Enjoying the Beauty of the Night

With no school activities, sports or meetings to attend, our nights are quiet and spent at home. We've also had a few beautiful evenings and have been blessed with amazing sunsets, full moons, storms, star filled skies and satellite trains! Here are a few pictures that we captured from our evenings at home during the quarantine.

The (upside down) Big Dipper

Checking Out the New Bridge

The Quad Cities is getting a new bridge!!!  This bridge has been on the mind of every politician and citizen for the last 20 years! We are so excited to see it finally happening.

It has been fun to watch "the arch" take shape. We tracked the segments as they made their way from one river to another - the barge making its way up the Mississippi River to arrive in the Quad Cities. We have watched, with delight and amazement, as each segment has been hoisted and attached. This past weekend, the last segment was attached and now we wait for the keystone to be finished and placed as the final piece of the eastern arch (northbound I-74).

With the beautiful (albeit a bit windy!) weather, Matt took the kids down to the river to view the construction. They traveled to a few view points along the IL side then crossed the river to see it from the IA side.

Here is a great overall view of the river and bridges, seen from Riverside Cemetery. This is the final resting place of John Deere and his family.

We've seen some flooding along the Rock & Mississippi Rivers over the past month. Down along the river, Matt had to turn around when he found this big puddle!

Did I mention that it was a *tad bit* windy?

Will went with them but evidently only got out at this stop - face mask and all! He was in the middle of a good book and didn't want to explore.

The two spans of the current bridge. 

If all goes as planned (which probably won't be the case, but nothing has gone as planned thus far!), the northbound bridge will be finished this fall. Work has already started on the southbound as well. We are very excited!!!

Anamosa, Iowa - April 2020

Quarantine Journal, Week #3 (or was it #30???)...

We had a beautiful day and everyone was itching to get out of the house. We decided to take advantage of the great day and go for a drive.

We took some back country roads up to Anamosa, IA. We had one goal for the day - to find the Hula Hoop Tree!

Northeast of Anamosa, is a true Roadside Attraction. This Hula Hoop Tree is a dead tree that took on a different life form a few years ago. After you drive through Amber, take the next curve and you will behold the beauty of this fun tree!

Matt had stopped at a Dollar Store a few weeks before and purchased 6 hoops for us to try our hands at tossing on to the tree. He bought them in hopes that we'd be able to go there this summer. Of course, we had no clue what March and April would bring!

We stood alongside the road and started tossing. Let's say that this was a LOT harder than one would think! Matt thought we would all have 2 or 3 throws and be done. UH, a big fat NOPE!

The wind was pretty stiff at times so that didn't help one bit. We had our fair share of hoops that flew backwards, across the street. It was rather comical at times!

Kaitee (self proclaimed "most un-sports person in the family") was the first to hook a hoop!

If you look closely, Alex and Will's are both in the air. I loved watching Will throw his hoop - he would put his whole body into the throw!

Kaitee with her second hoop!! Kaitee - 2, Rest of Hart Family - 0!

Maddie scored!! Will's still trying (notice his hoop in the air)

He finally landed one!! We spent well over an hour - maybe closer to 2 hours - there. We had a blast and loved the laughing and cheering each other on!

We continued our way towards Anamosa and drove around the state penitentiary. It is a beautiful complex, built in the late 1800s. It is still used today as a med/max security facility, housing almost 1000 prisoners.

We pulled into the Wapsipinicon State Park in Anamosa and explored for a bit. Wow! This park was amazing!! It had caves, fjords, hiking trails, golf course, cool bridges!!! How have we never been here before?!?

Running off some extra steam, competing, exercising, whatever you want to call it!

As we headed out of Anamosa, towards Cedar Rapids, we made a quick stop in Stone City. We loved all of the Grant Wood stuff along the way.

We wanted to hunt for a letterbox series in Cedar Rapids (Indian Creek Nature Center) but our daylight was very quickly running out. We arrived and started looking for the boxes. After following a few clues, we realized that they weren't making any sense. We were at the wrong part of the Nature Center! It was a neat area and we enjoyed it while we were there.

Becki pulled up a map on her phone and we realized that where we needed to be was just down the road. We hopped in the van and headed there - double timing our steps once we started our hiking! While the hike and the location were really cool, we were short on time and didn't give much effort to looking for the boxes. We found one of the three and headed back down to the van. Definitely a place we will go back to when we have more time!

We headed into town for a late dinner and a few more letterboxes.

Grant Wood Studio and Visitor Center.

We left Cedar Rapids and started our 90 minute drive home. What a wonderful day! We definitely needed this outing as a family. We were able to get out of the house in a safe way, social distancing all the while (helps when no one else is out!) and see some of God's beauty displayed for us to enjoy.