It was the ultimate irony. My husband and I just spent a night sleeping across the street from an oatmeal factory. Our aversion to steamy bowls of oatmeal is no secret.

Returning from a wedding, we had booked a nice high rise hotel in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The computer booking site did not mention that the rooms of the hotel had panoramic views of the towering grain elevators and red neon sign atop the Quaker Oats factory across the street. Nor was there any mention of the long trains hauling oats.

Our mutual oatmeal dislike started early in life. I still have a vivid memory of the day my grandmother said to a bunch of us grandchildren, “I have a special treat for you.” Big bowls of oatmeal were set in front of each of us. I eagerly ate the melting pat of butter and brown sugar off the top. Then, I stared forlornly at the gray, lumpy, soggy, gooey stuff that remained in my bowl. Miles away in northern Wisconsin, my future husband’s mother was pulling a similar oatmeal scam on him.

Our room in Cedar Rapids included breakfast. “I bet they pipe the oatmeal directly into this hotel in big tubes,” I predicted.

Before all of the oatmeal lovers out there accuse me of hurting oatmeal’s feelings, let me state that a large box of Quaker Oatmeal is in my kitchen cupboard. That oatmeal guy knows how to make great cookies, cakes and muffins. We just don’t let him go near any of our cereal bowls.

A serious note: We were happy to bring our travel dollars to Cedar Rapids. The town is still struggling to recover from the devastating flood of 2008. Happily, the Cedar Rapids Art Museum (which houses the world’s largest collection of Grant Wood’s art) and The Grant Wood Studio on 5 Turner Alley have both reopened.

Serendipity is wonderful stuff. When serendipity strikes twice in a row, it’s a double delight.

Our first quirk of chance happened in February at the gigantic Gem and Mineral Show in Tucson. We stumbled onto a booth of Petoskey stones only to learn that these fascinating rocks are found in our own Lake Michigan (albeit on the other side). A trip to the far shore to search for these amazing stones – actually 360 million year old fossilized coral – was in order.

Last week we visited the eastern shore. We saw towering sand dunes and rock-strewn beaches. We did not find a Petoskey stone.

However, another rock surprise awaited us. I must note that my husband and I are aficionados of architecture, having traveled across America visiting sites by Frank Lloyd Wright, Frank Gehry, Greene and Greene and other luminaries. But neither one of us had ever heard of Earl Young and his amazing “mushroom” houses in Charlevoix, Michigan. The town is peppered with his homes, built between the late 1920’s to 1964. Constructed with small to massive boulders from the Lake Michigan shoreline and other native rocks, these homes are utterly unique. He drew no formal plans or blueprints, but relied “on sketches jammed into his pocket and ideas in his head.” We would happily move into any one.

Following is a tour of an Earl Young neighborhood.

My husband calls little dogs “dog seeds.”

“Plant them,” he says, “and they might grow into real dogs, such as German Shepherds, Labradors or St. Bernards.” After laughing, I must admit that finding the wolf in a Chihuahua or teacup poodle is a stretch.

We’re a feline family, and our domestic cats display almost identical behaviors to their big, wild cousins. They stalk, pounce, groom, mark and cover their food just like miniature tigers.

Cats have been domesticated a mere 5,000 years. The Egyptians lured small, wild desert cats into their homes, most likely to keep rodents out of the grain piles. (Beer and bread were staples in Egypt.) Everyone who lives with cats knows they are still undecided about buying into the ongoing domestication experiment.

Dogs, on the other hand, have been at our sides around 14,000 years. The price these loving companions have paid for domestication is steep. Their brains are about 20% smaller than their wolf brothers. That’s the consequence of having a brimming bowl of dog kibble presented on a regular schedule.

The origin of the domestic dog was believed to be East Asia. However, this theory is “left in disarray” by a new gene study of dogs presented this month. A genome-scanning chip has been developed for dogs. Village dogs throughout the world are being pounced on by eager geneticists who are taking blood samples. There’s a high probability that the puzzle of where dogs first originated will be solved sometime soon.

In the meantime, we can all throw our favorite pup a bone and laze around enjoying these last, precious dog days of summer. The cats are already all asleep.

When our son was little, he informed us that the only food not improved by butter was ice cream. I’m in complete agreement with him.

For the last thirty years our family has celebrated at The Spaghetti Factory restaurants. My son and I don’t need menus as we always order the same entree… pasta with browned butter and Mizithra cheese. It’s gloriously decadent.

Greek cooks have transformed the excessive use of butter into a culinary art form. Filo dough doesn’t work unless it’s drowned in a butter bath. Many Greek recipes begin with “take half a pound of butter.” How can spanakopita and baklava not be good?

The French aren’t slouches in the butter department, either. Many women of my generation remember Julia Child warning of the dire consequences of using substitutes for butter. “If you’re squeamish about using real butter, just forget about mastering French Cooking,” was her basic message.

Since the French know how much butter is inside their food, they don’t offer much butter on the table. The Dutch, on the other hand, seem to go by the theory, “if you can’t see the butter in the food, put more on the outside.” It’s a good thing these folks ride their bikes everywhere.

Here in the Midwest our local dairy features a large glass window for viewing the butter making area. Yesterday we arrived just as the giant churns had completed a batch. A woman was filling a huge, metal cart with a mountain of butter, a beautiful sight for many of us butterophiles.

I recalled a late August dinner my mother would make after a trip to our farmers’market: corn on the cob with butter and fresh leaf lettuce salad tossed with 2 tablespoons of hot, melted butter. Ice cream for dessert was optional.

I recently took a road trip out West and saw a lot of alligators on the roads. These were not the reptilian kind. “Alligator” is trucker talk for the long rubber strips that explode off retread tires and litter the roads and shoulders.

All professions have their verbal shortcuts. When I worked in grocery stores, I learned that an “endcap” is that most desirable shelf space at the beginning of each aisle. At the library a “truck” was a book cart.

Diner lingo provides some of the most witty vocabulary. “A stack with Vermont and a blonde with sand” translates to pancakes with maple syrup and coffee with cream and sugar. Or how about “Adam and Eve on a raft, wreck ’em, and a spot with a twist.”  That’s two scrambled eggs on toast and tea with lemon.

I’m particularly fascinated by truckers’ jargon as I had a part time job for five years that involved driving big diesel straight trucks. I developed a sincere admiration for truckers and their skills… my own truck driving skills were marginal.

Here’s some over the road chat. If you need help translating it, befriend a trucker.

I was driving my reefer down the concrete slab, wishing I were bobtailing. A real window washer was rolling in, and a vulture appeared overhead just when I was thinking of putting down the hammer. Good thing there were lots of lollipop sticks along the road. I don’t mind those cat’s eyes looking out for me. It will be a long time before I see a coffeepot or my coffinbox. I’ve got miles to go and lots of alligators ahead. The last thing I need is a pumpkin.