Back from Dallas

I'm thankful that I managed to make it back to Peoria before another cold front came though.  I am also glad that I walked a couple miles to church from the hotel. I was able to get out and experience the area a bit.

Reminders I was in Texas:
Flora:
-Texas mountain laurel
-mistletoe on tree
-dandelion flowers in January
-pansy flowers in January
-cedar tree
-bald cypress trees
-LIVE OAK trees

Fauna:
-great-tailed grackle (heard, but not seen)
-armadillo shell fragment
-oyster and Inoceramus shell FOSSILS from the Cretaceous in the dirt along the sidewalk (it was REALLY nice to be able to walk along and pick those up again)

Restaurants:
-Whataburger
-Sonic
-a barbeque dinner at the conference last night
-TACO CABANA (Despite that I really like that place, I ate at an In and Out Burger instead to see what the fuss was all about.  I was not impressed with the fries, but I had a pretty decent burger.)

Other:
-Cowboys references (yuck)
-crazy arial highway interchanges
-nice cowboy hats and boots worn by patrons at the airport
-Texas souvenirs at the airport
-WARM October-like weather in January (near-record high of 73 F)
-some sort of odor I associate with Texas, sort of a woody odor perhaps associated with the live oaks
-storm sewers without grates
-Dr. Pepper, but not Mountain Dew, at restaurant
-last night there was a party at the hotel for the DTMOB motorcycle group (all that biker gear was quite a contrast to our American Chemical Society meeting)

Trip to Dallas

Flew to Dallas this morning for a conference.  The flight was delayed by 3 hours because the intended captain got sick and a replacement had to be flown in from Chicago.  It was not all that bad because I had accidentally left my laptop at home, and since home is only 15 minutes from the airport I had time to go home and get it!  Among things I saw today was sunrise at the airport, birds flying and chirping in the airport (not shown), Sand Ridge State Park from the air, and Table Rock Lake from the air (near Branson, MO - I did not know that, I took a picture of it because I thought it looked sort of like a Chinese dragon).  It has gotten below freezing in Dallas, so there are icicles on fountains, but I have also seen green live oaks and flowering live pansies in January - reminders of times in Austin a couple years ago.

A little winter walk along Kickapoo Creek

Busy weekend, but with the temps rising above freezing today I spent about a half hour or so walking near Kickapoo Creek.  I was a little surprised to see plants debris wrapped around tree branches from last spring's big flood.  I also saw ice slabs about 8 inches thick along the banks - probably from the cold snap a couple of weeks ago.

Some pix

The Bradley University Chemistry Club Demo Crew had their 120th show on Wednesday.  Thank God, we finally reached the 10,000 customer mark.  Here is pic of a fiery demo.   I was acting as the spotter as a student squirted water into burning liquid wax. If overdone, the flames could probably hit the lecture hall ceiling.  Katie had a friend over yesterday, Kris had a Scholastic Bowl tournament and a birthday party today, and we have had other visitors as well.  I have also included a pic of salt dendrites on my garage floor, and of a deer I saw a few blocks from my house (where I have seen deer before).  Spring semester starts on Wednesday.

Kris's Birthday and Katie's Gotcha Day

Both were celebrated last weekend. Kris also had a voice recital on Sunday.

Minneapolis Sights

Some more pictures from the weekend trip to Minneapolis.  Some things you might note is the statue of Mary Tyler Moore, the chemistry-themed frozen yogurt store, and the newspaper talking about woes of the Target stores in front of the Target corporate headquarters.

Penny/Holland Wedding

Last Friday we attended the wedding of Karen's cousin, Jessica, in Minneapolis.  Jessica was 8 going on 9 years old when she was a flower girl at our wedding so long ago.  Favorite moments include Katie excitedly dancing with Karen to "What Does the Fox Say?" and me telling Kris how to slow dance with boys (two feet apart, his hands only on her arms, dance in well-lit area, etc.).

Iowa 80 Truck Stop

The family traveled to Minneapolis for a wedding this past Friday and on the way there and back we stopped at the Iowa 80 Truck Stop - touted as the world's biggest.  It's a bit kitschy, kind of like the Wall Drug of eastern Iowa, but we like to check out the semi tractors in the store.  We had Katie pretend to be a bug on the grille of a truck.

"Snow" Day I

The coldest weather in a couple of decades has rolled over much of the U.S. Saturday night we went to see the movie "Frozen" - it was pretty good.  By the time we left a snowstorm was in full swing.  The snow continued into Sunday, depositing about 8 inches locally.  After it cleared out, bitter cold from a "polar vortex" rolled in, cancelling school (including Bradley University) in many places.  So, even though it was sunny much of the day; the temperatures only ranged from -14 to -8, with windchills in the minus 30s. I was outside the house a few times doing various things: we got firewood to keep our wood stove running, we got snow to make yummy homemade ice cream, and I tried that experiment that has been circulating around the Internet and TV outlets where you throw near-boiling water into the air to make a cloud of ice crystals. School is still cancelled for the girls tomorrow, extending their Christmas vacation by yet another day.

2014 Begins

Minus 1 north of Green Bay when we left on January 1 and plus 23 in Peoria in afternoon when we arrived. No snow (at the time) at either location, but the border snowstorm in-between was not fun. We counted about a dozen cars in the ditch. The snow reached Peoria later with a couple inches. It dawns on me that we drove through the battle-zone between Freeze-Miser and Heat-Miser.  Today turned clear and cold, and this evening there was a nice view of the moon and Venus.