It is 1:50 a.m.!! So, I guess it's really Saturday morning, but as far as I'm concerned it's still Friday night because I haven't gone to bed yet. So when I write about "today," I am referring to Friday. Why am I up at 1:50 a.m.? you may ask. Two words: Tilford Dudley. The big exhibit opening is this Sunday, and since the exhibit team (which will also include me) has to install the exhibit tomorrow, they wanted to get all of the panels assembled tonight. We started at 7:30 p.m. and left the room at 12:45 a.m. Dr. Reid came and stuck it out with us, and she brought pizza! That was super nice of her. There were several injuries sustained throughout the course of the evening. Aly burned her hand on the iron they were using to press the pictures down, and Dr. Reid got clobbered by a large box that she and I were carrying out to her car. One moment we were both holding it, and the next moment only I was holding it--and as her side of it went down, it sliced her across the cheek pretty good. I hope she'll be okay! We have literally shed blood, sweat, and tears over the Dudley exhibit!
But, to the fun part of the day. Today I went up to Monticello for the Piatt County Barn Tour--it was the perfect fall day! The sun was shining, the air was crisp, and I had a great time out driving through the corn fields. At one point I was driving along, and my car was making this weird noise. I thought maybe it was going to fall apart, but when I got out at the next stop, I realized that there was a corn stalk lodged up under the front bumper! Very fitting. I was relieved that my car wasn't really falling apart--it had just been dragging the corn stalk along the road. Up top you'll see some pictures from the day's activities: first you'll see me holding up the best cup of apple cider I've ever had. One of the historic barn owners had a produce stand set up for the barn tour tourists, and he had some fresh apple cider that was made of pure, fresh apple juice. It was divine! Next, you will see one of the historic barns. This barn is currently owned by the University of Illinois. Unlike the Arthur Cheese Festival back in September, which didn't really have any cheese, the Historic Barn Tour today did have plenty of cool barns. Next you'll see one of the old cemeteries from the tour route--along with the beautiful fall colors. Then, we get to my favorite stop of the day: Allerton Park. Allerton Park is owned by the University of Illinois, and it consists of a few hundred acres of formal gardens, statues, and a gigantic mansion. There was this guy by the name of Allerton who was a really wealthy Chicago businessman back in the 1930's, and he built the estate and had the gardens constructed. Before he died he donated it all to the U of I to be maintained for public use. It was soooooo pretty there! Last year the Illinois Tourism Bureau had a contest to determine the Seven Wonders of Illinois. I'm still bitter that Nauvoo wasn't chosen as the "Western Illinois Wonder!" And when I heard last year that Allerton Park, not Cozy Dog Drive In (where the corn dog was invented) had been chosen as the "Central Illinois Wonder," I was quite disappointed. I didn't think that Allerton Park sounded like a very cool place from its description, but I was indeed wrong--it's definitely "Seven Wonder" status. As you can see from the picture, the Allerton House is HUGE, and it has this pretty lake and all of these pretty trees. The picture of me with a strange, green creature is from one of the gardens surrounding the Allerton House. Mr. Allerton liked weird Oriental sculptures of strange animals, so they're all over the place. :-) I loved walking around through the gardens with all of the fall leaves around. The barn tour covered about 25 miles and consisted of 36 stops. I didn't stop at every place--that would have taken waaaay too long, but it was fun to see what I did. I'm glad I had a nice, fun, relaxing day to myself before having to come back to the stressful world of Tilford Dudley! Well, it's now 2:12 a.m., so I'd better be off to bed. I'm sure I'm going to dream about T-Dud tonight.
No comments:
Post a Comment