questions???

 Once again my west coast brother has provided me with inspiration for my blog.  He has informed me that today is National Souffle Potato Day, National Hot Mulled Cider Day,  National Mud Pack Day and Ask a Stupid Question Day.  His 'stupid question' was "Why do mud packs even have a day?"  I actually thought that was a pretty good question.  My 'stupid question' is why is it National Souffle Potato Day and not National Potato Souffle Day?  I mulled this over while sipping some delicious hot cider spiced with a cinnamon stick earlier this evening.  I'm not sure if having the cinnamon stick in the cup of cider makes it mulled or not?  But this whole line of thought reminds me of a chemistry teacher I had in high school who like to say "There's no such thing as a stupid question." (I'm sure you've heard that one.) But then, when I would ask him a question, usually during lab work, he'd say, in a rather patronizing voice, "I'm sure you can figure that out."  This explains why I did not go on to take Physics in my senior year (same teacher) which gave me a chance to take an art class and realize that what I really wanted to do in college was major in Art Education so I could, and did, become an art teacher.  Funny how things work out.

Oh happy day

Today is National Corn Day.  It's also National Coffee Day but that's for my husband to celebrate.  As for corn, we bought some at "Schmucker's Produce Farm and Greenhouse" on Friday, and it is delicious.  Before we left on our vacation, on another visit to that market, the farmer happened to be there when we asked the clerk if they would still have sweet corn available at the end of September, when we expected to be back from our trip.  He told us he had recently planted a late crop which would be for sale in late September.  Hence our trip to the market on Friday.  My spouse and I agree that this is the best corn we've had all summer.  An interesting thing about corn, while my husband is allergic to processed corn products such as anything with corn syrup in it, and corn chips, he can eat fresh sweet corn with no ill effects.  An argument for fresh veggies I think.  I was reassured on our recent trip that the world (or at least North America) will not be facing a corn shortage any time soon.  At least that's how it appeared.  On our way west through the northern USA and on our homeward drive east through southern Canada we passed miles and miles of corn fields.  Not all sweet corn of course, but what appears to be an abundance of corn available for a variety of uses.  You'll have to take my word for it though.  I didn't, as it happens, take any pictures of corn fields on our trip, because, when you grow up in the flat country of northeastern Indiana, they are not an exceptional sight.  

a new review...

 This evening my husband and I went to dinner with my son and daughter-in-law.  At their suggestion we went to a newly opened (about two weeks ago) Mexican restaurant.  It turned out to be a delicious suggestion.  This restaurant, Sol De Mexico, is tucked in the corner of a little strip mall just west of Cracker Barrel on Lima Road. It's much larger on the inside that it appears from the front, and blessedly quiet.  They have some sound deadening tiles incorporated in the ceiling design.  I like good food but I also like to be able to carry on a conversation without shouting.  The food was very good.  I have a few favorite Mexican restaurants in Fort Wayne and this ranks with the best of them.  I had a burrito with deliciously seasoned beef covered with cheese, green sauce and sour cream.  So good!  The chips, served as soon as we were seated, were fresh and crispy and the salsa was just spicy enough for me.  All in all an excellent first encounter.  I highly recommend that you give it a try.  We will be going back.

looking way back...

 My west coast brother has informed me that today is Ancestor Appreciation Day and also German Butterbrot Day.  I do appreciate my ancestors.  They were hard working immigrants who came to this country beginning, as far as I know, in the mid-1700s.  One ancestor arrived in time to fight in the Revolutionary War.  The family story goes that he escaped from Germany after being arrested for killing the king's deer.  I like to think that he wasn't really a bad man, just trying to feed his family. Since my ancestors were almost all German (with a little Scots-Irish and French mixed in) I do appreciate them for many things including their good cooking.  So it seems very fitting that I honor them for German Butterbrot, also being celebrated today.  It turns out that, without even knowing it, I have been carrying on this tradition.  Almost every morning my breakfast is a slice of toasted bread liberally buttered and sometimes with one more layer on top such as jelly or honey, and that is exactly what butterbrot is. Happily, I often have cinnamon bread from the Amish bakery which makes it even better.  My spouse, on the other hand, is of Viking ancestry.  I'm not sure if his breakfast choices reflect his heritage, but he certainly burned and pillaged his way through our Scrabble game tonight.  Ok, maybe it wasn't that bad, but he did win by 40 points.  I have demanded a rematch. 

