Two Days In June - Day II - Part I

Early Wednesday morning when I opened the drapes it was raining and I saw something I hadn't seen in a long time - a rainbow. 

It had arced across the sky with a bit of a double image off to the east in this photo.

If there really is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, it might well be found when this field of corn is harvested in the fall.

The rain is just what the crops needed.

By 6:30, it was already beginning to clear off to the southwest.

It was going to be another lovely day.

Dominique had invited us over to their house for a breakfast of waffles, bacon and orange juice. Mmm - mmm - good. 

We met a very friendly Tux.

 And the pretty, but elusive, Socks.

After breakfast we started out to Palisades-Kepler State Park on Old Highway 30, but when we got to Irish Lane, we saw the sign for Abbe Creek School Museum and decided to go there first.

The school was built in 1856 and believed to be the oldest standing one room brick school in Iowa.

It is on land claimed by William Abbe, the first white settler in Linn County. (1836)

The building wasn't open, so we walked around and took some pictures. Then we noticed some interesting specimens in the decorative beds of river rock.

It was hard not to pick up more. These are the ones that came home with me. The fossils! Oh my.

But the goal for the morning was Palisades-Kepler State Park.

First stop the beach. Where this dead tree lies bleached and beached.

The house on the bluff across the river from the beach is still there, but it looks different than I remembered.

And the bluff is only half as high as I thought it was.

And I remember stairs down to a boat dock on the water.

But here I am, back on the beach. This time with my youngest granddaughter instead of my oldest son. Doug was almost five years old when he played here in the sand while I sunbathed. 

This is a picture of me taken in the office where I worked in Lisbon at that time - 54 years ago.

We left the beach and hiked on one of the nearby trails.

Bud on his way up to a high outcropping

The two of us posing on a bridge.

This was about the time that Dominique commented that we represented relationship goals.

I thought that was so sweet.

"And what is so rare as a day in June?

Then, if ever, come perfect days." (James Russell Lowell)

 

And this was the most perfect day.

A perfect wild, white morning glory.

A perfect little trickling waterfall on its way to the Cedar River.

Some perfectly aligned fungi on an old fence rail.

And a perfect mystery in this iron ring embedded in a rock along the dam over the Cedar River.

Imagine boats tied up there? Or a rope or cable across the river? 

Was it always in this location? Or did it wash here in a flood?

Just the first set of stairs down to the dam.

I managed these, but didn't go any further down.

Dominique and Bud did go all the way down - wa-ay down.

The river may be low, but there is still a whole lot of power and danger in those waters going over the dam.

Some of the palisades at Palisades-Kepler State Park. The park was closed from August last year until April this year due to the damage from the derecho. It reopened exactly two months before our visit here on Wednesday. And even though they lost hundreds of trees, the park is still as beautiful as I remembered it. A very special place in my memories.

Ian texted that he was on his way to meet us for lunch at Si Senor so we headed back to town for some yummy Mexican food and a whole lot of fun with Ian and Dominique. I'm glad she could spend two days with us in the middle of the week, but I wish Ian could have, too.

For the afternoon - another state park, another river.

P.S. These are my Palisades-Kepler beach rocks.