William’s trombone broke last week at the Honor Jazz Band Festival, and even though the electrical tape worked that night – it needed to get fixed. He bought it from a music shop in Decorah, and my goal today was to try to get it fixed. I had quite a few other errands to run, so I had a plan and a list. When I had quite a few of my ‘to do’ list things checked off, I was feeling pretty good about how everything was going. When I brought in his trombone to get resoldered, I was thinking that I was going to either get it fixed right away or I’d have to come back later this week. But when the person who was repairing it said that he could have it done in 4 hours, I thought I sure could find something to do for a couple of hours and that way I wouldn’t have to come back to town again. Well after I stopped in at my sisters work, dropped a bag off at my friends, had the oil changed in the car, got groceries, had dinner, and then checked out two furniture stores in town, I still had about an hour to kill. I didn’t really need any new clothes, so I decided that I’d check out a park that I used to go to when I lived in Decorah. The park is called Phelps Park and is on 56 acres. I had about an hour, so I went on a small hike through the trails. I usually have a camera in the car and was glad that today was no exception. Even though it was January, the weather was so nice out and you could smell the leaves on the paths. It really felt like it was mid September and not almost mid January out. I was feeling pretty good until I started to look around and was thinking about the scary movie ‘Blair Witch’ and then something moved in the trees. I thought .. OH NO! What is that? But it only turned out to be a squirrel. OK not really a terror animal, but to my defense it was a really loud squirrel. I tried to keep my imagination under control for the rest of the hike and really enjoyed the time I was at the park. Since I had a Beef Mushroom and Barley stew in the crock pot for supper before I left this morning, I didn’t have to hurry back home and that made my waiting for the trombone repair kind of a pleasant one. Below are pictures taken at the park.
Part of the trail
Overlooking the Upper Iowa River
One of the bridges at the park
The overlook at the end