Alice Monroe is the author of Dear Life. She is Canadian and her stories are based in small towns around Lake Huron. This book is a series of stories about ordinary people who make decisions, take a chance or don't take a chance, and their life ends up in a completely different place. Monroe is a charming story teller. I am determined to read more of what she has written. In 2013 she won the Nobel Prize for fiction.
With the help of Malcolm Brabant, Tova Friedman is the author of her autobiography The Daughter of Auschwitz: A Memoir. Tova was one of the youngest survivors of Auschwitz. She lived with her parents in a small town in northern Poland. She lived in a Jewish ghetto for a time. Her father was a Jewish police officer so he got a little more food. He was also forced to dig a hole. The next day he had to put his parents in a truck where the stood at the edge of the hole and were shot and buried. Tova saw incredible acts of cruelty. She arrived at Auschwitz at age 4. At age 6 she was sent to the gas chambers. Her mother watched her go in. Due to some German bureaucracy she was let back out of the gas chambers and back to her ward. By age 7 the war was over. Tova and her parents had survived. This was an incredible story to read. Tova's resilience and will to live are outstanding.
Fran Littlewood is the author of Amazing Grace Adams. This story is set in current times in London. Grace is now 45 is not doing so well. She used to be amazing. Her husband thought so and her daughter thought so. Today is her estranged daughter's 16th birthday and everything is going wrong. And Grace loses her mind and makes a series of poor decisions which ends up with her getting arrested. I can relate although I have never lost it like Grace has lost it.
Marie Benedict is one of my favorite historical fiction authors. This time I read The Mitford Affair. The Mitford family lived in England. During the 1930's the six daughters and one son became famous and/or infamous. One of them married a pro-fascist Englishman. One moved to Vienna and became a fan of Adolph Hitler. joining him at the Olympic games in Germany. Another sister was also a fan of Hitler and lived in Germany. One became a novelist. One became a Communist first moving to Spain and then to the United States. One of them was a novelist and informed Winston Churchill on the comings and goings of her sisters living in Germany. The father in the family was anti-German but the mother was pro-fascist. Crazy how different family members can be.
Minnesota author William Kent Krueger is the author of The River We Remember. The story is set in 1958 in a small town in south/central Minnesota. A wealthy landowner is found dead in the river and Sheriff Brody Dern tries to find out how he died. Was it suicide or murder? People in the town talk and a rumor starts that native American veteran is responsible for the death. He eventually ends up in jail and his wife is harassed. We don't find out until the very end who murdered the man but it ends up being someone no one suspected. I enjoyed the description of the town and the river and the countryside. The character development was excellent.
Today I was walking around Lake Winona for some exercise on a nice day. As I walked on the paved path I noticed the water was high. Some tree trunks were under water. Soon a black bird was calling from my left ahead of me. As the bird flew over the path ahead of me at about 2 feet off the ground, I saw it was chasing a brown weasel. The weasel came out of the vegetation, stood on the path, looked at me and proceeded across the path and entered the weeds nearest the lake. I saw a fisher once at Zippel Bay State Park but this is the first time I have ever seen a wild weasel. The moment was over before I could move my hand to reach for my phone.
Women and Children First is a debut novel by Alina Grabowski. Set is current times in a dying town in Massachusetts, the story is about the death of a high school student named Lucy. The death occurred at a high school party at a house in the woods. The story about Lucy is told in ten chapters told by ten different women including Lucy's friend, her mother, her high school counselor, the daughter of the school principal, a teacher, and a best friend. The story was very entertaining and I am glad I read this book.
I read Anne Lamott's book, Bird By Bird. This is a book that offers advice on writing and living. The book starts out with her family. Her older brother had 3 months to work on an assignment writing a book about birds. The night before the writing is due he still hasn't started. Their father sits down next to his son, puts his arm around him, and tells him to start writing, bird by bird. I am sure this is a fine book for aspiring writers. I just wasn't in the mood to listen to advice. I shouldn't have chosen this book to read.
