Drive, Fly, Drive.

Day # 318 of our married lives: We woke up at 5:30 am and headed out to MSP. (Pardon my use of aviation lingo but I have to stay fresh!) We got stuck in some traffic but we had budgeted our time with this in mind. Our flight out on American was around 0900 non-stop to STL. Due to a great tail-wind (over 30 mph on the ground/even better in the sky), our flight took an hour instead of an hour and twenty minutes. Andrew had brought along our road atlas so we tracked our progress. After all, I needed to brush up on my VFR navigational skills. It made the time pass so quickly and we knew right when we entered Iowa, Illinois and Missouri. While we did not fly Southwest, I had fun getting up close and personal with this one on our drive to the airport. And here is the church:
Just kidding. This is just the beginning of our journey. (I simply thought the building was interesting so I snapped the pic as we were going 65 on the highway.) We landed in STL with out incident and made our way to the car rental desk. Our particular company's desk was dark. There was a small sign reading, "Proceed to shuttle pick up area". (That is what we get for booking with Thrifty, we thought.) We were presently surprised, however, to be quickly shuttled off to a lot outside the airport. We had booked an Aveo (because it was the cheapest) but ended up getting a nice black Toyota Corolla. Away we drove.

Our drive through Illinois was peaceful and Spring-like. This picture does not do it justice as far as the Green-ness but I wanted to give you an idea of how wooded this end of Illinois is. This was one of the towns close to our destination. I was amused by the water tower painted like a hot air balloon. These oil doo-dads were also a common site all over the area.Our destination at last:The nearby town of 8,000 had flowering trees galore. It reminded me of Dubuque.
Our hosts were a wonderful couple with a beautiful home that they are in the process of finishing. They built and decorated the whole thing themselves. I was really inspired by her decorating ideas and loved her fresh flowers. She liked photography as well and we had the same camera. She said I could take any photos I wanted. This was one of my favorites. Isn't this just a gorgeous bouquet? Here is the flower of another fresh arrangement she had in the house. I was intrigued by the texture of the flower. I found this blooming Lilac outside the home of another church member. On our return trip we stopped off at the Arch. Due to lack of time we were not able to take the tram to the top but we were able to take some photos and visit the free museum that is located under the arch.This is one of my favorite shots. Andrew is in the picture on the right.I could not finish my blog about the trip with out adding one last aviation tidbit. In the museum (which allows photos) I took this picture of an old picture. (it has not been doctored in any way; it's straight from my camera.) I really love how it turned out!
We are home, and safe, and ready for whatever God calls us to.

Total travel time: 10 1/2 hours driving, 1 hour flying.