Yesterday was the day we said good bye to an old friend....our boat of 9 years. It took its last ride behind our car to Duchow Marine www.duchowsfoxlake.com. I didn't get as attached to this boat as some of our previous ones (16' Starcraft, 16' Glastron, 18' Reinell, 19' Bayliner). Maybe it was due to the fact that we only had it 9 years as opposed to our last Bayliner & Reinell lasting 11 & 13 years respectively. Time to move on to the new phase in our life...the elderly..the relaxed...THE PONTOON PHASE.

 Cheryl & Don in front of American Club.

 Coffer & Tea in the Piano/Wine Lounge.

Cheryl & I made our first visit to the American Club, Kohler, WI. www.americanclub.com All I can say is that it lived up to its reputation...5 star & on the list of Historic Places. Everyone at the Inn was exceptionally courteous. We were surprised when bell caps would remember our name & what we were doing for the day.

  Kohler Factory

We took the 2 1/2 hour tour of the Kohler Factory (we walked 3 miles). We also visited the design center which has numerous bathrooms on display. The wall of toilets & sinks is shown above. Watching them create sinks, toilets, and bathtubs was interesting, especially as they would come out of the ovens red hot. Imagine how much  clay iron they use. They make 40 tons of iron per hour & produce 1000 bathtubs a day at this site with 8,000 employees.

  Salad & Pizza

After the tour, we visit Cucina's which is one of 9 restaurants run by the American Club. I have never had a pizza with figs. They added caramelized onions & goat cheese (I left off the chicken..it was Friday). Cheryl had a salad loaded with figs, cherries, cranberries & raisins.

 Cast iron art - Motorcycle

Part of Kohler is an "Artist in Residence" program. They create art in clay, iron (cast & sculpting), porcelin & other metals.

 Greenhouse at American Club

I forgot to mention that the American Club was built as housing for immigrant workers in 1918 as they built & manned the Kohler factory. The Greenhouse shown above is all leaded glass. It was originally in Great Britain. The Kohler family had it disassembled and moved to the American Club where it is now used as an ice cream parlor as well as tea & wine lounge.

Our Friday night meal was in the Wisconsin Room, originally the mess hall for the immigrants. They put on a delectable seafood buffet. We followed that up by listening to the Irish Band, Ce' in the Horse & Plow and then a piano player in the piano/wine bar...all inside the American Club. Great stay!

I don't think I will add any more pictures of snow. We have seen enough of it this winter. Rockford broke the Dec-Feb record set in '78-'79. (66.1" YTD). Of course that is at the airport 15 miles south of us. We have a few more inches to add to that.

When Jess & Adam were growing up along the river, we had a couple of winters when ice would cause the river to backup into our lower property. The water would freeze leaving behind and unusual ice skating rink with trees and a cement wall. Of course the ice slanted slightly toward the river making the experience even more exciting. 

   River flooding our lower property.

This winter brought back the memories when ice jams have again cause the Rock River to reach flood stage in Rockford, Machesney Park & Roscoe.

 Birds on feeders

In a little lighter vein, we have 5 bird feeders throughout our lot. We use several different types of food such as thistle, sunflower, safflower. The red-bellied woodpeckers normally hang on our largest feeder filled with a Cardinal mix. However, the red-bellied woodpecker pictured above must have decided that he was ready for dessert. Finding the thistle & crushed sunflower meats irresistible, he found a way to feed from the smallest of all our feeders. I hope his neck survives. The other feeder becomes an interesting battle ground as the alpha male/females dominate the prime landing zones.

While we are on the subject of wild life, we have quite a few gray and red squirrels. This morning I watched a red squirrel (a very fat one) try in vein to open the small thistle feeder shown above. After a while he gave up and came to our sliding door begging for food. I was surprised when I opened the sliding door expecting him to run, he just sat there seeing who would blink first. I finally gave in and pulled the heal from a loaf of bread out of the drawer and throwing pieces out to the squirrel. He took each piece one at a time and took them to the tree to eat. When he was done, he sat at our door again. I created a monster.

For my birthday in December, I was presented with a gift of the handle from our front storm door. Yes, the handle fell off in my hand as I went to open the door. That in itself was a problem as I now had no way to open the door nor did I have a key to open the back door. Luckily we have a keypad on the garage door and power was up.

As it turned out, the flange holding the handle to the door actually wore out....very poor design. I used some JB Weld to make a new flange so our guests wouldn't have to use a piece of string to pull the door after removing the latch. In the mean time, I took the number off our 1996 Larsen Storm Door and ordered a new handle/lock set at Menards ($40) directly from the manufacturer. I figured that was the best solution .... cheaper than a new door ... easier than trying to make a generic door handle set work.

After waiting for 5 weeks I checked with Menards to see when it was coming in. Imagine my shock when they said it came in Dec 14 and was already picked up. Fortunately they were able to find it in the back even though it wasn't there. Then came the next shock. It wasn't the same as the original. The holes in the door and frame didn't even line up. So, back to Menards. We called Larsen only to be told that it was a kit to replace the old one and I would need to drill new holes as needed. Now I had to fill the original holes in the door frame as well as drill and cut new holes in the door. Then I had to repaint the door jam. Yes, I did get it all installed and it looks and works great. But it sure was a lot more work than I anticipated.