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| In the morning we packed up the tent and visited the swing bridge at Jay Cook and scrambled on the rocks beside the river. Then we headed north to Voyagers National Park. We set up camp at the Wooden Frog State Forest. We let the girls decide on the campsite. They enjoyed making the choice right by the lake. |
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| We visited the Rainy Lake visitor center so the girls could get another Junior Ranger badge. |
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| We slept well that night in the tent. |
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| In the morning, on our way to the Ash River visitor center, we stopped by Sandy Point resort to ask if we could rent a canoe. The resort owner said we sure could. He charged us ten dollars for 2 hours which was a heckuva deal so we gave him fifteen. Then we visited the Ash River visitor center. |
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| Then we went on a 3 hour hike from the visitor center. We got a few mosquito bites on the trail but we also found ripe blueberries. The girls thought they didn't like blueberries. Turns out they do like blueberries when they are wild. The flavor of the wild blueberry is ten times better than store bought. |
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| This is my first time visiting Voyagers National Park in over 40 years. |
I apologize for not blogging for 4 days. I have been on another road trip with the grand girls and we were camping without benefit of electricity of WIFI. We traveled from Minneapolis toward the Saint Croix National Park Office in Saint Croix Falls. We walked around the visitor center and the girls earned three new Junior Ranger badges. We also found the skeleton of a Dobson Fly on the sidewalk outside. After that visit we drove north to Jay Cooke State Park where they was camping available. This is a very nice state park, fully staffed and complete with a dishwashing station outside of the shower building. We set up Offspring #2's tent which is larger in size and very comfortable. White throated sparrows called from the trees. An audacious young red squirrel was very persistent in searching for food. It sat on the picnic table next to me within reach. Coyotes were howling from various parts of the campground during the night. A barred owl called 3 times.
Dial A For Aunties was written by Jesse Q. Sutanto. This rom-com with a dead body thrown in takes place in California although all the people are Indonesian or Chinese. The main character is Meddie who is 26. Her mother thinks she should marry soon so the mother sets up an account for her on a dating website and accepts a date. Her mother doesn't understand the suggestive language he used in their texts so he assumes she is ready for some action. Meddie isn't ready for action so she tazes him while he is driving which causes him to have a car accident. Meddie stuffs him in the trunk of her car. When her Mom finds out she calls up her four sisters and together they try to get rid of the body. Together the family runs a wedding business. One does cakes, one does make up, one does flowers, one does entertainment and Meddie does photography. The next day they have an expensive wedding for 2000 guests at a resort where Meddie's ex-boyfriend is the manager. Hilarity ensues. Much of the story is about Indonesian and Chinese culture. The aunties are all portrayed as stereotypes but it was an amusing story.
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| I visited Effigy Mounts National Park last May. I was excited to see a scarlet tanager and an indigo bunting within five minutes of each other. |
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| This time we saw 4 red headed woodpeckers! |
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| Here is Abe's tomb. Behind me is the tomb of Mary Todd Lincoln and 3 of his sons, Eddie, Willie and Tad. |
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| There was a QR code to get more information about the tomb. That is how I learned that it is good luck to rub Abe's nose. So I rubbed his nose. So did a lot of other people because the nose is very golden compared to the rest of his head. I had to stand on tip toes to reach his nose. |
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| We visited 6 places where Abe Lincoln was featured. Starting in Kentucky, this is a recreation of the log cabin where he was born and lived until he was 2 years old. . A few miles away we visited the farm where he lived from age 2 until age 7. Then the family moved to Indiana and lived on the frontier. |
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| Here is his house in Springfield, Illinois where he was a state senator. |
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| The parlor of his house. |
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| The room where the family gathered in the evenings to read or sew or wrestle on the floor. |
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| A bedroom. |
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| Near the train depot where Lincoln thanked the people of Springfield before heading to the White House. |
