Tuesday August 22, 2006 6:20 am Bloomington, Minnesota Sunrise 6:23 Sunset 8:07 Hours of daylight: 13:44 Day 7 of our trip to Virginia

A. Morning Musings

6:20 am It is + 16 C, with a forecast high of 80 F (+ 27 C).

Today should be relatively easy. We continue south to visit the Vesterheim museum in Decorah, Iowa, but the total distance is only a couple of hundred miles.

B. Plan

Drive from Bloomington, Minnesota to some place south.

C. Actual/Notes

3:10 PM The drive and visit to Vesterheim took less time than expected. We were heading south toward Cedar Rapids by 1:00 PM and are now in a Country Inn just south of the city.

Here are 6 photos taken in the Vesterheim Museum in Decorah. This is a American-Norwegian museum.

Early immigrant cabin	wood carving on cabinet
cabinet	single tree chair
rosemaling	rosemaling on chair

The most noticeable feature of the landscape was the number of large corn fields. We were also able to confirm that the other crop was soybeans.

We are now ahead of our original timetable and will have a close look at the schedule and see what adjustments we should make.

7:50 PM We are back from a fantastic German "family style" dinner at Amana, a collection of 7 villages of the Amana colonies. We are now eager to return to the area tomorrow morning and spend a day wandering among the villages and shops.

Dinner	Desert

While walking near the restaurant, we identified a European Starling and a pair of House Sparrows on a yard fence. Discovering the Amana colonies was not on our original schedule, but Phyllis noticed a description of them while we were driving this morning and it has turned into one of the highlights of the trip so far.

D. Reflection