This place is 4 sale!

This old church is in a small town in Wisconsin. I had all kinds of thoughts about what to do with a groovy old bulding like this. Too bad it is in Wisconsin, I couldn't take the humidity, but what a fun place for gals and pals, weddings and shindigs!

The will to win

Yesterday as the snow started to melt out of the gardens and the fear of what it had done to my budding irises became apparent, I picked out a stem of buds that had been broken off by the weight of the snow and put it in a glass on the cupboard, I didn't think it would survive, but here is a picture of it in full bloom this afternoon, a gift and a lesson that we can become magnificent against any obstacle brought down upon us.

Springfield, IL - Land of Lincoln

My job has been taking me out to Springfield, IL the past couple of weeks. I do a 2 hour presentation each day and then have some time to explore. It's kind of a neat place and it is filled with tons of history since it is the home of Abraham Lincoln. I got to tour his home and the neighbor he and his family lived in before he was president.
Lincoln's Home

Me on the front steps

The Sitting Room

Hard to imagine the President sitting in an outhouse...

The Shutt home, located just down the street

I also toured the Lincoln Museum which was pretty cool. The best part was the documentary on Lincoln's presidency. He was on mid-40's as the President but accomplished more in the several short years than most of us in a lifetime. It was remarkable to see the aging process that the strain had on him. He probably aged 10-20 years during his presidency. Here is a picture from inside the museum. The lighting wasn't great, but this was very realistic.

The last part of the day took me to the cemetery and the Lincoln tomb. It was very impressive and I had a cool experience as I was one of the last people out for the day so the lady watching over the tomb entrance gave me a history lesson and told me things about Lincoln and the burial that I would have never known. He was intombed 10 feet below the groun and cemented over inside the family tomb to keep grave robbers from stealing his body, seems crazy, but there are crazy people out there.


This is a street view of the capital building in Springfield, very beautiful limestone building.

Then dinner at Saputos, 2 nights in a row actually, the place rocked! Best Italian food I've had in a while.

And last but not least, I flew out of St. Louis, so this is a picture of damage the tornado did to the windows a couple of weeks ago. There were 6 large arches of window like this and all of them were boarded up, that must have been one mean twister!

Until next time, keep living life one adventure at a time!

Catching Up

Can't believe it's been a month! I don't feel so bad though when I see people that still have Christmas posts up... Lots going on, but tonight just a quick post in memoriam of a friend that lost his life a week ago in a plane crash. The pictures I took from another friend, and they really tell a story of a life cut short.

I didn't know Pete Vinton super good, I had met him a couple of times, toured his hangar and had him show me the plane he was building. He took me on a demo flight of the Carbon Cub SS that he was the sales rep for (and the one he lost his life in)lst summer. It struck me that he was a veteran of Desert Storm, a military pilot, a no nonsense kind of guy that loved his country, his family and flying. He was straight to the point, and made an impression on me. I have talked about that flight in the Cub for almost a year now, even the morning he passed away, I was talking about it. There are a few jackasses that built their homes around the private airpark that Pete managed, they put up stupid signs along the road (that I take to get to DIA) protesting the airpark. Its ticks me off everytime I drive by so I asked Pete about it and his reply was, "it's ironic that I fought for my country to give people the right to free speech, essentially the right for those people to protest my right to fly" his language was a little more colorful, but you get the point.

Anyway, I just wanted to write about Pete and share a couple of pictures. This is partly why I love to fly, the feeling, the experience, the joy. These pictures were taken last summer on a flight from Alaska to Washington.

Blue skies, tail winds, soft landings...RIP Pete Vinton