Life After Cows...Home Again...

No, we haven't moved to Chicago!  :)

Apparently there is a little confusion as to whether or not we've actually arrived home, and I wonder why??!  Life happens, and I haven't gotten around to wrapping it up, I guess.  :)  So here goes...

We left Chicago on Saturday morning after breakfast, and once again headed east.  It took us a while to get out of Chicago, as expected.  Our only planned stop for the day was at the Indiana Dunes...

We didn't stay there very long, and were soon back in the car and on I-80.  As we traveled east through Indiana and Ohio, we tried to think of something interesting that we could do, just for fun.  Jim thought of one of his friends whose family lives just off of the Ohio turnpike near Archbold, and I just happened to have his number in my phone.  What were the chances that he would #1, see my text in time, and that #2 it would be feasible to stop in to see his family farm?

Lucky us, Kevin answered almost immediately, and enthusiastically encouraged us to stop in at the farm where his brothers and family were gathering for a birthday party!  The Nofzigers were very gracious to welcome two virtual strangers on the spur of the moment, and we thoroughly enjoyed our short visit with them. 

Kevin's brother gave us a ride through the fields in his sprayer...

We didn't stay long, but it was so much fun to make connections.  We were sent on our way with sandwiches and  cake pops from the little guy's birthday party.  The world feels a little bit smaller when things like this happen!

We spend the night an hour or so down the road, and headed for home on Sunday morning.  I have come to conclusion that Ohio is the flattest state that we drove through on our trip...

For example...

Before long, we knew we were entering somewhat familiar territory.  We could also feel it in the roads.  Any of you who have ever driven on Pennsylvania roads will know what I'm talking about...

Our final stop, just around supper time, was Messiah College to visit Eric who was finishing up his senior year.  We took a stroll around the campus, crossing the Little Breeches Creek...

 .
With a selfie on the swinging bridge...

...and headed for home.  Our final 55 miles on the road.

The final mileage on the odometer reads 51,004.

That's 4311 miles traveled...no accidents, no flat tires, no getting lost, 10 nights with family or friends, 5 nights in motels, 13 states, countless things crossed of the bucket list...and precious time away! 

We are so grateful for the opportunity to take this trip, and we will never regret taking the time to make it happen.

What now?

We are still feeling good about our decision to sell the cows.  We are both settled in at our jobs...Jim is driving truck (and more) for a neighbor who owns a fertilizer business and I'm working at a local feed mill, in the office doing customer service.  It's still hard to be away from home as much as we are, but we're adjusting!  Lots of things have happened over the past few months in our family.  Eric graduated from college and is working as an engineer, Jenna is serving in Nicaragua with Mennonite Central Committee for a year after graduating from Hesston, my dad passed away a few weeks ago after declining rapidly from a brief illness, summer has come...and gone...and much much more.

We'll see how much blogging I do from here on out.  I might post occasionally, as I hate to give it up completely.  But regular posting is the best way to blog, and now that we aren't farming I'm not sure how exciting my everyday life would be in print!  I've made lots of blogger friends along the way over the past nine years, and I don't want to disappear completely, so all I'll say is "we'll see"!

Thanks for following along!

Life After Cows...Part Eight...

On to Chicago!

It's hard to believe it's been over three months since we're back from our trip, and I still have two posts to go!!

We spent the day after visiting Rock Creek Park, travelling across Iowa and spent the night just west of the Illinois state line.  This was the day that I think we would both say was the least exciting, and the day that we got really tired of being in the car!  We had hoped to make a couple of stops that would have been fun, but they didn't work out.  We did stop at the world's largest truck stop for supper!

Early Thursday morning, we crossed the Mississippi River, and here is where we saw the most evidence of the flooding that affected the midwest...

We don't know what it looks like normally, but this certainly has to be much, much more water than usual!  Powerlines with water covering the bottom few feet?  I can't imagine how devastating the flooding must have been to so many people...

We had planned to stay close enough to the city, so that we would easily be able to reach my sister's house before rush hour.  We made it by mid afternoon...

Jim and I had been here for Marge and Hermann's wedding, and I had visited with our kids and my Mom when the kids were 6 and 3!  We were so happy to finally be in Evanston, to see family, and to relax for a couple of days!

My sister's family lives about a ten minute bike ride from Lake Michigan.  There's a nice bike path along the lake, and Jim and I enjoyed several hours on Friday, riding around and seeing the sights from a different perspective...

One of my nephews participates in a sailing club, and I rode along to pick him up after.  Marge and I took a stroll on the beach...in the wind...

Such a different kind of beach than we are used to!

At the sailing club.  All the boats have been put up for the night...

That evening, Marge, Jim and I took the El downtown,

...where Hermann met us after work.  While we waited to connect with him, we visited Millenium Park, and "the bean"...

After Hermann arrived downtown, we found a coffee shop and enjoyed catching up some more. This is one of my most favorite pictures from the whole trip...unhurried and relaxed...

We began walking...just to see what there was to see.  The Chicago River at night was beautiful, with all the lights reflecting on the water.  There was just something fun about being in a large city on a Friday night...

Try as we might, we couldn't get a good selfie, so we traded favors with another group...

On the way home on the El...almost an hour's ride...

Jim was the only one who wasn't on his phone doing something...surfing, reading, or taking a picture! (my self included...see my reflection in the window?!)

We are so glad that we were able to spend time with family on this trip...it was definitely one of the highlights!  Thanks, Marge and Hermann, for welcoming us and taking time out of your already busy schedules to show  us around your neck of the woods!!

Next stop...Lancaster PA...with a few pit stops along the way!

Life After Cows...Part Seven...

