whew, plenty has been going on around here since we got back to spfld at the end of September…like, for example, it’s almost thanksgiving! two more days. must get on it.

but backtracking, highlights of this fall:

on Monday Sept. 20th we drove up to Sterling because kevin’s sister retired and had a party. we spent the night at Starved Rock. We’d stayed at the party longer than we’d anticipated so it was kind of late when we finally made it to Starved Rock. We had a nice dinner at eight o’clock in their lovely dining room and Kevin had a cup of what i believe he feels is the best coffee ever.

Hmm, could that be right? i know he loves it, but is it better than the stuff he found in Glacier? Or Hawaii? He’ll have to let me know. maybe part of the appeal is that somebody makes it for him? or maybe he does think it’s the best ever. Unfortunately they don’t offer it for sale in their gift shop, but maybe also a little bit fortunately because then we’d have even more bags of coffee in our pantry.

He had yummy pot roast and i can’t remember why i decided to have this huge and healthy salad. good for me. i suppose…

It had been a very warm day but when we finally got into our cabin the air conditioner was cranked so that it was teeth-chatteringly cold in the room. So naturally, kevin built a beautiful fire.

This was fantastic…until the middle of the night when the fire was barely smoldering but the room was stiflingly hot, so kevin cranked the AC back down.

This is the same cabin we’d stayed in when we were at Starved Rock in 2016; back then, mosquitoes had swarmed under the door and down the chimney and were attacking us in the middle of the night so we had to light citronella candles and stuff grocery bags under the door. It’s always an adventure at Starved Rock!

The next morning we hiked for a few hours, but like i said, hot. and the trails aren’t super-well maintained plus it had rained a lot so i kept slipping in the wet sand and felt hot and annoyed. Kevin kept asking, “do you want to stop?” and i kept grumpily saying NO!

Because it had rained so much this waterfall was flowing nicely.

we’d been to this one before, but it was flowing more prolifically now. very cool. kevin stood under the waterfall…

…and then i did, too.

It was kind of weird, though, to take that overnight trip right after getting back from Glacier – we’d returned home on Sept. 24th (a day late) and went up to Sterling six days later.

Here’s the second-to-last boat ride of the season on October 8th. It was a beautiful evening and mom, always stylish, had a great time…

…as did Toun…

…and so did Kevin and I! We had a picnic dinner that night and the water was so still and there were no other boats out. good times.

ok then,

mrs. it’s going to be extraordinarily windy today hughes.