Out of Our Rut

 As the summer moves along, we decided we needed to change our routine a bit, a vacation of sorts.

Friday we went to the Potawatomi Zoo in South Bend. The weather was beautiful. Everybody and his cousin decided to enjoy the nice day at the zoo. The main parking lot was full. My husband found a spot about two blocks away next to the adjacent park but not near the zoo entrance. He said there were only two other parking places and that people that came after him were parking in front of houses on the streets in the neighborhood next to the zoo. He had dropped me off at the entrance. I have a handicap parking placard now, but all of the designated places were full already. 

The zoo is relatively small. It has been upgraded in recent years.

It is laid out by continent, with South and North America combined. There is no Europe. 

One of the reasons I picked this zoo is because they have electric carts that you can rent.

You can feed the giraffes lettuce for a $3 fee, but they have other feeding options so that they sometimes ignore the people wanting to feed them.

Helen accommodated them. I overheard her name spoken by the zookeeper. I did not feed her, but they allowed folks like me to come closer to take photos. 

The lines were long for the train, feeding the giraffes, and especially for people buying lunch at the Lodge. 

The leopard was awake and alert unlike the lions. We only got a glimpse of the tiger as he chose to enter his "den" shortly after we arrived. 

We spent about 3 hours there (waited about 20 minutes to get food). 

Saturday we drove to nearby Columbia City and had breakfast at Pickles Cafe. The decor is garage sale hodgepodge.

Since Pickles sits right on the courthouse square, we walked around the Farmers' Market a bit. I was not feeling up to much shopping.

I bought a bouquet of flowers put together by 2-year-old twin boys re their father who owned the booth. He showed me video on his phone. They were not giggling nor bickering. They were quite serious about their job with colorful results.

With our lovely weather continuing today, we attended the boat-in worship at Oakwood Resort on Lake Wawasee. Attendance was down compared to past summers. We had to take a round-about route through the farm fields and country because Highway 13 has construction between North Webster and Syracuse. I wonder if that affected the turnout. 

We also did a jigsaw puzzle this weekend. My husband's sister has loads of puzzles and gave us some. 

Now we are heading out to Texas Roadhouse. I especially like their pork chops and tossed salad and rolls. Makes me hungry just thinking about them. It has been a while since we ate there.

Back to our routines next week except also a few medical appointments in Fort Wayne. It is going to warm up more next week, too. Glad we enjoyed the beautiful weather while we could. The freedom of retirement.

Pretty Summer Day

This has been a fairly relaxed happy day. I slipped my shoes off while typing up this post after walking around the neighborhood. The air conditioner is off; we have windows and doors open and ceiling fans turning instead. 

It has been a picturesque day with blue sky and fluffy white clouds.

The flags that were installed around the Grace Village campus for Memorial Day have remained up for Flag Day and I assume for Independence Day.

I decided to walk down the grassy slope after taking the flag picture rather than back around to the paved sidewalk to get to the main campus. I saw these little flowers scattered around; certainly not purposely planted.

We have 3 residents with Covid-19 now. Though the employees were all tested last week, there doesn't seem to be much testing of the residents. The comment made to us was that the state does not mandate it. I certainly don't know all of the details, but if my loved one was living in a facility with residents with Covid-19 I think I would want everybody tested to isolate those that are contagious.

 My Stella d'Oro lilies are just now getting spikes with buds. Lots of  plants already are blooming. I don't know why mine are so slow as they have plenty of sun.

 This tree at the front of the campus looks like something you would see in autumn.

 The neighborhood has lots of pretty landscaping. We could use a bit more rain to green things up though. There is some forecasted over the weekend.

I saw my family doctor yesterday for the deferred check-up from April 2nd. It is time for a colonoscopy according to my schedule. Ugh. The general surgeon's office called today. I will have the consult July 7th. At first the scheduler said she had an appointment on June 30th at 4 p.m. I told her I wasn't in a hurry. She just laughed. I do feel a bit anxious about being in a hospital out-patient facility during a time of pandemic, but things could get worse the way the cases are mounting so I may as well get it over with sooner than later.

Our new CEO starts July 20th. He will work with the current one, though the current one will go to part-time August 31st and phase out much of his involvement until the end of the year. I suspect he will be relieved to see an end in sight for a very stressful winding down of his career.