The weather is cold and blustery here in East Lansing Michigan. Dark clouds overhead rolling in from the Northwest remind us that winter is just around the corner. Kathy and I are articulating plans to go "South" in early December for a Route 66 tour as we head to Northern California's Pacific Coast. However, I just received the New Mexico Tourist Information 2008 Vacation Guide plus the not requested but included "Slopes!" 2008-2009 Winter Adventure Guide. Beginning my reading, I now realize that much of what I had planned upon seeing in New Mexico is at significant elevation 9,000 to 12,000 feet, the bottom of the Rocky Mountains. Which means of course, there will be perfect conditions for dry powder snow skiing (300 inches a year) and COLD. The good news is that there are 310 days of sunshine and the roads will generally be clear and dry. Ahhh, not quite what I believe Kathy had in mind when she said "... this time I would like to go South and warmer weather..."  Therefore, the picture of Leah and myself, Down Under at the Whitsundays, in our winter time, Australia's summer, our cold and their warmth.

Rapidly coming up is Halloween and what better way to represent that time than a picture of Humpty Dumpty at the Hunter Valley Gardens, also in Australia's New South Wales. Again, everything in order, neat and tidy. Friday night, I am not sure what we will be doing, maybe going some place as we are, and scaring a few college students.

Included in this blog, at no additional cost, is a picture taken by Justin at the Iowa Lake house and July family retreat of Kathy and her sister Virginia. The weather was hot and humid and we were glad there was air conditioning.

Today was a significant milestone in the changing landscape of American Politics. Of course I am not referring to the fact that Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama.  Rather, that Ms. Kathy, that's right, my wife, your mother, step mother to Leah, RJ and Bec, grandmother to Ellen, Rhythm, Marcus, and Nana, has for the first time in her life, sent a donation to a political candidate and did it over the Internet! Our household has been energized by this election season like at no other time in our history. 

While standing in line Friday night, waiting for the doors to the Breslin Center to open at 9:30 PM for the MSU Women's and Men's start to the 2008-2009 Varsity Basketball season: Midnight Madness, we talked with the couple ahead of us in line about Barack Obama, the campaign, debates, Sarah Palin. The young man was born and raised in Michigan and moved to Tampa Florida to complete his Bachelor's degree (USF) and he brought his New York girlfriend to see the MSU OSU football game on Saturday. They came to Midnight Madness as an entertainment bonus. He spoke of his Michigan relatives and their evolving views of Obama; the college campus enthusiasm for Obama, and the need to press on, don't take anything for granted, and the need to get out the vote, especially young people who have registered to vote.

Kathy is talking about driving people to the polls who need a ride, she just doesn't know where to sign up. I hope she gets a chance to pick and choose whom to pick up, there are KooKs out there as we have all heard and seen.

"When the frost is on the pumpkin and the fodder's in the shock..." and more from James Whitcomb Riley, it surely is Fall, an extra ordinary Fall. Today the temperature is in the 80's, shirt sleeve and short's weather. A glorious day for a walk outside; or as last weekend, a walk in the pumpkin patch, a 50 acre pumpkin patch. You walk and walk, pulling you little red wagon, trying not to notice the "made in china" embedded in its bottom, selecting a perfect, at least to us, pumpkin. Such a prize sits upon our doorstep; upright, face gleaming, and its tall stalk pigtailed and cocked to the side.

A picture out our back lower level door shows the colorful trees mirrored in and two geese silhouetted by our lake. The grass is still a deep emerald green, kept alive and thriving in the moisture of recent rains, the warmth of the daytime and the sunlight that shines regularly upon us.

The witch out our front doorway, spins in the wind, from a distance, appearing as riding upon a broomstick, yet a closer view, shows the stick is really driven through her heart, and she swings on, smile and all.

Of course, Kathy has thought of all this, reflecting the changing seasons and the dynamic state of our lives and environment. 

Jim and Virginia Minninger left this morning for Heston KS, with Virginia saying that it is a beautiful day to travel; and so it is. Tours of the MSU Cyclotron and the Michigan Capital on Friday were followed by a Saturday focused on busy work before watching Michigan State beat Northwester in Evaston, Ill. A good time was had by all.