Summer "Vacation"

Ok folks, here's the answer to that dreaded question I mentioned awhile back. "What did you do on your summer vacation?" Well, I don't get vacations. So sometimes I take a day and call it my vacation. Sunday was IT. I arranged my schedule weeks in advance so as to have nothing going on this past Sunday so that I could go with my mom and my aunt to a family reunion. And, wonder of wonders, we got my son and one of my daughters to go along with.

We set off on Sunday morning with coolers in the trunk, mom driving, aunt in the front seat, me and DS in the back. Drove 100 miles or more down the interstate and met DD at a gas station and then she climbed in the back seat with us. What a load!!! Mom said the car handled a little funny. I said that was not surprising with over a quarter of a ton of weight crammed in the back seat! We drove on down the road a bit to the little town where the reunion is held.

When I say little town, I mean truly little, like say 500 folks, but bigger than the town where I live. This town is big enough it still has a grocery store and a hardware store and a school. We got to the town hall where the reunion is held and I said, "I've just got to take a picture of this for my less rural friends."

For those of you who aren't familiar with farming, that's a combine without the header (the part that cuts the grain) sitting beside the hall. I couldn't resist taking this close-up with the reflection of myself (enlarge the picture and look closely at the center) in the window glass.

Once all the relatives arrived, the street was very quiet and nobody ran me over while I stood in the middle of Main Street taking pictures.

Looking west on Main. Yes, that is a guy on a Harley cruising down the street.

Looking East on Main.



And then there was the cute little beauty shop. Now I'm used to small town beauty shops being tucked away in little old buildings or remodeled garages or some obscure little corner of town, but I must say, I don't think I've ever seen one quite as cute as this.

The Catholic church caught my eye because one of my inumerable hobbies is photographing old country churches.

And the repair shop down the street grabbed my sons attention because well, tractors and other things with big engines always grab his attention.

Oh, and I did take a few obligatory photos of relatives, but honestly, people pictures just don't interest me much. I mainly took the pictures of relatives to send them to my long lost brother. I intend to label each person in the picture and write a long and rambling misive about the reunion that will bore him totally to tears. But the joke is really on him, because by his continiued absence from anything family, he's missed out on knowing some truly wonderful people.

Anyhow, that was my vacation day for this summer. If I'm lucky, I may find a mini-vacation in August, but I'm not holding my breath!