Happy Birthday1

 Today is Johnny Appleseed's 250th birthday.  He was born in 1774. My west coast brother brought this to my attention earlier today.  Many places claim some connection to good old JA, but none cherish his memory more than Fort Wayne, Indiana. Not only is he buried here (I can show you his grave) but he is also celebrated each fall with a weekend long Johnny Appleseed Festival. In addition our local baseball team is called The Tin Caps. You may recall that Johnny Appleseed wore a tin pot for a hat as he roamed around this area planting apple trees.  Those original trees are almost certainly all gone now, but their descendents still thrive. In celebration of this great day my spouse and I have each just eaten a delicious piece of apple bread from our favorite Amish bakery. Happy birthday Johnny. 

Home again, continued...

 Pictures of the bridge:

Home again....

  After 19 days of adventuring we are home again, safe and sound.  It was a great trip but it is good to be home.  Even today, although it was just a driving day, was fun.  We left Sault Ste. Marie at 8:48am, crossed the big bridge, always a thrill, and drove into the USA at 9:05am.  Then headed south on I75.  At 10:20am we stopped at Darrow's Restaurant, which we had discovered and loved on our Michigan trip last year, for brunch.  We each had a hearty breakfast topped off with pie.  I had Dutch Apple while my wonder spouse, who is always wondering about something, had oatmeal butterscotch pie, very sweet.  He said it was delicious.  Later in the day we stopped at a Biggby Coffee. He had black coffee, I had frozen vanilla mocha with whipped cream (my too sweet treat for the day).  In retrospect, it seems that we ate our way home.  Arrived home by 4:45pm.  We will not discuss how long it took to unload the car.  Suffice it to say, we are gradually returning to a somewhat organized at-home life and looking forward to a really good night's sleep. 

Ticket continued...

 More pictures...

Too to bottom, a Canyon view, the train in the canyon and a beautiful waterfall.

Ticket to ride...

 When my spouse and I were visiting with my west coast  brother earlier this trip we played a game called "Ticket to Ride." This is a board game in which players compete to build trains from city to city. Today my husband and I took a real train ride. It was the Agawa Canyon Train Tour which travels four hours by passenger train into beautiful Agawa Canyon (you can't get there by car) leaving at 8am from Sault Ste Marie, Ontario.  After about two hours on our own walking the trails to explore the area, we re-boarded the train for the four and a half hour return trip. Getting there, and back, really was half the fun. I hadn't ridden on a train for a long time. The train had three engines pulling it and 18 cars, including a snack car and a dining car. These were not as elegant as you might be imagining but they did serve their purpose. We passed the time on the train watching the beauty flash by and visiting with two very interesting and congenial seat mates.  The seats were arranged with alternating rows facing each other making for easy conversation but limited leg space. All in all a long but fun day. 

A view of Agawa Canyon.  Note, the UFO, which I haven't figured out how to delete yet is a light reflected on the windows. 

Lake views...

 We're getting closer to home. Today's drive was from Thunder Bay to Sault Ste. Marie.  Almost the entire drive was on Highway 17 along the north shore of Lake Superior. Miles and miles of gorgeous scenery, one wildlife sighting - a moose standing along the side of the road. We stopped for refreshments at a bakery called Robin's where we had apple fritters. They seem to be very popular around here. Another beautiful day for a drive. 

My wonder spouse admiring the view.

Another view further down the road. 

Driving on....

 Another long driving day, this time west to east across most of Ontario. This province evidently doesn't believe in four lane highways, the better to enjoy Ontario's natural beauty, I guess.  Rolling hills and lots of trees, especially evergreens.  Here's a fun fact. I always thought that fir and pine were synonymous but not so. Fir trees have soft needles while pine needles are prickly. If you buy a natural  Christmas tree every year you probably know that.  A lot of the scenery reminded us of northern Michigan. Not too surprising since we are now in Thunder Bay on the north shore of Lake Superior. 

