The week before last, I drove a couple of hours south of here (Minneapolis) to Albert Lea, a city close to the Minnesota/Iowa border, for two days of school visits. I wanted to share a bit about that, and because I wanted to try a new (well, new to me, anyway) Facebook application called Picnik, y’all are getting the Picniked version of the pix. So forgive the chaotic look overall–I wanted to try different features/effects:>)
| Here’s the view out of my hotel room window on Tuesday, when I arrived. |
| The first day, at Hawthorne Elementary, went wonderfully. The media center had tons of my books on display… |
| and the kids were great (and the teachers, too, as well as Susie and Joyce, the two library clerks)! The day flew by, but the weather forecast was grim for Thursday. Tons of snow predicted. |
| Brenda, the librarian at both elementaries, was fantastic. Well-organized, enthusiastic…even when we had to decide in an early-Thursday phone call to crunch the day of visits into a morning of visits so that we’d be prepared for the school to close early at mid-day, if that happened. |
| Not only did Brenda have to organize a new schedule an hour before school started, she also had to change it 3 minutes before the first group was due because the music teacher needed the 6th graders for a rehearsal. It was a little chaotic and the schedule changed more than once, mid-presentation. But flexibility was our mantra and we had a good time. |
| I presented to each entire school each day in four sessions, so there were some fairly large groups. But the kids were great participators–we partner read poems (with feeling!), made animal sound effects, and wrote group poems. And I got to share Stampede! Poems to Celebrate the Wild Side of School! They were excited to see a book that wasn’t even officially published yet. |
| Each of the kindergarten classes at Sibley Elementary had written class animal acrostics and decorated them. What a treat to have them share their poems aloud! There were several great projects in the hallways at both schools, too. In the midst of this, we got word that school was indeed closing early. I hit the highway about 12:30, in light sleet. Which then turned to snow. I have no pictures of it because I was concentrating on staying alive. |
| I-35 was a ghostly white world, and I couldn’t even see the cars ahead of me. Couldn’ tell where the edges of the highway were. Too dangerous to even pull to the side! Finally, I pulled into a rest stop to de-ice my chunked-up windows. Here’s how I looked after clearing my window. I was soaking wet, covered in snow…and not happy. |
| And it was all for nothing, anyway. |
| After two scary hours, in which I made it about 30 miles, I stopped at a hotel in Northfield (site of a famous Jesse James bank robbery) for the night. The snow was so thick I couldn’t find the entrance to the parking lot! This shot was taken the next morning after everything was plowed. I spent the night with Billy Collins (ok, ok, just with his new book Ballistics) and then had a blissfully uneventful drive home on Friday! |
| And now…just playing with a few Picnik effects on my bizarre/angry/scared picture! |
| Anybody else remember Kai’s Power Goo? I loved that program. |
| Cool! I’m in neon. |
| I love this effect. Beautiful, even if the picture isn’t! |
| Seeing red? Or being seen red, anyway. |