure to…

I’m going to keep you in suspense. No, it’s not Yellowstone; we’re waiting until the girls get a little older for those long drives! But it is an exciting place… Visit Gretchen at Second Blooming for more outdoor adventures!

Which National Parks have you visited?

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Sculpture Park

25 Tuesday Jun 2013

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Sometimes it seems like we are always “driving by.” With two little girls in the back seat and places to be, we don’t have patience to pull over when we see something interesting. We might comment on it–“Oh, that looks interesting”–I may take a mental note that will soon be forgotten, and on we go.

Even without children, Ed and I would drive by interesting places without stopping. Once, we were vacationing in North Carolina. I saw a sign for a street full of art galleries; I wanted to stop, but Ed wanted to keep going. We’ve never been back, and I’ve always regretted it. Perhaps it would have been a tourist trap, or perhaps I wouldn’t have cared for the art. Maybe I would have loved the galleries and would have spend the afternoon drenched in beauty. I wonder.

horse sculpture

In Des Moines, there is a sculpture park downtown that we have often driven by but never stopped to visit. My aunt thought the girls would enjoy the park, and so instead of driving by this time, we stopped and parked the car. The sculptures are surrounded by wide open grassy spaces, perfect for kids to run around in. Climbing on the sculptures is not allowed, but there are plenty of tall, grassy hills to climb and run down.

The sculpture that takes over the landscape is a large white figure made from a scramble of letters. Hugging its knees, it sits nestled in a green bank.
white letter figure

The creepiest sculpture is a giant spider, tall and…well, spidery.
spider sculpture

Two figures, one black and one white, bring to mind rook pieces on a chess board. They are actually backs of snowmen, one black and one white.

Just down the street as we walked closer to downtown Des Moines is a meandering fountain. It was so hot and humid that day that my aunt promised the girls they could wade in the cool water. It wasn’t just the girls who dipped their feet into the water…the adults took advantage of the fountain, too.

An article in the Des Moines Register which features the Pappajohn Sculpture Park has details and photos of all the sculptures in the park, and we missed seeing some of them because of the heat. Hopefully, the next time we go to Des Moines we’ll be able stop and take another look instead of just driving by.

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