And then it all went down hill

In Iowa the high temp for the year and the low temp for the year are always over 100 degrees different. We experience bitter cold, below 0 temps, sometimes for weeks at a time. We have sweltering, humid summers that make your hair impossible to tame. We also have beautiful, sunny 75 degree days. But those are almost never in November, especially not the second week of November. Today was one of those rare, picture perfect days.

We filled enormous travel mugs with tea, packed up the camera and headed to the Des Moines sculpture garden. It was fairly busy with Iowans making sure one of the last nice days before 5 months of winter was enjoyed outside. Here are some pictures I took of the sculptures:

My favorite one is the first one. I like that the spider looks like it might start crushing downtown at any minute.

After spending a couple of hours roaming around the park, we went to the East Village just to wander and see if any shops were open. We went into Found Things, a funky little antique store. They have so much stuff in there that I think you could spend weeks and still not see everything. I bought metal printing press letters to spell our last name, a brass "T" stencil and a couple of old photos.

There was an entire book shelf full of albums of old pictures. They were labeled things like "Hats" (all the photos had people wearing hats in them) and "Automobiles" with photos of cars, people and cars, and everything to do with cars since the beginning of cars. The individual photos were for sale. I've never seen a store go about it quite like that, but I really loved it.

After the East Village we went to the capital complex. The capitol itself is an interesting building (I'm afraid it has lost some of its interest for me since I have meetings there on a regular basis now). I like to stand on the steps and turn my back to the building. That's the more interesting view for me. You can see down Locust street across most of downtown.

I took 2 pictures, then it all went down hill. The camera died. With no camera and the need for a bathroom, we decided to head home. Then it all went down hill so fast I think we fell off the hill all together.

As I was driving to the freeway, we go stopped by a red light. I looked down at the dash and watched the engine temperature gauge go from a normal 150 degrees into the red danger area at 280 degrees. Houston, we have a problem. I didn't panic but I was thinking that the engine was actually on fire. I pulled over before the on-ramp and, upon under the hood inspection, we found the serpentine belt shredded and off track. Yippy. To make a long story short, $75 for the tow truck, we annoyed a friend by having her pick us up (thank you Meredith!), $600+ for the repairs because when the belt shredded, it took out another belt and a pump and we needed two new tires (we already knew that part.) Awesome. Thankfully, the beginning of the day was so fun and put me in such a good mood, that not even a broken down car and pricey bill got me down. Thank you Mother Nature for the beautiful day.

I also made two more totes since we got home. They match and remind me of the "Red Hat" ladies. Both are already sold. I do have enough fabric to make one more to list in my shop, so let me know if you're interested.