We finally visit Winona!

I am sitting in our hotel room, presently in Chaska, Minnesota, trying to figure out HOW to describe Winona to you! I finally got to see where our KellyO grew up! This weekend, Kelly's family hosted a party for friends and family who could not make it to the wedding two weeks ago. Grandpa Jones and I drove all day long on Friday and arrived in Winona just in time Friday evening to avoid being rained on while unloading the van. We had hoped to kind of drive around the town Friday night, but it was kind of miserable weather ...



Early Saturday morning, we met Dylan and Kelly in the lobby of our hotel. Kelly wanted to take us to a few places in Winona ... we started with "the best donut shop in the whole world" (I think that's how Kelly put it) ... Bloedow Bakery ... which boasts being Winona's hometown bakery since 1924! The donuts were AMAZING!

We drove over to the new Welcome Center over on Lake Winona and ate our donuts at a picnic table overlooking the lake.

Kelly took us up to Garvin Heights Overlook & Park so that we could get up on the bluffs and have a look around at her beautiful little city. WOW!

This is Kelly ... on top 'o the world! What a great view! What a beautiful place. I loved it up here, every single minute of it.

Winona is an island on the Mississippi River. It's a really beautiful place. You can see for miles up on top of this lookout.

We stayed up here for quite awhile. Kelly pointed out all kind of interesting stuff to us. PLUS, FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY WHOLE LIFE I saw an eagle in the wild! Not up close and personal ... but Kelly pointed out one that was flying below the bluff, wings outstretched ...

The next five pictures are from Grandpa Jones's camera ... a far better camera than what I use ~ better shutter speed, a HUGE lens, and a technical wizard behind the lens (!) ... so his pictures are really really nice!

This is another angle of the lookout ... see how far you can see from up here?

This wonderful butterfly was lazily flying about up on top ... my pictures of it are very inferior to this one ~ so I am showing you the best!

Kelly took us around the main lookout, down a little pathway overgrown with weeds and wildflowers, and then we came to an opening with NO gates or barriers ... just the rocks and the cliffs and ... WOW!

I took a picture of these same wildflowers, but I like this one better ...

But if you know Grandpa Jones, you KNOW his focus was NOT wildflowers! There are train tracks all over Winona ... on both sides of the river and lake ... so Grandpa Jones was pretty interested in all of that. When Dylan and Kelly left us to go and prepare for the party, Grandpa Jones and I went train and track exploring. I took a bunch of train pictures too, but I'm not going to post them right now.

We went to Levee Park and walked along the mighty Mississippi. Grandpa Jones was exploring some train tracks. I wanted to walk down the river a bit and see some bridges.

As I approached this bridge, there was an older couple with a little dog. They looked so sad. They said to me, "Isn't this TERRIBLE?!" I wasn't sure what they were talking about. I told them I was visiting the area for the first time. They told me they had never seen the river this high in August. It had been a real rainy week for them. They said the river was two feet higher than usual and it was very fast moving and brown from all of the farm runoff. But I certainly would not have known anything was wrong if they hadn't told me! I just figured Mark Twain was right when he referred to the "muddy Mississippi!"

The party for Dylan and Kelly was at Lake Park (Veteran's Memorial Park) on Lake Street. There was a nice shaded pavilion area there and Kelly's dad (Patrick) had it all set up for ... music. Kelly's mom (Julie) had it well prepared with yummy food and deserts. This picture shows Kelly singing "All My Love" with Dylan accompanying her. Her dad played some great music too, with a few friends he brought along for the occasion. I enjoyed meting more of Kelly's friends and seeing her folks again. It was a good time!

This is Lake Winona and the bluff there on the right is called Sugar Loaf. It's a really beautiful spot. I loved being here.

And look who drove down from Chaska to join in on the party? It was incredibly nice of Adam and Emily to make the two hour and forty minute trip from Chaska to Winona!

Jeremiah is 11 months (in two more days). What a sweet baby he is. We just saw him two weeks ago at the wedding, but when babies are this little they change all the time. We loved being able to see him again so soon.

This is a little fishing dock that juts out into Lake Winina ...

And the amazing view of those great clouds and their reflection in the lake below ...

This is the small gift we gave them at the party. It's an Irish wedding blessing! I saw it last week in a little gift shop in Lexington, Michigan (when I was with Ruthanne on our retreat) and thought it would be perfect for Dylan and Kelly!

We left the party in the early evening and headed up Highway 61 (an amazingly beautiful drive along the Mississippi River valley) in the direction of the Twin Cities. We decided to spend Sunday with Adam and Emily (since we were so close!) and little Jeremiah. The scenery along Highway 61 was so beautiful. I tried to get some good pictures as we were driving along, but none of them are worth showing to anyone at all! Too blurry! No time to compose a good artistic picture while flying down the road! I was able to catch this riverboat as we slowed down through a small town.

This afternoon (Sunday), we spent the afternoon at the zoo with Adam, Emily and Jeremiah. It was Jeremiah's very first zoo excursion. I have a ton of pictures to sort through ... but those are going to have to wait until we return to Grand Rapids ... so perhaps by Tuesday sometime I will be able to post them.