July 3rd: "A 'Super' day"

Faster that a speeding bullet, stronger than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.... you know who I am talking about! We took in the statue of this American Icon in the small town of Metropolis, IL, this morning. Metropolis is located just across the river from Paducah, KY. Though I always thought Superman was raised in Kansas, southern Illinois has claimed him as their own. Perhaps I should do a google search on Superman's boyhood home.

In town we found a large statue of the man with the red cape and a store selling every Superman, Super girl and Wonder woman trinket known to mankind. The kids (the little ones and one big one) had a great time seeing this piece of Americana. FYI: The town appeared to be kryptonite free.

After taking in all the "super stuff" we could handle, we headed north up 57 and stopped in Mount Vernon, IL, at the Steak and Shake for lunch. The kids thought the paper hats were lots of fun.

We also passed a sign along our way for "Johnston" city. This we had to get a photo of- for those of you that don't know, John's given name is Johnston Leif, so a sign with his name was pretty cool he thought.

Mid-afternoon found us at Dairy Queen in Charleston, IL. There we met Erik's Aunt Peggy for an ice cream break. Peg lives about 25 miles east in the town of Paris. We had a great time catching up over ice cream cones.

Final destination brought us to Bloomington-Normal, our home away from home during the three years Erik completed his Immunology graduated work at Illinois State University in the mid 1990s. Felt good to drive into town and catch a glimpse of some of the familiar sights. After checking in to the new (and absolutely gorgeous) Marriott Conference Center near campus and a quick dinner at Monicals, we met up with some of our favorite Illinois friends, the Markwoods. I used to babysit their girls when we lived here. Now the girls are college and high school age- and they entertained my children during our visit. How fun it is to see the circles that happen in our lives.

Fabulous as always, we had a great visit with them!! They had made up a sundae bar and we had all the fixings for a fun dessert. After dinner we walked up the street to a park to burn off some energy. The lightening bugs/fireflies were out. The kids loved trying to catch them- a fun treat for Washington kids that had never seen this twinkle of summer fun. They caught a number and put them in a jar to watch them light up (we released them when we left so no bugs were harmed in the making of this summer memory- traumatized, probably- but not harmed.)

Off to bed and ready for another great day in the land of Lincoln.