Catching up...

 I wasn't able to blog last night, so here is a two day update. These last couple of days have been long driving days, heading east across Canada on the trans-Canada highway, aka Hwy 1. I am really amazed at the space. The mountains are behind us and we're driving through miles and miles (I should say kilometers and kilometers) of wide open spaces with tiny towns along the way, and very occasionally a big city. Last night we stayed in a large city, Regina, Saskatchewan, at the grand old Saskatchewan hotel. We were on the 7th floor with a great view of the city. We dined in their elegant restaurant last night and had breakfast in their slightly more casual (fewer crystal chandeliers) brunch room this morning. I had banana bread French toast in case you're interested. We didn't leave there until about 11am. It's not the kind of place you want to rush away from.  

Today we drove from Regina to Winnipeg,  Manitoba. Our hotel here is a Fairfield Inn. They are always very nice, but not elegant. However, my wonder spouse found a German restaurant for supper where we enjoyed delicious Hungarian goulash and spaetzle for supper. It was a very casual place called Sam's (not very German sounding) but the food was excellent. 

Tomorrow we are heading to Thunder Bay, Ontario. I am certainly seeing more of Canada than I have ever seen before. 

The view from our windows at the Saskatchewan hotel. 

Words and pictures..

 They say a picture is worth a thousand words and I agree, so this blog is going to be heavy on pictures. The Canadian Rockies are amazing. We spent most of today on a guided tour of Lake Louise and Lake Moraine, both near Banff in Alberta. 

Got this nice unexpected picture of a train coming through a river valley.

Glaciers in the distance.

More glaciers.

Expert skiers ski down this glacier slide and out onto the frozen surface of Lake Moraine. 

Glaciers seen from Lake Louise.

Fun fact, the Canadians have built eight of these animal bridges over remote stretches of Highway 1, the Trans-Canada Highway, which is, by the way, the longest paved Highway in the world. 

Moving on...

Our travels continue. We left my west coast brother's home this morning.  It was a lovely visit but we needed to head home sometime. The first leg of our homeward bound journey involved going pretty much straight north, or as straight as you can go with lots of mountains in the way. We chose this route because we had decided to come east through Canada, a route neither of us has taken before.  We drove north on 95 through Idaho. This involved some really lovely scenery. I know that lots of potatoes are grown in Idaho but I had never imagined it as so beautiful. However,  if Idaho was beautiful, Canada was spectacular. We drove on 95/93 for hours, through British Columbia and into Alberta, finally ending up in Banff, a very busy tourist town, from here we will tour Lake Louise and other areas tomorrow.  But the drive itself was all the sight seeing we needed today.  As we drove north, mile after mile of amazing views of the Canadian Rockies unfolded before us. It was like driving through a panoramic technicolor movie (if you're old enough to remember such things).  I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings. My spouse and I agree that these are the most beautiful mountains we've ever seen.

Pictures can't do it justice. But here is one of my attempts. As you can see it was a beautiful sunny day. 

Amazing job, amazing woman...

 My west coast brother and his spouse's oldest daughter (and one of my dearest nieces) is a aeromedical pediatric  respiratory therapist. Her work environment is not a hospital. Instead, she spends her time traveling with infants in distress as they are taken from whatever place they are, it could be their home or a smaller hospital, to a hospital where they can receive necessary care and keeping them alive and comfortable along the way.  Ambulances are used for local runs.  When they make their longest trips they fly in a plane. From the base here in Spokane they have flown as far as Boston and Alaska. For shorter flights they use helicopters. This is actually better according to my niece, because they can land right at the hospital and don't need additional ground transport.  Today she gave us an excellent tour of their base, a hanger at an airport, which gives them space for all their equipment and sleeping, eating, etc. during their 24 hour shifts. I am in awe of what they do. 

