Bloomington, IL - 7/9 - 7/11/2016

We have spent three days in Bloomington, IL, visiting Pat's brother Tim, his wife Barbara and son Tony.  It was a great and relaxing visit as we spent a lot of time socializing.  We did go for several walks on trails and in some of the neighboring parks.
.
Our first walk was along the Constitution Trail.  This is a rails-to-trails trail that runs east - west thru Bloomington.  We walked on a short section that passed thru Audubon Garden.  Here is a photo of a section of the trail leading to the garden.

As you  can see it is a great trail for either hiking or biking.  It extends across a lot of Bloomington and passes just a couple of blocks from Tim's house so he is able to bike it very easily.  We just walked a small section leading to the garden.  Here is a photo of one of the day lilies blooming.

Within the garden there are several sister city gardens that have been set up by some of the cities that Bloomington is affiliated with in the sister city program.  The next two photos show the Japanese garden. The first one shows Pat, Tim and Barbara in a Japanese tea house.

Here is another section of the garden with the tea house in the background.

Another group of day lilies.  We saw a lot of varieties.

We also visited the Ewing Cultural Center.  This is the former estate of Hazel Buck and Davis Ewing.  It was built between 1927 and 1929 for the sum of $178,000 and Hazel lived in the house until her death in 1969.  At her death she bequeathed the estate to the Illinois State University Foundation with the proviso that it be turned into a center for promoting intercultural understanding.  Here is a photo of the manor house.

Davis Ewing made his fortune in concrete.  In the early 20th century, farmers were going away from wood as a construction material and Ewing who had started out making concrete sidewalks got into the business of making concrete block which must have been very profitable.  He also used to make concrete fence posts and you can still see examples of them on the estate.  The manor house is surrounded with gardens and here is an example.

Pat, Tim and Barbara admiring the flowers.

Also on the grounds is the theater of the Illinois Shakespeare Festival.  This is a photo of the stheater stage.

Here is the rear of the manor house.  We paid a lot more then $178,000 for our house and it is nowhere near as nice.

We also went for walks in several other parks including Clearwater Park which is only a block from their house and McGraw Park which is about six blocks away.  Here is the walking path through the park.

And some of the day lilies along the path.

There were a number of small gardens and here is an example.

For dinner on our last day, we decided to drive over to Gibson City which is about a half hour drive east of Bloomington, and eat at a German Restaurant, the Bayern Stube (Bavarian Room).  Had an outstanding dinner.

Tomorrow we leave Bloomington and drive to Forest City, Iowa, where we will visit the Winnebago factory and join a group of Winnebago owners for a few days.