Sunday Funday: Drumming, Irish Fiddling, and Train Graffiti

 

Today after Mass, Travalon and I again hiked on the trails off River Road, then he dropped me off at drum class, and my buddy had someone make a video of us. Yikes, am I not graceful! We are performing at the Fete de Marquette on Saturday, and I feel almost ready, as in I'd like about three more lessons. After that, Travalon and I went to the place off Fair Oaks where there are train cars and took photos of graffiti. We may have posted some (or all) of these already.

Since there weren't that many cars there, we went to the railyard and took more photos.

Then I went to the Slow Irish session, and the usual leader wasn't there so the other owner of the music club led us. He didn't know how to project the notes onto the screen, so he printed out a bunch of packets of music for the first half, and then in the second half we just threw out suggestions and played them. I noticed some new, young women (maybe in college?) enjoyed the first half, but they didn't really know what to do in the second half. Maybe they don't know how to learn by ear. However, they didn't leave, so maybe they enjoyed hearing the tunes, even if they didn't try to play them. One of them played a tune we didn't know, so we all tried to learn it by ear.

Afterwards, Travalon and I tried to go to the grocery store, but they had just closed early for inventory check. That was frustrating, but we will just have to get creative with what we still have (we didn't stock up due to our trip to Chicago) and what Travalon was able to pick up at Kwik Trip.

Here are a couple three screenshots of the prettiest graffiti we saw yesterday in West Chicago. (It was too big to fit on one screenshot.) 

And my black calla lily is blooming!

In the next few days (when I am working at home and should have nothing else to post photos of) I will post photos of the graffiti we saw at Rochelle, and some train-related stuff Travalon saw in Ridgeway last week, so watch for that.

Famous Hat

Happy 250th, USA!

 

Check out this photo Tiffy sent from Washington, DC:

Almost makes me wish I were there, but it's like a thousand degrees there. 

Here in the Midwest, it was hot and stormy. We met my aunt for brunch, then we went back to the spot in West Chicago with the diamond, but nothing was happening so we walked to a coffee place to get chocolate chip monkeys, or mochas with banana flavor. When we came back, a Canadian Pacific train was heading north, and then we saw a Metra train. I'll compile Travalon's videos at some point. My graffiti pics from yesterday evening in West Chicago finally downloaded.

I will try to make screen shots from some of Travalon's videos. We thought at first that he had missed the prettiest graffiti today, but when I watched his video just now, he did get it. 

Then we drove through another storm (not as bad as yesterday) to the Rochelle Railroad Park, where I took so many photos of the graffiti that I don't have time to post them, since of course it got late again. Then we drove to Blue Mound State Park to see the Daughter of Denni's band play. Because the weather was so bad, they played inside this time, but they were just as good. I loved when they said, "It's Saturday, we're in the park, and it's the Fourth of July. If only there were a song about that..." and then they played the song by Chicago. They also did a lot of Beatles stuff, and some really good original tunes, and a bluesy song about a deep blue well, and a Yes song. They are so versatile!

After that, Travalon and I drove to the top of the mound to take a walk, but we saw the sun was setting so we rushed to the west tower to try to see it. We were too late, but the other Daughter of Denni and her husband and two daughters joined us up there. The husband is the classical guitarist we have often seen perform, and after I offered to take a family photo of them, he took some of Travalon and me. These are the two best.

Here are some sort-of photos of the sunset that I took.

Travalon had his good camera with him. The rolling hills and the mist made it look like Scotland.

On the ride back we saw lots of amateur fireworks going off, sometimes right over us. We pulled over to watch Waunakee's display, and Travalon took some photos.

When we got home, I desperately needed some exercise, so I took a walk in the neighborhood, and Travalon joined me after a little bit. We saw some more fireworks in the distance.

Soon to come: more photos of graffiti and videos of trains and fireworks. Stay tuned!

Famous Hat