After B's Colorado graduation, I flew straight to Chicago in order to
get to grandma and grandpa's house. This was a whirlwind visit- 3 nights
in 3 different cities and lots of driving (through 3 different states).
There's never enough time to see everyone, but I got lots of hugs from
family.
It started with breakfast in Chicago, then braving the city traffic (and driving on the right side of the road) to get to Iowa in time for lunch with grandma and grandpa.
We had a great afternoon in Iowa, with shopping and art and great food. It was really cool to see some of grandma's art displayed at the public library. I'm so proud to be the granddaughter of a famous artist- I had to grab a photo with her and one of her pieces.
The next day we drove into Wisconsin for the Amish Flower Auction. I didn't quite know what to expect, but knew it would be fun. We pulled into the parking lot next to a horse drawn carriage full of flowers. I clearly hadn't done enough thinking ahead, as I was very surprised to see the horse. We had arrived a bit early, so the men were still setting up- moving the flowers around the hall and taking them off the trailers pulled by the horses. There were a few kids running around in their traditional Amish dress. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take any photos and I'm not great with words, so you'll have to use your imagination to get an idea of what it was like.
When grandpa first told me about this, I had imagined that we would be sitting in an auditorium and they would parade the flowers up on stage for us to bid on. What actually happened probably makes much more sense. The flowers filled the hall, and we went around looking at them before the auctions started in order to pick out our favorites. You have to choose carefully, as some come in groups of 12, but some are sold in groups of 48 or more! Grandma didn't want 48 pots of flowers, so we narrowed our choices down to groups of 24 or less (she actually just needed 12, but that seemed hard to find). The auctioneer started outside (there were so many flowers they overflowed the hall) and was true to auction style- fast and hard to understand. I struggled to keep up, especially with the maths. He gave prices per pot most times, so you had to figure out what you were willing to pay per pot/flower. Going up $0.50 a pot didn't seem like much, but when you're buying 48 of them it drastically increases your total cost.
We had picked out two sets of 24 hanging pots that all of us liked and were hoping we would win the auction on one of them. They auctioned off our least favorite of the two first, and when the price got too high grandpa stopped bidding, so we lost those. It didn't take long for them to get to the second set of hanging pots (and our favorite). Luckily, this lot went for less than the others and we won the auction! It was fun to watch grandpa bid and to just take in the atmosphere. I'm so glad we won the auction. The next challenge was finding space for all the flowers. We sent some home with grandma's friend, but managed to fit the rest in the car. Grandma and I had to carry some in our laps, but it was worth it!
That evening it was back to Chicago to say a quick hello to P's parents. I was really looking forward to seeing them and getting some hugs. I was only there for less than 24-hours, so not much time for any adventures, but we had a great time catching up and looking at photos, and of course K's delicious baking and cooking. Yum!
Thank you all for having me- in Iowa, Illinois, Colorado and California. I am blessed to have so many places to call home.
Unfortunately, the manned underwater post office had been swept away by the March 13, 2015 cyclone. Luckily, the actually post office box still remained and is supposedly checked daily. Mom, let me know if you ever get your postcard- I actually wrote it underwater! How cool is that?
