Oh beautiful for spacious skies....

Road trip!

Saturday morning, we slept in until 10 AM. Then, as we all rolled out of bed, we collectively decided, "Hey! Let's go to West Des Moines for the day!" Sean asks me if I wanted to stay there overnight. I agreed it would be fun to do that since that would mean we wouldn't be rushed to do a bunch of stuff, and then rush to get home soon after dark. We made reservations at the Marriott Residence Inn, showered, packed a bag, and took off. On the way to West Des Moines, which is about 120 miles east of Omaha, we decided to take a detour.


We passed quite a number of interesting sights, such as this spotted horse:

Eventually, we arrived at our first stop:


Hogback Bridge is one of the world-famous covered bridges of Madison County, Iowa. As you walk through the bridge, you'll notice knife carvings of initials as well as handwritten messages and names on the interior walls of the bridge. We decided to add our names to the bridge, also.





We got back on the road, and arrived at West Des Moines at around 3:30 PM. Of course, if you knew me, you'd agree that I would have already marked on a map all of the rubber stamping and scrapbook stores in the area, before leaving our house. LOL! We made a pit stop at Outstamping. Surprisingly, I didn't really find anything in there that I wanted to buy. We shopped at the store next door to Oustamping and bought some homemade fudge. Afterwards, we ate dinner at Joe's Crab Shack before going to Archiver's.


Check this out! At the hotel, they had my name in the lobby, just because I'm a Marriott Rewards Elite Member! LOL! That's funny!

A trip to Jordan Creek Town Center is always interesting. We ended up shoe-shopping and then relaxed at Barnes and Noble. I found the Just Cards magazine where my card made it on the front cover. It's the card with the House Mouse stamp. Too cool!



We woke up this morning wanting to visit at least one, if not two more covered bridges. But, when we turned on the TV, we saw several announcements of Thunderstorm watches throughout Madison and Pottawatamie County. We didn't want to take the chance of being caught, given this past week's deadly storms and tornadoes. So, we just decided to head home soon after breakfast. As you can see, the skies were pretty ominous. But, overall, we had a terrific time, and my husband got to enjoy this Father's Day weekend! I'd bet a lot of folks who live out here don't realize how beautiful this country truly is. We are very blessed that we have the opportunity to explore the country, as we live in various cities around the United States. We hope to visit the other bridges, someday, before the Air Force moves us once more.