Maquoketa (pronounced Macoconut)

Feb 18, 2008: Maquoketa, IA is a town of 6,000 people that is about 40 miles north of the Quad Cities Area. The town had an enormous fire a few weeks ago that destroyed six buildings on their historic main street. Part of our service was raising money for the strained fire department.

We also experienced our first serious winter storm, lots of freezing rain that turned to snow on our show day. We were afraid that we would have less people in our audience than we had onstage! But luckily, we had some dedicated host families and community members, and we still had over 300 people on a blizzardy Sunday afternoon. I was especially appreciative of my sisters Beth and Emily that made long drives from Minneapolis and Des Moines to come see the show. It was the first performance I participated in with this cast, and I had such a fun time onstage. Beth took some fabulous pics of the show with her zoom lens, and shared them with me, so I can share them with you!

Scott and I were hosted in Davenport, 40 miles south of Maquoketa, with Beth’s good friend from college, Elizabeth and her husband Tim. On our host family day they took us to Credit Island, which is a winter nesting site for bald eagles. We saw at least 15 eagles in the trees and soaring above the river, which I thought was spectacular. Apparently that’s not even average—that at certain times of day you can see more in the range of 50-70 eagles in that area.