Regular people on Halloween day

Bill and I ran around doing errands today. We had breakfast at McDonalds, where "Pebbles" took our order, a "Dust Bunny" put our food on the tray, and a "Goth Fairy" made sure we had the hashed browns. All the while "Jason" was taking out the trash. Then we went to Walmart, where a "lady clown" checked us out at the register, after a "cowgirl" and a very old "cheerleader" helped us at the customer service desk. A "Mime" was bringing in the carts. Then we went to the coin shop in Effingham, where I bought some different types of tokens, one was from the subway in NY, but was very old, one was from Canada, One was a token with Jewish writing (Hebrew?)the others were American tokens for unknown things, but were interesting. We had an early dinner at TGI Fridays. I had grilled salmon w/pecan honey sauce, and rice pilaf, with broccoli on the side. It was yummy! I will have to try the salmon at home.... Then I went to the library and got a couple of books to read. We are skipping the trick or treating tonight, since Bill's mom will be gone and we don't get anyone here, since we are waaaay back from the road....:-(

Anyway, it was a beautiful warm day and we enjoyed it.

Listenin' to the Blues man at the winery

Today I went to Orchard View Winery at Alma, IL to hear my friend, Lex Shuler (known as "Coon Bone" among the blues men). He and his brother, Jack and Dave White of Kinmundy entertained us with some easy blues tunes, while they cut up a bit and we all had a great time. It was a very windy day, but that didn't stop the crowd from showing up for some wine and great music...that strawberry wine was divine.

In Search of Chewbacca at Poplar Place on Halloween

We went to see the annual Halloween parade at Centralia, IL on Oct. 25th. It got pretty chilly during the two hour parade, and the wind started blowing, but it was a really great parade, as always. Then we headed to our favorite bar, Poplar Place. Poplar Place always has a Halloween party after the parade. However, this year, they changed the costume contest, etc, until next Friday, the 31st., which is actually Halloween...so not as many people were dressed up in costumes as usual, but there were enough to make it interesting.

In Search of Chewbacca.....

While we were crossing the street to Poplar Place, I could see someone was dressed like Chewbacca, but couldn't get close enough to get a good look at the costume. So, we went downstairs to the large bar area, where the dance floor is huge and the band was already playing. Soon some friends spotted us and we joined them for the rest of the evening. The place was packed. Every now and then I would get a glimpse of Chewbacca, take off with my camera, but when I got through the crowd, he had vanished. This happened over and over again. I never got a picture of him, but I never gave up. It got to be pretty funny after a while. I DID come face to face with him as I was squishing through to get to the bathroom, but of course, I didn't have my camera with me then. I don't know how such a tall person could disappear like that...I even started asking random strangers, "Where is Chewbacca?", they would point this way and that way....I think he must have just taken off with Hon Solo....:-)
The bathroom was another issue....it was not a good idea to wear a tail....but that's another tale....

Anyway, as I mentioned,we ran into our friends, Mark, Patty and Robert, and also a friend from our last job, Dwight. It was great to see them all and we had lots of laughs. In fact, we mostly just visited and laughed, and danced, oh and had a few beers. It was a fun evening, as always. Ah, but there's still a whole week to go before the 31st. :-)

The evening flew by, I could hardly believe it when I looked at the clock and it was 1:00 a.m. Halloween night is always too short...

A Halloween "Treat"

Hayride and weiner roast at Paul's house

We arrived in LaClede, IL for the Birthday Party and weiner roast about 6:00. They sure know how to build a fire. An entire tree trunk was burning. We roasted weiners, marshmallows and enjoyed the fire. It was a nice cool autumn evening.
And then it was NIGHT!
When it got completely dark we all jumped on the haywagon and went for a wild ride through the woods, and up hills and over bridges. It was a beautiful starry night. The people on the hay wagon with us were a riot. We decided we should ride into Altamont and go to the McDonald's drive through and tell them we have 20 seperate orders, and then just order coffee.....of course, we didnt' do that, because we would have to ride down a main road, which actually wouldn't be a problem, since Altamont is a very small town, but we didn't know if the cops might coming driving after us.....so instead we listened to the many adventures Paul's wife and family have had through the years. We laughed so much our stomach hurt. It's a good thing Bill was holding onto me, because he hit a huge hole and my butt went flying off of the bale of straw....he's my hero....:-) We returned to the warm fire.



Ashley used to work for us at the ice cream shoppe, she was there too with her little girl, Jillian, and her husband, Jason. It was so good to see her again, I have known her since she was a little girl, funny how time flies. Anyway, it was a fun evening out in the cool October night and we enjoyed meeting some new friends and seeing some old ones too.

