Peckish Travels

Bob and I had a lovely, sunny day to explore Mason City. This city, of approximately 28,000, has the Winnebago River running through it to give it its moniker of River City. Mason City is the county seat of Cerro Gordo (named for a battle in the Mexican-American War) County in Northern Iowa. The city is about a two hour drive north of Des Moines and a similar length south of Minneapolis.

While there is evidence of some hard economic times (a mall with only 2 open stores and other closed stores in the downtown area), Bob and I still enjoyed a walk around the greater downtown area, which was highlighted with lots of public art, more examples of Prairie School architecture, an art museum, public library, and a tease of Music Man square. We saw evidence of the work of the 3 famous people (so far) tied to this small town.

One of the highlights of the walk was the local art museum, which had a lovely second floor meditation space (with a big head sculpture), a collection of puppets from Bil Baird, who grew up in Mason City, and some Monet-inspired paintings from an Midwestern artist.

Late Sunday afternoon, Bob and I left the very sweet Bebe and her equally awesome humans. All three of them have left a special place on our hearts. We are thankful every day for Trusted Housesitters, which has allowed us to meet such great people and care for the best animals.

Now, we are making our way to Hopkins, Minnesota, but before that we are spending a bit of time in Mason City, Iowa. Bob found us a beautiful, historic hotel for our stay. It’s the Park Inn Hotel, and it is the last remaining Frank Lloyd Wright designed hotel. It was built in 1910 at the peak of Wright’s Prairie School period. It reopened to the public in 2011 after a $18.5 million dollar restoration with 27 rooms, restaurant, and lounge. It is lovely.

The other thing that Mason City, Iowa is known for is the musical “The Music Man” written by Meredith Wilson, who was born in Mason City, Iowa, and which is inspired by the town as well.

We’re hoping to explore some of those sites tomorrow as well as more Frank Lloyd Wright architecture tomorrow.

While we haven’t been blogging of late, we are staying busy at our repeat housesit in Des Moines for Bebe. We’ve been going to doctor’s appointments (Bob), getting dental work done and going to PT (Beth), getting our Iowa drivers licenses, getting work done on the car, and we even had an unexpected trip to the vet with Bebe (minor issue and all good now). Bob has also had some quick visits with family and was able to spend time with his mom on her birthday this week. Whew!

The weather has been gorgeous, so we have been getting some walks in as well, mostly exploring the neighborhood. Today though, we made a quick 10 minute drive to Raccoon River Park to check out a non-concrete trail that had been recommended to us. We walked 3.2 miles around an asphalt and crushed rock path around Blue Heron Lake in the park.

The park was very nice with many different types of facilities.

Bob has been holding down the fort in our housesit in Des Moines while I was in Austin, but as of about 9:30 last night we’re back together. We are caring for the adorable Bebe in the Waukee area of Des Moines that we had housesat for back in December. This time, we’re here until March 3 while her humans are spending some warm time in Punta Gorda, Florida.

Before all the Super Bowl game hoopla got started, Bob and I walked some of the paths through our temporary neighborhood. It’s a great, quiet neighborhood with a lot of impressive homes.

It’s been a great trip back to Austin. It would have been better if Bob were here too, but it’s been fun to catch up with old friends, check out the changes to the city, and care for some sweet cats in a great old Austin neighborhood. I leave about midday tomorrow and will connect back up with Bob tomorrow evening at the Des Moines airport.

Here’s a last look at this visit to Austin.

There are a number of things that I love about our former home of Austin, Texas, but nothing more (excluding friends of course) than the 10.1 mile trail around Lady Bird Lake, also known as Town Lake (actually a dammed section of the Colorado River but not the famous one). I walked it today on a beautiful 70F degree sunny day in February.

The trail and the buildings around the trail have changed quite a bit since Bob and I first started running here and are continuing to change to meet the needs of the ever growing population. Bob and I have been blessed to walk and run on trails around the world, but this trail will always hold a special place in my heart, as it transformed me from non-athlete to long distance runner.

See below for views of the trail and downtown Austin.

Yesterday, I flew to Austin to housesit for friends of ours. I will be caring for two cats,Lefty and Pancho, while their people go to a show in Vegas and then head to Tahoe for an annual ski trip with friends and family. Bob is in Des Moines with family for a couple of days before starting a month long housesit on 2/1.

While I’m in Austin I’m hoping to connect with old friends and assess how much the city has grown since we were last here in December of 2022. I had a great visit with our friends yesterday after they picked me up at the airport and before I took them to the airport this morning. It was fun to discuss our respective plans for the year, and it’s great to be back in 70 F weather!

Tonight I hosted (with the home owner’s permission) four of my friends from Austin. We missed having Sandy there with us, but we had a great time catching up.

So good to reconnect with good friends!!

It’s been quite awhile since we have blogged and a lot has happened. We finished our Des Moines house sit (the one with the steep driveway). That ended up being our winter resilience building houses it as we had lots of shoveling, snow blowing, and other winter driveway work in sub zero weather. However, the home was warm and comfy and the dogs were super sweet, so we fared well and managed to get to some previously scheduled doctor’s appointments.

Since we left that housesit, we have been visiting family and friends (all in the Des Moines area) in short trips so that we don’t put anyone out too much. The first stop was with our nephew Zack and his fiancée Maggie. We had a great visit and even got to celebrate the news of Maggie’s acceptance into a pediatric dental program.

Then we headed to our friend Doug’s new home in a former church that they have transformed into condos while leaving some of the original building. Bob and I also walked to the nearby Art Center to check that out. Very impressive and Bob found a big head for a photo.

Another great visit! Bob cooked one night, and Doug treated the next and introduced us to a new (to us) game, Connect, that Bob and I are now playing, though only semi successfully at this point.

Then we visited our friends, Steve and Steph, and Doug came over as well. We had a great music and dart-filled night with lots of good memories and future happenings to discuss.

Bob and I are now apart for 10 days or so. More on that tomorrow. . .

After a great time in Naperville, Illinois, to celebrate our great nephew’s 1st birthday, Bob and I returned to Des Moines just in time for the season’s first big snowfall.

Starting Monday afternoon through yesterday afternoon, we received over 9 inches of snow and travel has now become more of an adventure than we’d like. However, we carefully drove the 6 miles from Bob’s sister’s house where we were staying to a hotel that would be closer to our current house sit to facilitate our travel to the new home yesterday, late afternoon for the walk through.

We had a great walk through with the homeowners and two of their three young children. We will be caring for their 2 golden retrievers, Bay and Mesa, while they head off for a Disney Cruise.

While we have a few doctors appointments scheduled during the sit, it’s unlikely we will be going out to do more than that for the next few days, as more snow and then sub-zero temperatures are in the forecast.

Bob and I had a relaxing stay in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. We were honored to be accepted by Jupiter and Bruno Mars to allow us to feed them and we were able to connect a bit with family while exploring a bit of the area.

Today (Thursday 1/4/24), we left Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, for Lincolnshire, Illinois. Since we have platinum membership in the Marriott hotel program, we have landed in a Marriott resort in Lincolnshire, IL. This has placed us near Naperville, IL, where we need to be for the 1 year birthday party for our great nephew. But it also allowed us to see “Beautiful“ which is a musical about Carole King. Lots of great music!