It’s the first week of November. It seems like now all the holidays, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas all run together.  Pumpkins and ghosts and witches and Christmas trees and Santa Claus, oh and a turkey here and there, all rolled up together. HalloThanksMas.

On my way to choir last night,  one street had a house that was still elaborately decorated for Halloween and just a block over, another house already had its Christmas lights on.

I don’t do Halloween. We never had many trick-or-treaters on our street, so after my children stopped going out, I stopped handing out candy and just enjoyed going out with my daughter and grandchildren. The Great Hunter didn’t do Halloween at all so while I would be out, he would be hiding out in his man cave.

The Great Hunter and I got a chance last Sunday to make our favorite trip on the river ferries to Grafton, Illinois.
There is just something about that ride that winds through the countryside in Calhoun County that just makes me wish I had lived in a place like this and in another time when things were gentler.

If I were to write a story of what my perfect life would have been, I would have been raised in a place like this by loving, God-fearing parents. (That part is true of my real life; it just ended much too soon.) In my fantasy life, I would have met and married a hard-working, considerate man who would have loved me our entire lives. We would have worked hard together toward a common goal and we could have raised our children and enjoyed our grandchildren together and grown old together.  My real life has been good and I am blessed but I still have fantasies. I wanted to be Olivia and John, the Waltons.

Originally, I wanted to take the motorcycle, but we decided it would be chillier than I would have liked. We drove the back country roads like we always do and ended up having lunch at the Loading Dock.

It was a beautiful sunny day, a little cooler than I would have wanted it, but for the first week of November, it was great.