This is a "baby box" in which the infant is transported. 

One of their newest helicopters. The pilot, Skylar, (great name for a pilot) gave us lots of great information. For example, the wooden pad this helicopter is sitting on is exactly what they land on at hospitals and airports. 

Fun and games...

 This part of our trip west is being like a lovely long family reunion. Today we didn't rush off anywhere. Instead, one of my nieces and her husband came out to the farm for a late  lunch and plenty of time to laugh and talk and play games.  I should mention that lunch was homemade biscuits and gravy plus eggs and hashbrowns. A really delicious breakfast for lunch treat.  The games today were Five Crowns and a board game called Labyrinth.  I didn't win either one but they were both great fun.  It really doesn't matter what games we play though; game playing, for us, is a long standing family tradition. When I was a child the major games at our family gatherings were Monopoly and Euchre.  Now my husband and I play Scrabble and Gin Rummy, but it's a real treat to play something with more people.  I'm not sure why but laughter and conversation flow so much more freely during a game. Perhaps it's because, in our adult lives, taking time to play is so much fun. 

Engineers together

 My west coast brother is the Senior Broadcast Engineer at a local TV station. Today he took us on a grand tour. First he took us high up on a mountain to see the tower, then to the TV station. We saw an incredible number of pieces of equipment, and learned how several of them are used. I asked my brother about his job and he told me his title, See above.  When I pressed him about what he actually does he said he mostly answers questions and fixes things when no one else can. Much of what he explained to us sailed right over my head but my wonder spouse, who is an Electrical Engineer, knew all the right questions to ask and was fascinated by the whole process. 

Engineers bonding over wires and switches.

The walkway to go out to the base of the tower.

The transmission tower. We did not climb to the top.

A view from the top of the tower mountain.

Family ties...

 Continuing our visit with my west coast brother and sister in law. Today, in addition to them, I got to spend time with two of my favorite nieces, one nephew, one great nephew, one great niece, and some fun family in laws. In addition we all ate very well. Pumpkin waffles for brunch, and for dinner, BBQ ribs and chicken (made with an old family recipe), mashed potato salad, melon pieces, chips, baked beans, cake and cheese cake. After most of the non-resident guests had left we played a rousing game of Mexican Train. Because it was his first time visiting here, we 'let' my wonder spouse win. All in all, a perfect day with the family. 

 Moon rise over the farm.

One of the guests, a friend as well as family by marriage, brought this merry-go-round horse to show me. She created it from an old child's jumping horse, and brought it along on their four hour drive to come visit, because she knew I would appreciate her creativity. I certainly did.

Zippity do da...

It's been a lovely day here in the Spokane countryside. Words like serene, relaxing and blissful have been running through my mind.  Our longest drive (our only drive) was into town for hamburgers at Zips. Really quite tasty. Our great niece, 13, and greatnephew, 10, are joining us this evening so it's almost game time.

A view from our hike up the hill this moning. 

A view from their farm looking off to the distance. The quiet is only disturbed by clucking chickens and bleating goats. 

The scene going down their driveway. They own five acres, but vast fields, and  very few neighbors surround them. 

Were here!

This was mostly a driving day, driving distance and driving rain, but we have arrived safely at my west coast brother's home. So nice to be here.  

Took this picture while driving through Montana. One patch of blue in big sky country. 

Cold and old...

 Today we spent all day touring Yellowstone. It was like visiting an old friend. Glorious scenery, bubbling mud pots, hot pools, volcanic table land, some wildlife, and of course Old Faithful. Old Faithful is slowing down a bit these days, but aren't we all? I seem to remember from years past that Old Faithful erupted about once an hour. Now it's about once every 90 minutes. But we waited patiently and were rewarded with a good show. The only drawback to the day was the weather,  50 degrees, cloudy and rainy. I'm really glad I packed my rain jacket for this trip. Happily, the sun finally came out in time for the Big Show. 

Old Faithful of course. I took these pictures with my tablet and am pleased with the results.

This is one of my favorite bubbling hot pools. Love the color.

