Chris and I have a tradition on Mother’s Day.  The boys used to be a part of it although Aaron says he has no memory of this being our tradition so I guess it wasn’t a very good one!!!  Church followed by a picnic which usually involved a drive through at Kentucky Fried Chicken.  Maybe not that healthy but it was what I always wanted to do. By Mother’s Day you could usually count on the weather being fairly decent in whatever state we were in so it was a win win.   Add to it the gift of flowers to adorn the outside of our dwelling place and I was always a happy Mama!

This year we decided to do the usual—packed the picnic with some help from HyVee and headed to Clear Lake where we dined in style by the lake and didn’t have to fight the crowds. We saw maybe 5 people the entire time we were there and since it was not as windy as it was last year when we did it we could actually eat outside and not be fighting sand and wind in our food and eyes.  From there we went to the Central Gardens of North Iowa to view the flowers that were blooming.  We try to go at different times of the year because there is always something different to look at !  We were not disappointed.

From there we went where  every Mother wants to go on Mother’s Day—The Crash Site of Buddy Holly.  I had wanted to go there for ages —just never had done it.  It may seem kind of morbid but it was one of those things I had on my Iowa bucket list.  And it was the perfect day because it was beautiful, warm, sunny, breezy and the corn was just planted so an easy hike through the field to the exact spot.   Huge eyeglasses mark the spot on the road and since it is on private property a big thanks to the owner for giving up a couple of rows of valuable planting to allow visitors easier access to walk along the fence row 1/2 mile to the site.   People leave all kinds of memorials at the site and it was interesting to see some of them which included library cards, a microphone, flip flops and even a valid driver’s license.  I dug down in the treasure box and found a check……could not read who it was made out to or for how much but I found it a little odd that someone would leave things with so much personal information on them for random people to find.   But anyway—fun trip and below is a slide show from the day.

Just a thought–if you visited a memorial site like this what would you be tempted to leave behind???  We only left footprints..