We headed to Mitchell, South Dakota last weekend for the annual Tour de Corn bike ride. Just over 20 dear friends rented a hunting lodge to spend the weekend together hanging out, riding bikes, enjoying the festivities, and eating. So much eating.

We loaded up the car with bikes and gear, and this guy:

Yep, he was in for yet another road trip, and didn’t seem too disappointed. In fact, he really enjoyed the time with new people. He SAGed on Saturday during the bike ride, enjoyed popcorn chicken at lunch, and spent the evening getting scritches from many new friends.

Things get silly at the lodge every year. I am an observer, but many of my friends are quite extroverted, loud, goofy, and fun.

We just sat in the corner and laughed at all their antics:

Mitchell is a windy windy city, with wide open spaces which makes the biking quite difficult. We encounter these 20-30 mph sustained winds every time we go up there. But, rather than grind us down, it makes us help each other out, and appreciate the tailwind when we can. Here’s a bunch of us at 35 miles into a 50 mile ride.

Saturday evening brought so much food. When this group gets together, each person brings enough food for 8 people. The amount of food is always completely astounding. I can’t even begin to tell you how much food was available. And after 50 windy miles by bike, no one felt too guilty about consuming their fill.

Coco Dog had a great time wandering around under the long lodge table looking for scraps and scritches. I’d say we all had a fabulous weekend.

As it turns out, this was our last weekend with the old dog, succumbing to an autoimmune disease, he passed away early Monday morning. So rather than share more crafting pictures, I leave you with a few photos of the soul we are missing so much.

Light on playfulness and heavy on loyalty and companionship, full of goodness and a generous splash of weird. Our home and hearts are emptier without your funny muskrat face.

Another two full days in the car, this time with an 11 year old.

Coc didn’t know if he should sleep, or beg. So he’d do both. On day 1, she doted on him. I’d turn around to check on them, and her hand would be buried in his fur. Very cute. By day 2, she was picking on him, just like a sibling.

We decided to have breakfast with my family the morning we left, so we didn’t immediately leave in the morning. We also had to pack up. You see, part of the point of this trip was for me to pick up my grandmother’s mid century stoneware. Well, we had a little trouble fitting it all in the car, I had no idea there was so much. But, it also goes perfectly in our mid century home, so beyond having sentimental value, it was just a good decision to have it.

Since we got a late start, we decided to stop in Ohio again, around Toledo. We’d do the longest haul on day 2. And because we had an 11 year old in the car, we decided to get a hotel with a pool.

I finished a heel, turned it, and picked up gussets in PA, a great start. Then I drove most of Ohio.

At our hotel, we enjoyed our pool time, and a dinner at a regular restaurant since we could leave the dog at the hotel. Prior to this, we’d been only eating outdoors with our fast food so he wouldn’t have to be stuck in a car. I also think the pool helped us burn off a bunch of excess energy, and that made day 2 a little bit better.

I drove Indiana, since I like Indiana, and then got stuck with a detour because i80 was closed right before we hit Illinois. I HATE driving Illinois, so I got off as soon as possible, and let Mr. Ink drive it. Now, he actually lived in the Chicago area for a time. So, while I drive that area with both white knuckled hands clenched on the steering wheel with my nose right above them, Mr. Ink drives with one hand, relaxed, and snacking on popcorn. It’s a relief to let him have the wheel.

My big consolation in this is that I am, apparently, still REALLY good at driving around the philly area, and the one time I let Mr. Ink take the wheel both he and I were uncomfortable. So, I did do my part!

In Illinois I got a little more knitting done:

In fact, that’s the start of a toe. But, again I gave up and put my knitting away.

We were all getting a little sick of it, to be honest.

Here’s where the funny stuff started. We were in Iowa, with less than 2 hours left. Miss Bug had been picking on Coco all day like a little sibling. So, at this point, Coco starts to retaliate. He would repeatedly stick his nose up where she had her portable DVD player going, and push it onto her lap. First time we might have thought it a fluke, but it happened over, and over, and over until she found a new place for that dvd player. Classic!

Once we were home, with no prompting whatsoever, this entire family unpacked the car completely without me ever having to nag at them to do so. I was able to immediately start the laundry, finish unpacking, and load the dishwasher with stoneware. Miss Bug went straight for her bedroom, which was in disarray from her busy summer before she left, and cleaned it while unpacking. And Mr. Ink went straight for the kitchen to figure out what to cook for dinner.

I’ll tell you what, there is NO WAY to have a family of easier travelers. I was so impressed with how no one was grumpy, complaining, whining, or getting frustrated with each other. We may have been a little over being in the car during the last 2 hours, but we were TRULY all having a good time. I can road trip with this family any day, and I fully intend to do so again.

Here’s the final stocking picture after the last bit I knit in Iowa.

I lived in the Philadelphia area for a time, and as such, never really did the touristy things that Philly is known for. So, for our last vacation day, we decided that’s what we’d do.

Now, I had a friend visiting me all weekend. She moved out to the east coast a few years ago, and so we try to get together when we can. She’s from France originally, but just got US citizenship. So, she, Mr. Ink, Bug, and I headed off via train into the city for the day.

Now first I must tell you, all weekend everyone had been telling us how sorry they were about the heat, and how disappointed we must be about it being such a hot weekend. It was rather amusing to us, as NE heat and humidity is so so much worse. It felt quite pleasant to us. Our day in Philly was around 90F, but there wasn’t much humidity, and there was a fine breeze blowing. Quite frankly, it was the type of day that Mr. Ink and I would spend outside all day given half the chance. So we were quite comfortable as long as we could have water and cool back down from time to time.

