I took a number of books with me on this trip, but never get a chance to read. However, the one I finally finished last night (Call No Man Father) was a great disappointment. I usually like Walter Keinzle about Father Koessler, but this one annoyed me on many levels. I thought at first it was because I was only reading a page or two at a time and was having trouble keeping track of the plot, but when, yesterday, a whole subplot disappeared and was summarized in the next chapter, it was the last straw. I thought I'd missed something and went back through the pages... no, he must have realized he was nearing the end of the book and too much was going on.

In the chapter before, the teenage hooligans are plotting mischief, and the Cardinal disappears. Suddenly, the teenagers have been arrested for the murder of the Cardinal, and they will rot in jail forever. We'd seen all the previous murders and we'd been following the detective work: it's like he lost a chapter. That was the final straw but there were other things that annoyed me: Keinzle is a real bug on birth control and pontificated on that for chapters and chapters. There were far too many subplots going on (apparently, since he had to finish one.) The characters were almost universally nasty: besides the teens there was a journalist who has grown into a real PITA. And I didn't believe the ending. Other than that, it was OK, I suppose. If this were the only Keinzle book I'd ever read, there would never be another one, but I really like most of them.

We started out the day arguing, what a surprise. In my notes, in capital letters, HE NEVER EVER LISTENS!!! There were so many incidents on this trip: I believe this one was as we approached the water tower with the woodpecker: I said I didn't have to go up this time. (Even though I lost the pictures from last time.) So he spent a lot of time trying to organize it so we could go up. (This after he insisted that we were nowhere near the water tower, despite the fact we were going after a cache named "Son of Big Red" right where the tower was.)

We couldn't find the first cache we looked for. Then we did find the water tower cache. A maintenance worker, who knew where the former one was, was helping us, then she, too, was surprised at the very clever hide. Then we looked for caches along the river drive. I didn't know which way to look, at the view or the houses. Both were stunning. There were lots more finds (9 total) and no-finds (7--blech-- for the day). I think of Peoria as the new Visalia (where our luck has been bleak.)

We had lunch at Old Chicago. This was great. More caching then back to the house. There's a St. Philomena grade school. The church is close to their house: St. Vincent de Paul. (They are something other than Catholic, though.)

The Karma Kid was off on a field trip to Six Flags, so would need picking up. I volunteered to go along with my son to the Tomboy's softball game and to take her to a party in East Peoria. This turned out to be a major hassle, as everyone went everywhere. (Except for the Butterfly, who later wanted to have some people over so Rich drove her to the softball game so she could take the car. I believe how we'd have done it is one to take the Tomboy and one to pick up the Karma Kid. Very disorganized. I was surprised to learn that the Tomboy is only starting softball: I thought she was on the team last year when she broke her neck. This was only her third game or so. She's good enough, though quite emotional this time.

Subway for dinner. The Karma Kid was late home, but arrived before we left so we could say goodbye. They have a nifty picture frame, actually 5 of them, 3 pictures each, which our son has fastened together. Each frame flips out so pictures can be changed easily. I would like something similar for grandchild pictures, 4 columns of 3 pictures each. (Though where would I put them? Hmmm.)