Blooping mud in one of many mud pots. Sorry I didn't record the sound but you can imagine it. Bloop, bloop, bloop. Yellowstone has more hot springs and geysers than anywhere else on earth. 

So many curves...

 Today was a long driving day with quite a bit of off interstate driving on scenic routes across the beautiful state of Wyoming. Many, many curving roads and stunning vistas. The highlight of the day came in the afternoon when we went high up Medicine Mountain to visit the Big Horn Medicine Wheel Nation Historic Landmark. It is at 9642 ft elevation near the crest of the Big Horn mountains with amazing views in all directions. Happily for my wonder spouse and myself, we did not have to walk the long uphill mile and a half to get to the wheel. It turns out that people over 65 can drive up to the site. Which sounds great, and we did it, but most of the drive was on a one lane dirt road with a sharp drop off on one side and no guard rails. It was an interesting experience.  The wheel itself is a large circle of white stones laid out like a wheel with lines of white stones leading like spokes to a large cairn of stones in the center.  According to the information provided the wheel in it's current state is about 250 years old but it is on a site that has been holy to several tribes for generations. It is also currently being used for traditional ceremonies. We we not fortunate enough to see one today. 

First a funny note. These tractors and several others were parked in front of the hotel where we stayed last night. It turns out that they were a group of people traveling by tractors to various sights. We saw them pull out this morning on their was to Mount Rushmore.

Here's a view of the Medicine Wheel. I couldn't get a long shot of the whole thing.

One of many views from our scenic drive. 

Awesome...

 Today, my west coast brother has informed me is "I Love Food Day."  My wonder spouse and I have decided that we certainly do, with ridiculously large dinners for the last couple of evenings. But it's OK because vacation calories don't count, right? I certainly hope not because tonight we finished off our dinner by sharing a piece of caramel cheese cake encased in almonds and covered with chocolate, whipped cream and caramelized bacon bits. If that doesn't shout vacation I don't know what does. In case you're concerned we did actually do more than eat today. We left the historic little town of Murdo, SD about 9:30am and took a wonderful drive through the Bad Lands.  About noon, we stopped for a while at Wall Drug Store. Hard not to stop after seeing signs for Wall Drug Store every few miles since Minnesota.  We spent the afternoon visiting the Crazy Horse monument and museum.  There has definitely been progress made since the last time I was there which has been several years ago. 

A view in the Bad Lands.  As we were on our way out we spotted these grazing Buffalo. 

They haven't started on the horse's head yet but Crazy Horse's head looks wonderful and the outstretched hand is shaping up. There is a long history here of cooperation between the sculptor and several Indian tribes. It's a fascinating place to visit.

Picture this..

 Today, day three of our journey, was a day of three visual delights. We began by touring the Spam Museum in Austin, Minnesota. Then we explored a Prehistoric Indian Village and Excavation in Mitchell, South Dakota,  and finally took time to view Dignity, a massive beautiful monument near the Missouri River, still in SD. 

Did you know that Spam is very popular in Hawaiian but the most Spam per capita is eaten in Guam. The museum is full of history of WWII. Spam was created in !937 but became widely used during that war and subsequent ones.

The Prehistoric relics were excavated in the Mitchell SD area, and the Excavation site, partly shown here, has been preserved and enclosed in a large domed building. The museum, in a different building contained a great variety of relics from this tribe who lived in the area about 1000ad.

This huge statue, located at the Chamberlain visitors center, overlooking the Missouri River, is named Dignity. Truly awesome. 

EAA experience

 Today we visited the EAA (Experimental Aircraft Association) museum in Oshkosh, which was our whole reason for being in Oshkosh.  It was fascinating. I was not expecting much from this. Airplanes are my husband's thing but this place was actually exciting. There are more than 200 experimental flying machines represented here. Some are original and some are exact replicas. There were also videos to watch and I learned all about the annual fly ins, massive air shows with more than 250,000 people and almost as many airplanes in attendance. 

This one I liked for the colors. Such fun.

