Day 2: June 20, 2017 The Conference Begins Comment via blog

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When I searched online for dinner candidates last night, a minor dilemma developed. Two places looked particularly interesting. An easy solution would be to eat dinner at one and breakfast at the other. As you know, I opted for dinner at Hamburger Inn #2 (which claims to serve "the best breakfast in town") and taking my chances on breakfast at the Bluebird Diner. If this is the second best breakfast in town, that other place might just be too good for me to handle. I sat at the counter and it occurred to me to take a picture of my meal as the cook handed it out. My meal really is in the second photo but is barely visible beyond the cluster of waitresses. The place was pretty busy and the third photo shows why. That's a fabulous omelet with house made sausage and house baked sourdough bread. Like the meal itself, my waitress is hardly visible as she retrieves it in that second picture so I've included another showing her long, heavy, and colorful braid.

Once again, Roadside America saved me from the boredom of the interstate. L.J. Maasdam's Wheel Art is just a few miles off of I-80. Read about it here.

Just past Des Moines Garmin saved me from the interstate by routing me a bit to the north on IA-141 to US-59. Here Iowa's rolling hills were quite evident and I saw, or at least noticed, terraced fields for the first time.

In Denison, I headed directly to the conference site where I spent some time chatting with old friends in the book room.

I had passed the Park Motel when I entered Denison and I now returned to check in. When I stayed here in 2014, I was in a small room in the original section and I believe that's what I booked for this visit. However, due to some problems with a couple of the older rooms, I us placed in this newer (but not new) double room. I must really like that view of Cronk's, where we'll have a couple of events later in the week, because I posted an almost identical picture in 2014.

I relaxed for just a bit then returned to the conference site for sone music from Cece Otto and Wayne Shannon, dinner, and a few speeches. The pictured speakers are Denison Mayor Daniel Leinen, Chamber of Commerce Director Evan Blakeley, antique car owner Larry Beaty, and retired journalist Chuck Offenburger.

Calling Larry Beaty's 1916 Buick an antique car certainly doesn't do it justice. It has been in the family since new, has well over 100,000 miles, and is almost completely original. It racked up many of those miles on the Lincoln Highway and has been to California four times. Larry has lots of photos and other documentation.

Quite a few conference attendees are staying at the Park and a little impromptu discussion naturally materialized outside the rooms. It might still be going on if thoughts of getting up for the 7:30 AM group photo hadn't intervened.

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