For the last few weeks the site has been plagued by hosting problems. It would be up for 5 minutes then down for hours then up for 30 minutes down for 5 … You get the message. I contacted Bluehost, did the standard wait for an hour for text support, you all know the drill. Nothing they did seemed to work, but a couple of days later it started working for longer and longer. I finally trust it to stay up long enough to get a post up, even though there isn’t much to say.
Kevin added a 2” lift kit to the UTV, so we took a short trip to the local OHV park to check it out. It is a small area, but it has enough variety to make sure everything was working well. It gave us a total 1 1/2” increase in height. It doesn’t sound like much, but it is gave us 11.5” in the front and 9.5” in the back now. That is a significant change and will be very helpful in the Arizona rocks this winter.
We were the only people around so we had some nice animal sights. While we didn’t see this beaver, we certainly knew it was around!
There were some visible animals though. We saw at least 20 turkeys in two groups, one big and one small, plus a single deer who didn’t see much in us to worry her.
We also had one more group ride from the Volga, IA. There was an awful lot of rain beforehand, so this trip also was re-routed to mostly gravel roads. I felt sorry for the organizers. They had cleared more trails and gained additional landowner permissions for newer locations, and then they had to hit mostly the gravel roads! However even the gravel roads are lovely in Allamakee county.
One of the characteristics of group activities in Iowa before the corn is cut is the guys head into the corn instead of the provided toilets. It makes for shorter lines for the women!
It wasn’t peak color, but it was still nice.
We also took a trip to the largest OHV park in Iowa near Ft. Dodge. I was not a fan. I like to ride to see scenery, not for an adrenaline rush. The majority of the area is a bunch of trails emphasizing mudding and fast corners. Of course there were some lovely spots.
We also went to a local community playhouse to see “Noises Off,” a backstage/front stage comedy of actors in a play. I am sorry to say it was awful! The actors did what they could with the play, but the play itself was pretty bad. Too bad because it is a lovely theater, and we hope to go to other plays there. We also went to a presentation of “Annie” at Gallagher Bluedorn theater at University of Northern Iowa here in town. Nicely done, but I never can figure out why theater seats copy airplane seats in size! My knees bump up against the seat I front of me!
I also got a truly disgusting cold/sinus “thing.” That has lasted for two full weeks now. I dosed myself with a huge amount of meds in order to visit a pain doctor for a steroid injection in my back. It is already a little bit better, and I hope it improves significantly.
No real quilting, but I am prepping for a class on ruler quilting offered virtually by a quilt shop not too far away. The result will be a whole cloth quilt using a Westerlee arc ruler. It will be three hours each night on three more nights. Our first night was a bunch of background and how to set up for the quilting part. I had to do an awful lot of marking to get started, and I still have to get it trimmed and sandwiched by Tuesday! We will see. I have a backup plan of scraps to use for the practice. Maybe my next post will be a picture of the result.