Our first stop was Reading Terminal Market. It was a Sunday, so we knew that all the PA Dutch vendors wouldn’t be there, but there was still plenty to be overwhelmed with. Christelle and I had the traditional cheesesteaks created by a man who looked so quintessentially philly that it made me laugh. Vaguely irish looking, vaguely redhead, tattoos, typical blue collar worker look. He could have been a caricature. At the rate he was producing the meat for the cheesesteaks, I had to be impressed with his stamina and can only imagine his forearms were very strong by this point.

Mr. Ink decided on a pork sandwich he’d recently read about on one of his favorite bloggers sites. It had a lovely spinach topping, and did look quite tasty.

Before we left, Christelle and I decided to fortify with an iced coffee. Miss Bug, of course, wanted a hot chocolate, and Mr. Ink snuck off for a cookie. I caught this shot of them while they were waiting for us.

We then walked down through china town and out to independence hall area.

We stopped to see the Liberty Bell, which had extra meaning for Christelle. I don’t think I grabbed any shots there, as it was very crowded. Then, we caught the Phlash bus and rode it up to the art museum.

It amused me greatly when the bus said “Next stop, Rocky stairs!” I mean, here you have an art museum building that’s been around since 1876, but it’s now known as the Rocky stairs? How did that become a thing?!  In any case, we did do a few videos of stair running. Yes, in the heat. And then we stopped and dipped our toes in the fountain at the top.

We took a nice long walk down to the river behind the museum, watched some roller skating dancers perform, and then headed back to catch the Phlash bus again.

Our next stop was Love park, where we really just stopped for a photo opportunity.

At this point, the adults had already decided it was time for a beer. When Miss Bug piped up “I feel angry. And, I don’t know WHY I feel angry, which just makes me angrier.” So, we found that beer stat, and treated her to some ice cream.

This cleared up the anger problem quite fast. After a train ride home, it was leftovers with the family. And I snapped a very cute photo of my nephew who steals the show each time.

We just love that kid!

Tomorrow, the return trip and the return of a stocking.

Miss Bug decided to stay with us at the hotel the night of her birthday party, so we set up an air mattress for her. Despite the fact that the old dog, Coco, never ever hops up onto anything and is really quite strictly a floor dog, he decided the air mattress was the way to go.

Every opportunity he had he was on that air mattress. Miss Bug decided to stay with her grandparents from that point forward so he did have a good night’s sleep on it. Then, on our return trip I began filling the air mattress at the hotel in Ohio, and he was on that mattress before I was even done filling it. Miss Bug has always wanted Coco to sleep with her, and that night, he did. Sleeping first at the bottom of her bed, but sometimes walking up to lick her face. They really missed each other.

My brother and his wife just moved into a new home in NJ. We were eager to see the home, so we packed everyone up into the van, including our dog, and traveled to see them in NJ.

Nothing of real note was planned for the day except that Mr. Ink and I would make dinner. We ended up playing a round of Munchkin, and taking a walk to a local park. It was quite a relaxing day really.

My 18 month old nephew was really the star of the show. We’d brought this train set that Miss Bug has really outgrown to him in order that he could enjoy it as much as she did. He’s a little young for it. Miss Bug was having a hard time getting rid of it, as she does, technically, still play with it from time to time. But, it was time. Seeing him enjoy it was exactly the motivation she needed to let it go. Even though I was emotional about letting it go as well.

He really was a cutie, that little boy. We enjoyed him immensely. Lots of laughter and no crying whatsoever. He’s so well behaved, and so sweet. And his brain is always working so hard to figure everything out. It’s great fun!

The other fun thing that happened was that my brother saw my spider tattoo for the first time. He lifted up my arm, looked at it, and said “Come outside! Come outside right now!” And sure enough, he had, in his garden, the perfect specimen.

I got this photo in selfie mode, as this spider was facing a fence. She was completely unconcerned with my presence and how close I was getting to her. She’s SO insanely beautiful I can barely stand it.

I grabbed a photo of her underside as well, equally beautiful!

I love how this one shows off her very distinctive orb weaver pattern in her web.

For reference, here’s my arm:

Next up, a day in Philadelphia as the tourist I never got to be.

We went to Ott’s Greenhouse on day one of our vacation. They specialize in wholesale exotic plants and a trip there is great fun to me. Since Mr. Ink also seems to enjoy plants, I figured he’d get a kick out of it too. Indeed he did.

Ott’s has plants/trees that have been growing there for years, a waterfall and pool, tunnels, and all sorts of wonderful things to explore.

 

We really did spend a lot of time there, and enjoyed it immensely. Not much else to say so I’ll photo dump.

       

Bug wanted me to take a picture of these small cactus gardens which she called fairy gardens.

 

Outside of Ott’s is a huge mound which, in the fall, is completely covered in mums. That’s not the case right now, but we still went through the tunnel and up on the hill.

Upon our return from Ott’s, Miss Bug had a birthday party with the neighborhood kids. She’d decided to save cake until we arrived. The neighborhood kids came over, as well as some of my parent’s friends. Miss Bug had decided she wanted a lego cake this year, and had brought legos in order for that to happen. My mom and Miss Bug spent loads of time creating and planning their lego cake. And it was absolutely lovely!

Cake and ice cream was had, and we still have little white chocolate lego pieces in our fridge.

That wraps up day 1 of vacation!