Wabasha SeptOberFest

 On the 10th of October we met Sherry's cousin and her husband at Wabasha MN for the annual SeptOberFest. It is a monthly fest and there are many activities that are planned during this time. The city does an outstanding job decorating the downtown area during the festival. There are also many play activities for the little ones too. 

On our way to Wabasha, we have a place close to our place that is our "fall foliage" yearly picture. This area has never disappointed us over the years we have lived at our present place.

 

Just another view

This is one of the first decorations coming into Wabasha. Whoever does the decorating is very creative. The decorations change from year to year.

They also have a pumpkin growing contest. I wonder how many pies they could make from this one.  The number on the pumpkin is the weight in pounds.

Well, there always seems to be one larger, but this is the largest one this year. This one is almost a third larger than the one above. Hard to imagine that they can grow a pumpkin that big.

I don't know who makes these little characters, but they sure do a nice job. Very creative and made from common items.

Same template, but different painting.

This area is under the bridge that goes over the Mississippi. There is a stage on the other end, and on a normal year, they have musical groups play there on Friday nights.

This building is on the end of main street. You can see the National Eagle center behind this building. There are chairs there so you can sit down and have your picture taken with the decorations. Very popular place.

Just a little farther down the street. The National Eagle Center is just to the left. Beautiful day, temp was in the 60's.

"Welcome to Bugsville". This is one of two areas set aside for play!  It was pretty quiet at this time, but a little later there was a lot of laughing and screaming going on. There were quite a few adults that also turned into little kiddo's in this area too. Everyone was having a good time.

This picture was taken a little farther to the left. The COVID-19 problem has really reduced the size of the group, but there were still some that were having a good time. For a little while the virus issue was out of sight. I hope no one contacted the virus, because of lack of social distancing.. Adults were pretty good about wearing masks when they were close to other adults. Whenever anyone went into buildings, they wore masks. I didn't see any "non-maskers".

The people that create these play areas have some real creative ideas. The circles on the ground painted different colors are actually slabs cut from a tree. They use many old used tires that are painted different colors. It's kind of fun to just go around and see the different items that they used. Many of the items they used could easily be considered "junk".

This is the second Bugsville. National Eagle Center in the background. (to the left)

Got an old washtub, surprising what a little paint can do..

Sometimes you just need to take a break..

Or Two!

Bridge over the Mississippi. What a beautiful day..

Condo's next to Bugsville 2 and overlooking Mississippi. The owners on the river side have a beautiful view. You can see the bridge in the background. 

We topped the day off by stopping at Diary Queen, sitting outside and finishing our meal off with a sundae.. Good time was had by all.

If your ever in the Wabasha area, I strongly recommend you stop at the National Eagle Center https://www.nationaleaglecenter.org/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwit_8BRCoARIsAIx3Rj7RziMH-3PS6NAPJX6FNPZ8PR0b9fKIGHXEJxqwppSYL5UFQ0im7lQaApmeEALw_wcB. It is very informative and you can come within about 4 feet of "live" Eagles. They put on three programs daily on different aspects of the Eagles. Very child friendly programs.. (call, I'm not sure what their requirements are now)

I'm Back!

 No excuses for not blogging. I received an email from a follower and he had asked if everything was OK since I hadn't been creating any blogs. Sherry and I are doing OK. We have been staying close to home and only going places if necessary. When I went to school to learn electronics, the instructor said "now that you understand electricity, respect it, but don't be afraid of it." That also holds true for the COVID-19 virus. We do not go to places of large gathering, social distance, and respect other people's health and wear masks. As far as "non-maskers" go, I have a special category for them...

This has been a very unusual summer. Never expected that there would be a time when a person would not be able to go and spend time with family/friends. We actually watched a funeral memorial service via ZOOM. I'm glad that I'm retired and not in the teaching profession. I really feel sorry for the educational system and how they are trying to do the best for their students. Then there are the medical profession. I can not imagine what many of the doctors and nurses are going though with all the virus people they are coming in contact with. I have a feeling that there will be a tremendous outbreak of PTSD among the doctors/nurses that are working in the ICU's in the hospitals.  Very trying times for many people...

Since we have been staying close to home, we have been doing lots of little projects around the place that needed doing. However, we took many breaks and enjoyed the summer weather. Mosquito population was almost nil and neither one of us seen a tick this summer. 

Normally this time of the year we would be in Branson, MO but because of the virus, we cancelled our reservations. We both agreed, that if we were to get sick, we wanted to be home.. Living 10 miles from the Mayo Clinic does have some advantages.. We may consider going down that way in Jan/Feb, but that will also depend on how things go. Right now, with the virus increases, I would say we won't be going.

On a positive note, we have had a great wildlife summer. Lots of birds visiting the feeders (we have gone thru over 100 pounds of birdseed this summer) and a small herd of deer that go across the back yard on a daily basis. The fawn population was down this year and there was only one single and one set of twins. It is fun to watch them grow from wobbly legs up to the point where the spots are all gone. There are two groups of coyote's that communicate back and forth during the evenings/nights.  There are also a couple owls that communicate back and forth often. So it's not like we are isolated, we have lots of wildlife and great neighbors to visit with. No problem social distancing out here.. One thing that was noticeable this summer was the decrease in the number of butterflies. We normally have many monarch butterfly's during the summer, but year, there were very few. I hope that isn't the trend.. 

So as we go into the colder/winter season, we will move from outside projects to inside projects. Believe me, we got plenty of those to do too.. So who knows, maybe I'll be better at writing this blog from now on. Maybe..