This is how Rock Falls

How is your weekend going?

Well, I hope.  Let me tell you about mine...

I got off shift Friday morning, grabbed Leslie and headed out to the greater Rock Falls area.

The Tour has been out in town for the last two years.  But, logistics being what they are, won't be in the Midwest this year.  I'd be willing to bet (figuratively, not literally) a paycheck (cause that's out of my control) we'll be back out in this part of the country next year.  But this year?  Not so much.

Now, we've gotten a GREAT response every time we've been out here.  So when I got an email last winter from  Dave that said the good people in Rock Falls wanted another Tour stop and asking if I'd handle it, well, it was kind of a no-brainer.  Of course.  Gladly.  That got me in contact with Janell Loos, the Director of Tourism for Rock Falls.  I lost track of how many emails were exchanged between us.  Let me just say there were a lot.  No.  That doesn't quite convey it right.  Dozens is probably correct but it doesn't have the "zing" that you, my faithful readers, deserve.  Both of you.

Brief confession here (it IS Sunday morning, after all) I checked Thesaurus.com (what? You thought all this just floats around in my brain looking for an outlet? Sometimes I check resources too) and I'll give you; oodles, gobs or scads.  You choose.  Interactive blogging!  I may be onto something here...

Back to the matter at hand...

Janell hit one out of the park.

Actually, she hit everything she saw this weekend out of the park.

In brief, something I rarely am btw, between Friday and Saturday we visited nineteen women in four towns and two counties.

Now THAT'S a great weekend.

And speaking of great, no mention of this weekend can take place without mentioning The Great Vincenzo.  Vin came out to give me a hand on Friday and was his usual suave, charming, wonderful self.  Chicks do, in fact, dig him.  And he's quite good at Pink Healsing.  We had multiple laughs and put many smiles on faces.  Ours included.

See here's kind of the thing.  We can't fix anything.  We hold no answers.  We carry no cure.  The best we (and by "we" I mean "me") can hope (actually I probably mean "I") to do is put a smile on someone's face, at least for a little while.

So that's exactly what we set out to do.  And in the greater Rock Falls area, it's pretty easy.  Like i said before, Janell was great.  For example, here's the view from my hotel room...

A balcony overlooking the Rock River.  Before you go casting aspersions on the empty factory across the river, it's actually a pretty cool looking building.  And this is, in my many travels with the PHT, my first river-front balcony.

Quick side story here...

The Oldest One came out Saturday evening to help me with T-shirt sales at the wrap-up event.  She met me at the hotel where dinner was being provided.  As I sat there, eating my dinner, chatting with the Mayor and his wife, my lovely, thoughtful, tactful daughter walked up and said, and I quote

"Geez Dad, you've got to do something about the hotels you're staying in.  This one doesn't even have a hot tub by the pool."

To which I replied

"Mr. Mayor, meet my daughter."

Yes, smart alecky runs in the family.

I explained to her that the facility was only about 3 months old and that my room was very graciously comped and we all had a good laugh about it.

One of the nice things about returning to an area for multiple years is that you'll often run in to people you've met in previous years.  Audrey and her Mom, for instance.

We met Audrey last year, just before she started chemo.  At the time Mike was with us and he had just been declared free from disease.  We declared him many other unprintable things but that's a story for another time.  Audrey's Mom set up a home visit for her this year and they also came by last night to visit us.

She's doing great, as you can see.

As I steer this thing to it's conclusion, let me once again sing some praises.

I've done probably well over a thousand home visits in my time doing this.  And many times a gift basket of sorts is presented to those we visit.  Janell beat them all.  With this -

For every. woman. we. visited.

Now to be honest, I didn't go digging into one of the baskets to see what specifically was in there, but they were packed and everyone was thrilled with them.  You may also note a bag of sweet corn in the picture.  My first reaction was "really?  sweet corn?"  But if you think about it, what could be more perfect especially this time of year, in northern Illinois, than a half dozen ears of fresh, locally grown sweet corn?

Lastly (I think) I want to take a minute or two and thank the aforementioned Mayor.  Without throwing stones at any other municipality, this is just one example of how well he "gets" what we do for, and with, a community...

That's him, helping us wash Leslie at the local firehouse.  I can't think of too many other Mayors that would do that.  If any of you Rock Fallers (Rock Fallians?) read this, you people (yes, I said you people) could really use a pink fire truck to call your own.  This area has shown me time and again that you support what we're all about. 

Peace