Here is a replica of one of the Wright brothers first efforts. Talk about experimental. I'm a distant relative of the Wright brothers so this holds special interest for me. 

And this picture is just for fun. I do like a friendly little airplane.

Heading west, after the museum we crossed the mighty Mississippi from Wisconsin to Minnesota.  Here's a quick driving shot of the beautiful river. 

Traveling...

Today was day 1 of our long awaited driving trip heading west to visit my west coast brother. We left at noon and arrived in Oshkosh, Wisconsin about five thirty.  Why, you may ask, if we're heading west, did we start the trip by heading pretty much straight north? It wasn't, as you might expect, to visit a factory that makes adorable little kid's overalls. Tomorrow we are going to visit the other thing Oshkosh is famous for, the EAA Aviation Museum which features more than 200 historic airplanes.  In the meantime we had a delicious supper in, of all places, a Culver's.  We are in Wisconsin after all.  

This is a practice picture I took after all our stuff was loaded in the car. Actually there's more on the back seat. We will be traveling for three weeks after all. I hope to have a real trip picture for tomorrow's blog. 

something new...

 Today I enjoyed a fun new experience.  Have you seen the TV commercials where there is a voice talking about a product or service while the visual image shows happy people obviously having a great time enjoying whatever is being advertised?  Well, today I got to be one of those happy people.  It was a commercial for a senior residential community.  I was paired with a nice man whom I had never met before and we acted out scenes of him bringing me a cup of coffee, and the two of us sitting in the patio area enjoying ice tea with another couple.  For this they used a couple of residents who happened to be on the patio and who thought it was fun to be part of the commercial.  Later, my 'spouse' and I took a stroll along a shady sidewalk, and had fun greeting and playing with our two year old 'grandson' (the son of one of the film company employees).  Thankfully my 'spouse' did all the heavy lifting of the toddler.  I also got my hair 'done.' The most fun part of this entire exercise was that I didn't have to memorize any lines.  We just got directions like - act grateful for the coffee, laugh like one of you just told a great joke, act loving as you stroll along the walk together.  It didn't matter at all what we actually said to each other and we had a fine time adlibbing silliness.  There was also a lot of interesting activity to watch.  Before each scene could be filmed, which generally took about ten minutes of retakes until they got the picture they wanted, about 45 minutes were spent by the very efficient crew setting up lights and diffusers and other stuff I don't know the name of and a great variety of cameras and miles of electrical cords running around, and of course the props like coffee mugs and ice tea glasses.  It was really fun.  The techs did all the hard work while we, referred to as the 'talent,' sat on the sidelines and waited to be called to our places.  We were even served a very nice lunch, and yes, I am getting paid for this job.  Easy and nice as this all was, I must admit that by the end of the day I was tired.  I guess there's a reason why they thought I looked old enough to be living in a retirement home.  I don't know yet when the ad will be aired or on what stations, but I do hope I get to see it at least once.  Although, if it's really cringe-worthy, once may be enough.

Eat up...

 According to my west coast brother today is "Eat An Extra Dessert Day."  This sounds like a fine idea to me.  I need to be up early tomorrow morning for a special project, which I will blog about tomorrow evening if all goes well, so I've had that extra dessert and now I'm heading  to bed.

PS My spouse and I played Scrabble this evening and he won the game by two points in his last turn.  I think we're getting much too closely matched in this game, but it is fun.

BBQ bliss...

