Sight, Unseen

I promise that tonight I will post the rest of the information about the trip. I had planned to last night but as I was leaving work I called a friend that I hadn't talked to in way too long. He and I ended up on a wonderful two and a half hour conversation that ran me right until dinner. I made up a quick veggie wrap and some fruit and then right after I finished eating Jeff offered me the chance to get to the library. I've been trying to go all week so I couldn't pass it up.

So tonight I'll post about Skagway and Glacier Bay and we'll be finished with Alaska. I have a ton of amazing pictures from Glacier Bay. It will be tough to choose between them. But I also have other plans tonight as well. Over the weekend Jeff and I went out driving. We spent a lot of time on gravel roads just getting lost and seeing what we could see. We stopped in Winterset (Birthplace of John Wayne) and shopped their square. I found my favorite bakery of all time, The Madison County Dessert Factory, and one of the coolest shops I've ever been in, Le Collage. I bought a wonderful steampunk key necklace. I'll post pictures of that tonight. But mostly we just drove. And as we drove we looked for birds and wildlife.

Madison County Desssert Factory (Photo from KCCI)

Jeff is amazing at spotting hawks and other wildlife and I tend to be a little slow to finally see what he's pointing at (There goes that career as a wildlife photographer). But this weekend he put me to the test. Not only did I have problems seeing the birds but I had issues seeing the street signs as well. I couldn't read license plates that he could see easily. I couldn't make out billboards from a distance. And we both decided it was time to get my eyes checked.

I haven't had new glasses in almost a decade so I would not be surprised if my eyes have changed substantially. I bought these glasses shortly before our trip to Disneyworld in 2004. Six years is a long time in the world of glasses. I've noticed that I've had to squint far more to read things well. I've lost most of the leaves off the trees into just a mass of moving green. So tonight I'm heading in to have my eyes checked and to possibly get a new pair of glasses. I'm excited. Glasses are a treat, a once in a blue moon type of purchase. And I'm always shocked by how well I see after a new pair.

I still remember the first pair I put on. I had worn glasses for protection since I was six months (stupid bad eye) but right before my first year of high school, my parents realized that I needed glasses for sight. I found glasses I liked and I can still vividly remember the first time I walked out the door with them. I was shocked to see that the trees had individual leaves. That houses had individual shingles. I simply couldn't see them before. So here's hoping that is the case tonight. I'm excited about the new glasses but I'm really excited to be able to see clearly again. I'll let you know.