End of the shakedown cruise

I was watching the silent progress of time go by, marked by the swirls and riffles on the surface of the slowly flowing river. Sitting on a weather beaten wooden bench overlooking the water I imagined, or tried to, the changes witnessed by the silent sentinels; large oaks, maples and cottonwoods that grew on the banks and stretched out over the water. Their upper branches seemed to want to meet their neighbors on the far bank. Every so often the water is disturbed by fish rising to snatch some morsel that’s floating by. A nice breeze tries to keep the late summer heat and humidity away; it’s not working very well. Diane and I are spending the weekend at a farm belonging to our granddaughter’s other side. Sandra and Ron are her father’s grandparents and live in east central Iowa; a beautiful flat land of corn, small towns and family. We've met several, spending time together picking grapes and raspberries, riding ATV’s around endless fields along the river, searching out old bridges, trestles and town sites that have grown and died over the past century and a half. Todd, the other grandfather, and I were joined on our four wheeling journey by a great horned owl; it flew alongside for hundreds of yards before perching in a tall hardwood, peering down, large eyes following us as we continued on. An hour later I was standing knee deep in the river, casting a line laden with a large gob of freshly dug worms. The water was cool, not the jarring cold of a mountain stream. Not ten feet away a woodchuck came down the bank, navigating through a jumble of large maple roots. He looked straight at me before getting into the water and swam by, three feet from my own motionless wonder. I think I’ve found a “top ten” happy place. The past few days have been filled with campfire food and fellowship, laughter at the antics of a nine month old and nights filled with the sound of crickets and cicadas. Tomorrow we travel a couple of hours north to join friends in southern Minnesota for a day before heading west on our first extended trip in the new tiny home. I’m sure we’ll have countless adventures ahead, but it’s not easy to leave the Midwest.