 In the early 1950s there was a popular book published called "Five Acres and Independence."  My parents bought the book, and then they bought the farm, not the whole farm, just five acres.  Our little piece of property contained an old house that needed lots of work, a somewhat newer garage and two chicken coops.  It happened that my parents knew someone in the chicken business, learned what was involved, and decided to raise chickens.  So every thirteen weeks a nearby hatchery would deliver 1500 day old baby chicks (so cute) which were put in the freshly scrubbed and sanitized coops.  Twelve weeks later the full grown nicely plump chickens (not cute at all) were sold as Fancy Flock Friers, and we got top money for them.  It was a good bit of income for a while, but eventually Mom and Dad got too busy with their real jobs (she was a teacher, he was a carpenter) to want to stay in the chicken business.  Happily for them, they got out of the business just before the bottom dropped out of the Indiana chicken market.  One of my happiest memories of that time involved those chickens.  Every year my parents would have 100 chickens butchered and held back for our own use.  We stored them in the Locker, a small town establishment where people could rent freezer space.  Then every Sunday, all year long, we had chicken for dinner.  In the cold months the chicken was baked or fried.  My mother was an excellent cook.  At that time there were four of us in the family and we each got half a chicken to eat.  We weren't rich but we never went hungry.  In the summertime, my father would grill the chicken halves in half of a barrel made into a grill.  It was so delicious.  I recently came across the recipe he used for the sauce.  I found it in a brochure titled "Hoosier Barbecue Chicken" which had been published by the Purdue University Agricultural Extension Services (extension leaflet 364), and tucked into an old cookbook.  What I really liked about this sauce is that it's vinegar based with no tomato in it.  My west coast brother, who was born after the chicken era, had not heard about Dad's barbequed chicken until today.  I shared the recipe with him by text and am hoping he will use it to BBQ some chicken while we're there.  I don't think he will need to make his own grill out of half a barrel but the brochure tells just how to do it just in case.

paperless??

 Happy Labor Day everyone.  To celebrate Labor Day (and to avoid having live talent on air) one of my husband's favorite TV stations ran a series of shows today on various kinds of jobs.  The one I found most interesting was all about the production of paper products.  They looked at everything from creating reams of printer paper to rolls of toilet paper.  They made the point that we, as a country, are using much more paper than ever before.  I know they're right and it made me laugh because I saw first hand that increase in paper usage when I was working in real estate, first as a mortgage loan officer, then as a Realtor.  Early in my days in real estate, we were all excited when we could access information about houses on a computer instead of relying on the big fat Multiple Listing book that was published regularly.  Of course, when we found several houses listed on the computer, we had to print out the information on each property before we could show them to our prospective buyers.  Then we made multiple copies so everyone involved had the information.  If you were the listing agent, you made many many copies of the information about the house you were selling, to had out at open houses.  But that was the olden days.  Now everyone can access MLS information on their phones or tablets and there isn't nearly as much need for paper.  Until, that is, we come to closing on a transaction.  When I was still selling real estate I observed that every closing involved at least one more document than the one before it.  A friend of mine, who is active in real estate now, assures me that it's still the same.  Just to give you an idea of the amount of paper involved, a closing involving a conventional mortgage will require a stack of legal size paper one inch thick.  For an FHA loan figure an inch and a half stack of papers, and for a VA loan, two inches.  So rest easy, all you paper producers.  If the real estate industry is any indication, your product will be needed for years to come. 

a small pet

 Today, according to my west coast brother, is "Pet Rock Day."  If that doesn't mean anything to you, you are obviously too young to remember, but, take my word for it, they were a sensation.  It all started when they were first released in time for the holiday season in 1975.  People bought them as gag gifts and stocking stuffers. They were packaged in nests inside special little boxes with air holes.   I know that my family owned at least one.  Not sure who bought it for whom but I'm sure it was as a gag gift.  It was a short lived but very popular craze.  You could even get a book of suggested names for your pebble pet.  I'm not sure what became of our pet rock, although my son, who has a degree in geology, started collecting rocks at a very young age so it may have gotten merged into his collection, minus the box.  One really good thing about pet rocks was that they were much less expensive than the next big craze, Cabbage Patch Dolls, that started in the early 1980s.  Those babies were cute, very popular, expensive and every little girl (including my daughter) wanted one.  A friend of mine worked for JC Penney's during that time and he said it was the worst time in sales of his entire life.  He went on to become a top real estate agent, which he claimed was much easier.  Lucky for me, my best friend (who only had sons) had a brother living in Germany who was able to send her several Cabbage Patch Dolls which she provided to her friends at cost.  Much easier that battling the lines at toy stores, and my daughter didn't mind at all that her little 'Elsa' had German adoption papers.