It seems like I write a lot about driving lately. Maybe it is because I drive so much. My latest experience is up and personal with a tornado. It all started as I was returning home from a call in Crystal Lake, IL. This trip would normally take me along Hwy 14 to Harvard, Hwy 173 to Chemung, and then a bit north to catch Hunter Rd back to Roscoe. My peaceful trip now entering Harvard was interupted by a call from Cheryl telling me that there was a tornado sighted near Roscoe.

I listened to the weather reports and ascertained that the storm had crossed 173 in Machesney Park and was heading NE. Thus I changed my route to stay on 173 which runs SW from Harvard to Machesney Park which I assumed would keep me south of the storm. It was a very still day at this point as I could see the lightning and dark clouds in the western sky.  About 15 miles down the road, just east of Poplar Grove, I felt the van start to move from winds which seemed to come from no where. That is when I saw it. About 150-200 feet north of me in the cornfield a tornado came over the tree line and touched down.

I didn't think to take out my camera phone so my thanks to others whose pictures I am using. The first one gives you an idea of what it looked like out the window of my van. The second was taken from North Boone School just north of the tornado.

Edward's Apple Orchard

The tornado ripped a path along 15 miles stretching from Poplar Grove to Harvard, IL, following a line just north of Hwy 173. Along the way it destroyed several buildings, homes, a truck and even pulled a train off the tracks in Harvard. Now I have been closer than I prefer to a tornado to go along with Hurricane Betsy in 1965. Jack Maynard & I rode that one out in his uncle's house in Marenquin, LA, as the eye passed over at 3:30 AM. It had winds of 135mph. The tornado was estimated to have winds of 145-165 mph. I can go the rest of my lifetime without seeing another one.....I hope.

Our area has had some not so pleasant weather the past couple of weeks. The snow on the ground and the ice covered trees create a beautiful scene for our personal viewing. I saw it all on Tuesday when I drove to Watertown, WI (NE of Madison). The morning drive started with rain in Roscoe and ended with snow in Watertown.... 6 inches by the end of the morning. It did make driving home a bit of a chore.

This morning I did battle with the ice .... it won. While putting gas in my company van, I tripped over the hose and my other foot landed on ice. Yes, down I went. I managed to stop my fall with my hands with no damage only to find my head too close to the large chunks of freshly spread salt. I now have several scratches and cuts on my forhead. A lady was watching and quickly asked if I was OK. Yes, I'm OK. Except, that is, for the obvious embarasment.  Just think, last night mom & Paula Olson were both hanging on to me as we left the restaurant to cross the icy parking lot .... because ... I am so sure footed on ice.

Fall arrived andwinter can't be far behind. While we still had a few leaves left and the weather was in the 70's, I winterized the jet skis. The boat was done in Sept as the river was closed due to high waters. The picture above shows our new grass coming up after reseeding by the river. 

Thanksgiving is of course part of fall. We had my only living uncle Joe Vecchio & his family. Cheryl did a great job of setting the table and getting the fruit & other snacks out. It looked so great I took a picture. That was so I could enjoy it later. I was sick at Thanksgiving and actually lost 5 pounds over the holiday.

 The other project for the fall was to tackle replacing the clear story window... 10 feet long.  This is the old window. This is the new window. New window inside the house. As you can see from the before and after, the new window has about 20% more glass surface in the same opening. Now we have replaced all of the original windows and sliding doors in the house. I can feel the warmth already.

Adam has always said that Illinois has the most vanity plates he has ever seen. So it was funny that the editorial in this morning's Rockford Register Star was about Vanity Plates. Of course part of Illinois's problem was that our ex governor Ryan (now in prison as seems to be norm in IL) was selling the low number plates to his cronies for favors and contributions.

However, IL is not the state with the highest % of vanity plates. That distinction goes to Virginia at 16%. NH follows that with 14%. Then comes IL at 13.4%. Thus IL isn't the wakiest state telling stories in 8 characters or less but I will concede to Adam that in total numbers, IL has the most at 1.3M because of the size of the state.

There is a lot of debate as to whether it is poetry in motion or stoytelling in the dot com age vs. shear thinking that the plates makes them better or special. Of course there is always the most famous vanity plate from the Sienfeld show "ASSMAN". I'll have to admit that I haven't seen that one slip through our state's scrutiny.

It seems like ages since I updated my blog. Part of the delay was due to our being in Ireland for 11 days. We started our trip in Dublin...minus our luggage which was still in NY. Cheryl & I managed until the luggage found us in Ballycastle 2 days later.   We finally changed and enjoyed the seaside view. We saw much of the Antrim Coast including Dunluce Castle and Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge.     

 The trip was great especially having the whole family to enjoy it with us. 

On the way back, our flight to Chicago from NY was cancelled. Delta flew us to Atlanta & then Chicago but put Cheryl & I on different flights. We got that fixed but...not our luggage. Again, Delta left my luggage behind. This time in Atlanta. Again, it took 2 days for it to catch up to me.    

 Halloween:

We had a funny thing happen this Halloween; we had a live trick or treater show up at our door. While this would seem the norm, we haven't had anyone show up in well over 10 years. Fortunately we did have some candy. We also had 2 Jack-O-Lanterns for the first time in years. Maybe that attracted our guest.