An Impromptu Visit from Molly!

Molly found out on short notice that she was to go to a convention in Chicago. She didn't seem too excited about it so I told her we would come see her.  It is about a 3 hour drive from Davenport to Chicago.   We planned to go to Chicago Wednesday after I got off work, hang out with her that evening and then take her to the airport the next day, Thursday.  The company she works for asked if she didn't want to stay another day to enjoy Chicago and when she told me that, I told her she should come home with us and fly back out of Moline.  The Moline airport is a tiny airport and is fifteen minutes away from our house. Delta flies there.  She found the ticket home from Moline was cheaper than flying from Chicago.  So it was a plan.  We would go Wednesday and bring her back to Davenport on Thursday, she would fly back home on Sunday.

We met her at the motel and then searched for a place to eat.  We decided on the Fox and Turtle, at the country club near the motel.  We had a great time and the food was excellent.

    

      

The next morning we had to take Molly's rental car back to the O'Hare airport.  The traffic reminded me of the traffic down south which I do not miss that at all.  I am so used to being somewhere within minutes and not dealing with stop and go traffic.

After the trip home, we stopped at one of Molly's favorite restaurants in Moline, Illinois named Lemongrass.  We love the coconut tofu soup!

I had to work on Friday so Mike and Molly headed to the farm to visit Mike's parents, the girls grandparents.  This is Shela the dog, of course not the grandparents.

Saturday morning, while making pancakes, I remembered I had thought the night before that we should go to the Maquoketa  Caves and brought the idea up to Mike and Molly.  It was a yes.  I had been there when I was a kid but didn't remember much.  The caves had been closed for awhile because of the White Nose fungus killing the bats.  The caves recently reopened.  It would be a great day trip.  Who would have thought there was a park near here that has over 10 caves, the most in one park in America, I believe I read somewhere.

It was busy at the park because it was Memorial Weekend, but we still had a great time.  We ended up very muddy because of all of the rain we have been getting.  The park person told us to use our judgement when going through the caves.  We saw people jumping over water just to land in mud on the other side and slip and fall flat on their butts.  We were very careful.  We also decided if we couldn't stand in the cave, we wouldn't go in.  There were many holes that people were climbing through and you would see just their feet as they crawled in.  You won't catch me ever doing that.


I am just going to place all the pictures here without explanation.  We took so many and these are just half of them.  What a beautiful place!

We were exhausted after hiking these stairs and caves all day but decided we should go to a Bandits baseball game that night.  They haven't been able to play on their home field because of the flooding and this was their second game on the field.  They weren't even able to get the ferris wheel ready!

We usually buy not very expensive bleacher seats but Mike wanted to try sitting behind home plate, as close as we could.  We had excellent seats but soon found out foul balls were still able to fly over that net.

Most of the foul balls hit the press box behind us and then bounce back into the crowd.  Some people had their ball mitts and one guy caught two with his bare hand.  After the second one, he said he had the best seat ever!

You can see the press box in this photo with Mike.

Close to the end of the game another foul ball was hit.  I always like to watch where they go in case it ever gets close and would have to take action.

This one hit the press box and then is slow motion, I hear the crowd yelling and I watch as the ball flies into the air right over our heads.  It was getting closer and closer, remember in slow motion, and it falls slowly in front of my face and then hits my leg.  I am including the following photo so you can see my legs.  It hit my left one.

Good thing it didn't fall into Molly's craft beer!

I realized Mike and Molly had leaned over and covered their heads. They didn't know what had happened.  Molly asked me if I was hit and I explained yes, my leg.  Everyone around became concerned but I stood up to show everyone I was okay.  I just couldn't believe it.  After everything calmed down I asked what happened to the ball and nobody knew!  If I would have just held out my hand, I would have caught it.  Molly said I would have been famous.

Here is my bruise.

JOKING !!!!!

When I told my colleagues at work, they said I should use a photo of one of their daughter's legs after she was hit by a softball.

Here is my unimpressive bruise.  I am thankful it wasn't worse.

When we were leaving the ballgame, I took a photo of the flood walls. Not the wood ones but the metal wall in the background. It felt like we were being hoarded into (or out of ) a prison.

Sunday we just hung out around the house until it was time to take Molly to the airport.  As always, a very sad time, especially when we had a very good time together.