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Clinton SP North Shore Trails
Lawrence, KS, October 2025 In 2024, John hiked part of the white and blue trails, and, for some reason, I did not. I’m not exactly sure why. Potentially, my Achilles was hurting, or I went shopping 🙂 This year we did a little of each trail all on the same hike. John said that the…
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Paint once, then again, and hope for no streaks!
Sparta, WI, Aug. & Sept 2025 While we were in Wisconsin, one of the many goals was to replace the seam caulk, scrape lose paint and paint 2 sides of Mom’s house. Originally, I was thinking the front and end of the house. (We did the other end in 2024.) Once we were home and…
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Japanese Friendship Garden
Lawrence, KS, October 2025 When we visited the area in 2024, we know about the Japanese Friendship Garden. We looked up the location and discovered it was right next to the Watkins Museum which we did visit in 2024. The Friendship Garden started with Hiratsuka, Japan donating $5,000 to Lawrence in 1995. The city of…
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Tire Replacement Day
Des Moines, IA, October 2025 On Thursday, John worked to do some repairs on the trailer. The tire blowout had ripped two pieces of fender skirt off and damaged the weather coating underneath. The front fender skirt piece was never found; it might have disintegrated. The middle piece was found, but it was damaged. The…
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Pelicans, Egrets, and Herons, Oh My!
Lake Vermillion State Recreation Area, SD, August 2025 We did not have a lot planned today. We thought we would sit out at the 261st Street dirt road to we could find some new birds, look for the Belted Kingfisher, and mail postcards in Canistosta, SD. The first activity was to go to Canistosta Post…
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Falls Park
Sioux Falls, SD, August 2025 Kate found out that there was a Farmer’s Market in Sioux Falls at Falls Park. We decided to kill several birds with one drive by going to the Farmer’s Market, touring Falls Park, and getting groceries all in the same trip. On the way out, we saw a Great (White)…
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Greenway Bike Trail
Sioux Falls, SD, August 2025 I started out the day watching the birds from the back window. We had quite the variety. Unfortunately, Mackie slept through it. Sioux Falls is about 30 miles from Lake Vermillion State Recreation Area and is the largest town in South Dakota. Throughout the town runs the Greenway Bike Trail.…
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It’s a Blue Bird, not a Bluebird!
Lake Vermillion State Recreation Area, SD, August 2025 We planned to rent paddle boards to putter around the lake today. John had been planning to hike the Otter Stream trail with the tripod to try to get better pictures of some of the subjects from the last hike. Since it was still early, he decided…
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Palisades State Park
Garretson, SD, August 2025 Today was supposed to be a reasonably nice day with sun and no rain. So, we decided to visit Palisades State Park in South Dakota which is about 45 minutes from our current campground. We set the car GPS and off we went. Needless to say, the car GPS took us…
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Waterfowl Game Production Area
Lake Vermillion Recreation Area, SD, August 2025 South Dakota has a lot of “Waterfowl Production Areas” that are managed by the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Department. The website indicates that the Production areas have hiking. Based on what we saw, you can hike in the areas but there are no designated trails. I…