My Mother's Day

Since neither of my children are able to come home, DH asked what I would like to do. I decided since gas was a little cheaper than last year, and we hadn't been anywhere for a long while.....I wanted a road trip. I also wanted to go on Saturday rather than today. We first drove to the Amish area in Jamesport, MO. There is a little fabric store there that I love to visit. I bought these yard cuts of fabric. They have wonderful prices at this shop. I have plans for a stitchery project using some of these. There is also a bulk food store right next to the fabric store, so I bought some things there too. I did not take pictures here out of respect for the Amish people.

We then drove north and west from Jamesport. We were headed for the town of Rock Port, MO to see some of the power generating wind turbines that are being built around the country. I had read that Rockport is getting 100% of it's electric power from wind generation. You can read about it at www.rockportwind.com if you are interested. DH is a mechanical engineer and was excited about this portion of the trip. He has done a lot of reading about the mechanical aspects of the huge turbines. Mechanical aspects are not my cup of tea.....quilting and cooking is my thing.....but I enjoy one on one time in the car with him.....especially when the blackberry won't work because we are in an area with little to no service!! We got our first glimpse of the huge towers as we got near Conception Junction, MO. I stopped so DH could snap a picture.Since we had never been to this area, we had no idea the road would get even closer to these big guys!This picture doesn't really show how large these things are. Even though they are large, there is no noise and if you notice.....those cows don't seem to mind sharing their peaceful pasture! This still wasn't Rock Port....our destination, so we drove on.Soon we began to see a lot more of these on the horizon. Again the road took us much closer to them than we thought it would. These were near Rock Port and there were lots more of them than at the other location.

We stopped at the entrance gate to snap this photo. The gate was open, but there is a sign that says "Authorized Personnel Only" and we aren't authorized! See that black box at the base of the tower. Those appeared to be about 6 ft. tall. I wonder how these huge things will withstand the tornadoes and severe thunderstorms that often hit this area??

This quilter got a crash course in turbines, wind power, electricity, etc. for Mother's Day. While I still don't understand much of what DH said....I'm so glad we had the day together and could enjoy the beautiful scenery of northwestern Missouri! I'm also glad this country is making an effort to get us off dependency on foreign oil and moving toward clean sources for our energy. Hope this project proves VERY successful.