Early August 2012

These are pictures from a Friday night cookout at Cutty's

 With our truck in the shop for some bodywork, we have a rental.  We have unlimited mileage and it gets 30mpg.  So, we took a road trip on a day with both had off from work.  I just got on highway 69 and headed south.  It is a hilly, twisty, pretty drive from central Iowa to southern Iowa.  When we reached Oceola we were only about thirty miles from where Ella's sister, Mary lives.  She called Mary's number but didn't get an answer so she left a message.  We drove through Afton, where Ella lived for a while as a child.  We then went on into Creston to the Pizza Ranch for lunch.  They have very good fried chicken.

Here is Ella just noticing that I'm about to take her picture

 When were about done with lunch, Mary called back.  When she heard where we were, she said she'd come back into town and have lunch with us.
We finished lunch before she arrived.  Well...we had ice cream after she got there.  Ella and Mary had a nice long visit while the restaurant went from very busy to deserted except for us.

The remains.  I didn't think to take a picture before it was devoured.

The critters have been at my tomatoes again.  Ate two halves.  Why couldn't it have just eaten one whole?

 It rained!  We are in real need of rain.  However the forty mile per hour winds we could have done without.  As you can see in the photo below, we got a little over two and a half inches ... in less than an hour.