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And just like that, the Staycation ended. The final event of the Staycation was to visit Gammie and Auntie Dawn one more time before the weather turned more Fall-like.

Here we are eating at the Illinois wayside just across the border. To speed things up, we simply got dressed and ate on the road.

At Gammie's there was some work to do with putting down more of the plastic dividers, and also fixing some of the issues that have cropped up as the ground heaved and sagged over the past few years. I had a helper this time around.

Then getting refreshments from all the tough work.

And some dessert too.

On the way home, we saw this sign from this pizza joint. Sounds like fast food to me!

Also completed my fifth book of the pandemic. This was a fun one. The guy grew up in Wisconsin on a family dairy farm in the 1940's. The era of his farm saw a great revolution as the farm got electricity, tractors, milking machines, and also some unfortunate times, including a barn fire, a massive wind storm and Bang's disease, and all the other massive technological changes that occurred in the 1940's. It is all tied together in the fact that his mother kept the exact expenses of what it took to run the farm. In the end, two of the boys became Ph.D's and the other a barber....none of them took over the farm, which was something that was sad for the author, but a sign of the times to come.

At night, we needed to burn off a little energy, so we walked outside in the 56 degree weather to see what toads were out.

Work starts all over tomorrow. For the Staycation, Mommy's favorite activity was apple picking, his was the beach, mine was the splash pad. My memory that I'll never forget is when the European deer were encroaching upon him, he leaped into my arms screaming, "Daddy, knock them out, knock them out!" I am not sure where that came from, but imagine what would've happened if I took a swing at those deer. They certainly wouldn't have expected it.