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| The kitchen of his home in Springfield. Mary Todd Lincoln liked this stove so much she wanted to take it to the White House. She was talked out of taking it. |
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| His tomb in Springfield. |
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| The train depot where the Lincoln family departed Springfield. |
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| On our drive back to MN from Pennsylvania we stopped in Saint Louis to visit the arch. This is my second visit to the arch. Last time I went up the north arm of the arch. This time I went up the south arm of the arch. Much of the media and information at the arch is about the 1960's. They have a nice museum too talking about life in Saint Louis from pre-European settlers to the present. They had a contest to determine the shape of the memorial to Thomas Jefferson and his idea to send Lewis and Clark exploring. The ride on the tram (5 people per car) takes 4 minutes going up and 3 minutes going down. Towards the bottom of the arch the tram car has to adjust the angle of the tram so it goes slow until about half way up and then it speeds up. From the top it can go fast right from the get-go and slow down at the bottom. We have about ten minutes to spend looking out the windows at the top. |
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| The land on the far side of the Mississippi River belongs to Illinois. The water is quite high. A tug boat is pushing 15 barges tied together. |
After our trip to New River Gorge we headed west into Kentucky. We camped at Mammoth Cave camp ground which is only a short walk from the visitor center. We set up camp. I had the 2 person mother-in-law tent. Our cave tour was set for 4 p.m. Unfortunately one grandgirl puked at 3 p.m. We rescheduled our cave tour for the next morning and it is a good thing we did because she puked again when we would have been in the cave. That afternoon a doe visited our camp and put her nose into our fire ring looking for treats. She was followed by 3 speckled fawns. I have never seen a deer have triplets before. At dark we went to bed. Thunderstorms rolled in at 11 complete with lightening and thunder. When the rain felt heavy I could feel droplets splashing me everywhere except under the rain flap which was about 2 feet square. I quickly hung my phone from a cord under the rain flap. Thunderstorms continued until 2 a.m. Oh, what a night. I slept between 2 and 5 a.m. when I got up to get dressed. I was smart enough to keep all my other clothes in the car so they would stay dry. The next morning we headed for our cave tour. None of my photos turned out but we did have a nice trip into the cave. Now we need to work on a way to dry out a pillow, sleeping bag, sleeping mat and tent. Last time I was at Mammoth Cave we had bad weather. Tornadoes touched down in the area ruining a candle factory and killing people.
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| From Pennsylvania we traveled to West Virginia to New River Gorge. This is a beautiful gorge. |
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| On the first day we visited two of the visitor centers and did some hiking. |
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| We saw a group of people in zip line gear getting ready to traverse the lower level of this bridge. I don't think I would enjoy walking under a busy bridge. People have bungi jumped from the bridge. Others have parachuted off the bridge. We camped that night. The next morning we reported to Aces Adventures for our white water rafting tour. We took a bus up stream and got into our boats. The half before lunch is fairly tame with just a few rapids. The half after lunch had many rapids. Only one person over turned. The weather was perfect - sunny and warm. The river water was about 84 degrees. The grand girls jumped off a rock and swam in the river. What fun! |
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| One thing I liked about historic Winona is that they have poems on the sidewalk in a dozen spots around town. This poem was outside the grain exchange building where I stayed. |
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| What better way to celebrate Independence Day than to visit Abraham Lincoln's boyhood home? Earlier this week, in Kentucky, we visited his birth home where he lived until the age of 2. Five miles down the road was his other boyhood home where he lived until the age of 7. Today, in Indiana, we visited the farm where he lived from age 7 until age 21. The farm has the footprint of their original cabin and some barns and sheds. There were sheep and chickens. Sometimes they have people in costumes reenacting the farm practices of the era. We didn't get that today though. Here is the grave of Abraham's mother who died at the age of 35 from milk sickness. The cows must have eaten white snake root plants. |
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| Happy Independence Day! |
My host here in Dubuque told me to check out Galena, Illinois. So this morning I drove 30 minutes and parked at the Ulysses Grant house. A t...
