personal history

223/365: lunch @ the veranda, st. james hotel

Last Friday we journeyed down river to visit friends in Davenport, Iowa. Along the river roads, we stopped over in Red Wing for a lovely lunch at the St. James Hotel. It’s where we spent our first Valentine’s Day, where Brad proposed, and where we celebrated one of our early anniversaries. We wanted to share this history with the kids and revisit them ourselves – adding a fresh memory to the many treasured stories that already unfolded in this place.

 

a walk in the woods

We walked through Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden Sunday morning until the rain chased us away. It’s a magical place – the oldest public wildflower garden in the country – with cultivated but naturalistic woodland & prairie gardens. I’ll be back mid-summer to see the prairie flowers in full bloom but on this cool, cloudy morning, I thoroughly enjoyed the quiet simplicity of the woodland flowers shining in the shade.

129/265: trillium