A day at the pumpkin patch

We went once again to Relleke Pumpkinfest in Pontoon Beach, IL. We ran into some old friends and enjoyed the day so much, as always. It was good to be back where we spent so many hours with our concession trailer, Wild Bill's Concessions. It's a place that holds many happy memories for us and when the weather starts to cool, and Fall is in the air, we get a longing to head to the pumpkin patch.

We stopped at a farmer's market and bought some apples, gourds, garlic and roasted peanuts. Then we stopped at Carlyle Lake and had some of the apples, and some pumpkin doughnuts we bought at the pumpkinfest. The lake was beautiful, the trees are starting to turn and even though there were a few sailboats, and a family was walking along the beach. It kind of had a feeling of lonliness, as winter will be here soon and the sun worshipers will have to wait until summer to swim in the warm waters and feed the gulls

A halloween greeting...

So, I just wanted to make a little Halloween greeting....after a few tries I came up with the first one, but then I thought I would be creative and record a few more....I never knew how much I sounded like Elvira...this is no hamming it up or anything....this is the way I express myself....somebody shoot me!.......:-)

So, have a laugh at my expense, I can take it...

The Phillips Clan goes on vacation

To see photos full screen hit that HD button....

Now Showing: "The Monster That Couldn't Read"...

Mom and I went to visit Shelley and Garret and the second part of our reason for going to Decatur was to also travel on up to Champaign, IL where my friend, John Everson, horror author, was doing a book signing at the Illini Union Bookstore on campus.

The day started out fine. We decide what we would have for supper, went to the store and bought all of the stuff. Then we went to Steak N Shake for some lunch. Garret fell asleep in the car, so we just got our food at the drive up and headed for Champaign. Once we got there, we had plenty of time before the book signing, so we stopped at a Burger King and got some food for Garret. He was too busy playing with some other kids that were there to eat, but we enjoyed watching them.

So far so good.

We asked a lady at Burger King where the Illini bookstore was and she gave us directions. We found it with no problem and got a good parking spot too, even though it was quite a walk for mom. We got to the store and found out it was the wrong one. We had to walk two more blocks and found the bookstore we were looking for. John Everson was in the 'Author's corner'. Garret was enjoying pulling all of the books off of the shelves, and we were putting them back as quickly as we could. He wanted to run because it was a big place, but we had to hang onto him....he was not happy! I guess he was not into the books for reading purposes that day........ Finally it was time for the reading by John of the first two chapters of his book "Covenant". Mom came in and sat by me and and Shelley sat in the back next to John's wife and their son, Shawn. Shawn was about the same age as Garret. In the end they played together some. However, Shelley had to leave and take Garret for a walk because he was being a little monster, throwing himself down on the floor and screaming, because he could not run around like a crazy little person. Finally, she had enough and plopped him into my lap. John was done reading by now and was taking questions. Garret smiled and waved at John who said he was cute and waved back at him....Finally I was able to have John sign a copy of his book for me, and we had our picture taken together. I had talked to him for a short time before the reading began, and he was very nice and a really great guy. Afterward he asked if we were going out to dinner, I would have loved to sat and talked to him for a while, but we had to head back to Shelley's. Cary was expecting us, he had been gone on a business trip for a couple of days...well, actually, he forgot we were going anywhere and called his mom before we got back and asked her "Where is my wife?"....:-) Anyway, back to the book store. There were some journalism students there doing a project for their class. Three of them interviewed me, since I was the only one there who had read any of John's books. The whole time I am manhandling Garret. He was insane. I don't know how many time he threw a hissy fit on the floor before we got out of there. Shelley went and got the car and picked us up in front of the bookstore. Even though Garret was being a little hellion, we had to laugh when we got in the car. He wanted out of his car seat, I told him he was not getting out until he was 25! Garret may be a monster for Halloween, a lovable monster, but a monster...lol.....We had lots of laughs despite everything, and got lost in Champaign trying to find our way out. We took the tour, so to speak. Finally, we got home, we all cooked dinner and made tarimasu for dessert. Marsha and Christine joined us. That polish sausage, kraut and fried taters was so yummy, but the tarimasu was wonderful. We all went to bed at 9:30.

Above are a couple of pictures of John reading from his book "Covenant" and one of us together with him holding my autographed book.

Alien Potatoe Peeler

I just thought this was an interesting concept in the computer generated art genre. It's my blog,so I can do what I want to....ha ha...