November 2020

In November Cynthia and I celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary by going to DSM and staying in our nifty mid-century modern hideaway again. And we visited Peace Tree when we got there:

 

A picture-perfect breakfast:

After a brisk walk around Gray's Lake we explored the new tunnel connecting to Waterworks Park:

All those years living in DSM and we never visited the Salisbury House. So we checked that off the list and it was even better than expected. As cool as it was I still think I like Glensheen better. This place is quite the castle, though. It was built for Carl Weeks, a pharmacist who made a killing making his own cosmetics and selling them in his stores, later distributing them nationwide. The Weeks family didn't have much money prior to their unexpected success, so when they achieved overnight wealth they didn't really know what to do with it all and went a tad overboard. They spent uncontrollably until the cosmetic business declined around a decade later and they lost ownership of the home, donating it to Drake University with the agreement that they could remain as tenants. Drake gradually placed more limitations on how they could live there and which parts of the house the family could access until they eventually moved out and lived in a small ranch-style house nearby.

The entryway was designed to impress and although I didn't get a picture of it from the main floor, I did get this shot from up above in the balcony overlooking the room:

The back stairs coming down from the balcony:

They had an enormous garage and a separate building for grounds keepers and a mechanic. They ended up in the center of controversy when one of the sons raced around the neighborhood in one of the cars late one night and killed another driver.

A Thanksgiving with just the four of us:

One of Cynthia's coworkers asked if I could draw a picture of her childhood home. This is my first completed color pencil drawing in over 20 years:

We found this snake on the trail on one of our walks. He/she was very cold and could barely move. I helped the snake find some soft earth to tunnel into:

Every spring and fall I clear out the Conrad's gutters. This year I installed gutter guards so their gutters wouldn't keep clogging:

Time to put up the tree!

I think this squirrel is ready for winter:

Daniels Park. A few months ago on July 4th we celebrated on this very spot pictured here with friends and family. It will be a very long time before Cedar Rapids recovers from the derecho.

After the Derecho

The cleanup after the derecho seemed like it would take years and the piles of tree debris kept growing by the day. Some streets had tree debris piles so large you could hardly see the houses. It also made intersections really dangerous.

Our neighborhood was lucky because we were among the first to have tree debris removed. I think that improved everyone's spirits to see the piles disappearing. All you heard all day every day was the chorus of chainsaws from one end of the street to the other and the rumble of tree debris trucks hauling the piles away.

I had some pictures of tree debris trucks, but I must've deleted them. Instead, here are pics of the growing debris piles along our street:

A completely different skyline stands in stark contrast to the once tree-lined street. We get a lot more sunshine these days:

Then there was the exciting day that Alliant finally removed the old broken utility poles so that Imon could come out and reconnect our internet. We lived off of a hotspot from my phone until then (which actually did a decent job, surprisingly). Aha! I knew I still had a picture somewhere of a tree debris truck:

The Imon guys came along a couple days later. They got out and looked at our dropped line, then started to drive away! I had to run out and yell at them to stop. They said they weren't sure if our line was for Imon or Mediacom. I guess making a phone call or knocking on a door were out of the question. But they got us hooked up again.

Another storm blowing through CR:

Then the tree guys showed up and took down the remaining stuff:

The neighbor's tree took out part of our fence, which worked out OK since it created an opening large enough for the tree guys to get their trucks and equipment into the backyard:

Lily does not care for all the racket outside:

They cut the trunks into 6-foot lengths to make sure the wood could be picked up. since The maximum length the tree debris trucks will pick up is 10 feet, but if the diameter of the wood is too great they can't pick it up. Better to err on the side of caution. 

Grinding out the stumps and the network of roots across the yard:

The only thing scarier than the derecho:

One night Emily and Rose decided to fix up our hair:

Pretty sure you're not supposed to flat iron a beard. Also, it doesn't feel great:

Cynthia and I went on the Tiki Tour through NewBo and Czech Village. That was pretty fun:

Back to school already! It came up fast even though school was delayed by a month due to the derecho. Since the pandemic is still going on they were distance learning, using their Chromebooks to take their classes online.

AUGUST 2020

 This is an all-caps AUGUST, not to be mistaken for your typical run-of-the-mill August. An August that won't soon be forgotten. 

It started with the usual bike rides:

We rode to Center Point and back this morning:

Fires in the backyard with friends. A raging bonfire is what you want on a hot August evening:

Lake Red Rock. We met up with a few of Rose's friends and spent the day there. It was a perfect day:

So then August 10th rolled around... it was a normal day when the storm sirens went off. I was in town since I work from home now and when I heard the sirens I looked out the window and there were some dark clouds off in the distance, but nothing significant. But I wanted the girls to understand the importance of taking shelter when the sirens go off, even if nothing happens, so we went down to the basement. The winds kicked up, the power went out, and the whole world came crashing down above us. The concrete floor shook each time a tree fell outside. Rose thought it sounded like furniture was moving around above us, from all the banging and scraping we heard. And it seemed like it would never stop.

When the power went out, the girls put on their goofy Halloween headbands for light, haha:

After about 45 minutes of roaring winds, endless booms and thuds, we ventured upstairs wondering if there was anything left of the house. Turns out the house weathered it very well, but our trees did not. This is the first thing we saw when we came up from the basement and looked into the backyard:

And the view from the front:

We learned a new word: "derecho." The one that hit CR was one of the top 3 or 4 worst ever recorded. It damaged every building in CR and over 1,100 houses were deemed uninhabitable. Ours was the ONLY house on our street with zero roof damage. Not one shingle came loose. No impact damage to the roof, either. We had one broken window and the aluminum siding was dented. Also, the metal chimney was sheared off, but that was easy to replace.

The backyard was a mess, but we can deal with that. It looked overwhelming, nonetheless:

It looked like the trampoline was destroyed, but apparently it bounced back (bah-dum-bum-pssshhh):

Sorry about your fence, John:

Our shed took no damage. Somehow everything missed it. It looks bad from here, but it was actually unscathed:

Our Weber grill that falls over if you look at it wrong withstood the derecho. Go figure. Note the power line laying on it:

The view looking up the hill from the end of our driveway:

A couple of images from around the neighborhood:

We started cutting up broken trees right away and thankfully we had a lot of help. Family and neighbors helped each other out and we cleaned most of it up in about a week. Here's a comparison of our progress early on:

While the cell towers were down my phone decided to make up stuff:

We lucked out and got a tree service lined up to remove the remaining stuff that was too large for us to get, but then...

Alliant Energy swooped in without notice and cut down most of it for us. Free of charge:

That was unexpected and saved us a lot of trouble. The utility pole that supplies our power is behind our property and our broken trees were blocking our service and everyone else's, so Alliant cut most of the damaged trees down. We hauled the stuff they cut out to the curb:

At the end of the day our yard was looking at lot better. We got our power hooked up again and moved back into our house (we stayed with the Conrad's from the evening of the 10th until the power was restored).

Do cicadas even know/care what happened?

Look at this guy pretending he knows how to use a chainsaw:

Cynthia and I took a break from all the hard work to go on a date night in Waterloo:

Also, we got a new washing machine.