Eastward we go!

We were hoping to avoid big interstates as much as we could today, since we had a window of several days to get to our next set destination.  After all, part of the fun of this trip was seeing unexpected sights along the way!  We angled northeast on Route 40, and then farther north to Route 36, which runs pretty much directly east along the northern edge of Kansas. 

A little over an hour into our travels, we came across our first unexpected sight for the day.  McCarty Family Farms, in Rexford KS.  We stopped in and got a personal tour of their facility.  In total, between their three farms, they milk over 7000 cows, and have a direct contract with Dannon.  We were not allowed to take any photos, but I will say, it was a state of the art facilty!

Back in the car we went, and enjoyed the trip along the "super 2", as Stan referred to Rt 36.  We were rolling along, minding our own business, when out of the blue we saw one of the "historical marker" signs that we were keeping our eyes out for...

Hmmm...sounded kind of interesting to us!  We followed the directions for x amount of miles north and x amount of miles west, which is so common in the midwest, and found the small park which is at the geographical center of the lower 48 states!

This is the kind of thing that we enjoyed finding.  It didn't have to be fancy, just interesting, and in this case, something that I would imagine most people would have no idea existed!

Lebanon, Kansas...

By this time, the afternoon was quickly passing, and we began to wonder if we would get to Fairbury  before dark.  There is a park there where you can still see the ruts in the ground from the wagon train as it crossed the prairie heading towards Oregon, and we really didn't want to miss it!

Just before dusk, we got to Rock Creek Station, a park outside of Fairbury Nebraska.  The visitor center was closed, but we walked around for about an hour, by which time it was getting pretty dark.

Rock Creek Station was a stage and Pony Express station, and some of the buildings have been reconstructed so we could see what it may have looked like in the mid 1800's...

This particular section has been relatively undisturbed, and if you look closely, you can see the wagon ruts in the weeds, going up the hill, heading west...

Down at the creek bottom, there was a sign explaining where the wagon trains originally had to ford the creek...

It explains how difficult the crossing was, and the reason for the bridge that was built...

This picture is taken from a distance, and if you look closely, you can see the toll bridge in the distance...

In the summer time, wagon rides are given at the park, so this section of the trail is definitely well defined... 

Of course there were also grave markers...

By the time we were finished exploring, it was dark and time to move on.  We were so glad to have been able to visit the park.  I would say this got crossed off of our bucket list...except there is a place in Wyoming that you can see the ruts worn into the rock from the wagon wheels, and grooves from oxen's feet and from people walking.  When we were at my Aunt's house in Colorado, we had no idea how close we were!  We'll have to catch that the next time!

On to Lincoln Nebraska for the night, and then our trek towards Chicago.

Life After Cows...Part Six...

Last time we left you heading east through Colorado, back towards Kansas, where we planned to spend some time with my brother-in-law's parents.

We kept our eyes on Pikes Peak in our rear view mirrors as long as we could...

Once again focusing east, we saw quite a contrast in landscape from what we had seen the past few days...

I will admit, I'm glad we had filled up our gas tank when we left Colorado Springs, because we saw nothing...nothing...for miles.  I guess it's not fair to say we saw "nothing", but it was definitely barren!

Not long before we entered Kansas on Route 40, we stopped in Cheyenne Wells CO for a pit stop and pictures...

Our first tumbleweed...

We made our way into Sharon Springs, KS, and of course found the grain elevators...

We headed south of town for a few miles, and following my sister's directions, found our final destination for the day...

The Sommerfeld house...

We stayed with my brother-in-law's parents, who live in the very western part of Kansas, only a handful of miles from Colorado.  We have visited with Stan and Jan when they have come to PA to visit family, but this was a first for us, to visit their home in Kansas. Jim had been through Sharon Springs on the wheat harvest over 30 years ago, but of course didn't know them then. They very graciously welcomed us, and Jan had a delicious lunch waiting for us when we arrived!

Stan and Jim...

After lunch, we hopped into their vehicle and got a grand tour of the area.  We checked out one of Stan's center pivot irrigation units...

We saw lots of beautiful landscape, blue sky and cotton ball clouds!  It was fun to see how things were beginning to turn green as we made our way across the county.  Spring was definitely showing it's face...

Stan was acquainted with a neighboring farmer who has around 8,000 cows, and we got a personal tour of the facility.  We got to watch them milk in their double-24 milking parlor, and this picture fascinated me.  It spites me that I can't remember how many calves they have on milk, but it was either 300 or 500 bottle babies!  It was fun to watch, but I certainly had no trouble leaving that job for someone else to do!  :)

When we got back to the house, Jan prepared another wonderful meal feast for us!  Her gift of hospitality sure was being used, and we were so honored to be the recipients.

The next morning, Jim and I got up and took a walk.  We kind of saw the sun came up...

 ...and enjoyed walking around in Stan's fields to check out some of his equipment...

Jim checked out the grain truck...

...and we enjoyed watching the horses...

Our visit wasn't very long,but we really enjoyed our time in Sharon Springs, and appreciated Stan and Jan's warm hospitality!

Of course we were sent off with a huge breakfast...strawberry french toast...homemade cinnamon rolls, and much much more...

And did I mention that we also got to take lots of food along for our trip that day?

Thank you so much, Stan and Jan, for taking the time to host us!

Our next set destination was Evanston IL to visit my sister and family, and we had a couple of days to get there, so we studied our map and considered our options.  We decided to head north towards Nebraska, and then east, with a goal of getting to Fairbury Nebraska by late afternoon/evening.  We were interested in seeing some historical Oregon Trail sights.

Off we went, with a few rabbit trails in between.

That will be saved for next time...