This was good for all of us, not just because the humidity helped our scratchy throats and congestion, but the bright flowers and cute little birds were cheery. Not that anyone is feeling down, but we are not really used to this many cold days in a row. Walking in here felt just like getting off a plane at Tampa International in July. I know about 99% of the population finds that awful, but to me all that humidity is downright comforting and plush. Anyway, as if the bright orange maples in our campground here plus a lovely date night last night were not enough, a morning of snapping flower photos was rejuvenating. I have plenty to share so let's just get right to it, shall we?
When four out of five family members are suffering mild head cold symptoms and the weather is cold, overly dry, and windy the perfect medicine for mind and body can be found in an arboretum. Specifically, one full of tropical plants in a warm, humid indoor environment. That is precisely what we found at the Olbrich Botanical Gardens. This was good for all of us, not just because the humidity helped our scratchy throats and congestion, but the bright flowers and cute little birds were cheery. Not that anyone is feeling down, but we are not really used to this many cold days in a row. Walking in here felt just like getting off a plane at Tampa International in July. I know about 99% of the population finds that awful, but to me all that humidity is downright comforting and plush. Anyway, as if the bright orange maples in our campground here plus a lovely date night last night were not enough, a morning of snapping flower photos was rejuvenating. I have plenty to share so let's just get right to it, shall we? Any time we hit a state capitol city we try to get at least a peek inside the capitol building, and since it is too cold out for this chick to fathom a hike or bike ride (crikey, I can barely convince myself to walk across a parking lot in this chill) indoor activities are met with enthusiasm. If coffee is forthcoming, even better. Okay, so they were not giving out free coffee here, but we stopped for cider that was so hot I burned my tongue in the truck but within about forty-seven seconds of leaving the warm cab it had cooled off to a wonderfully drinkable temperature, and we dashed into the building I actually meant to tell you about in this post. Although, I could totally write a whole post about hot beverages because if this "Winter-in-OCTOBERFORCRYINGOUTLOUD-complete-with-snow-ONOCTOBER23FORPETESSAKE" thing keeps up I estimate I will consume enough coffee to improve the GNP of Costa Rica significantly. Yes, I am cold and there is little hope I will see my shorts again before we get to the Keys. Soooo, that capitol building tour. What I love about these things is state governments all seem to find very similar looking people who have booming voices, a head for tons of architectural and historical trivia, and don't mind wearing green sweater vests. Or maybe it's the same dude making his rounds of all fifty states. Ever wondered why Wisconsin is called the Badger State? No? Neither did I, because I thought it was The Cheese State, but the university mascot is a badger and we see badgers in art everywhere here. Our guide told us that when the miners made up most of the population they used to live up in the hills, kind of like badgers. Ergo, the nickname. But hills are also populated by bears and coyotes and those annoying little bugs that get in your tent. I guess badgers were at least the most interesting. Also, they make for decent bronze sculptures. There was one in the foyer of the senate room that also did a tour of duty at the Naval Academy where cadets would rub its head before taking tests or something like that. In both Minnesota and Wisconsin we have run into streets and other places named "Nicollette" and I had begun to wonder who he/she was. Turns out he was an explorer who passed through here looking for a northwest passage to China. He never made it and ended up in Green Bay, and also immortalized in this painting. Inside the House of Representatives chamber we saw a huge mural and were told the interesting back story. Our guide talked through the symbolic images that are supposed to tell the history of Wisconsin moving from right to left across the painting. However, at some point someone decided no one who looked at this mural would realize it had anything at all to do with Wisconsin, even if they thought about it really hard. So they asked the artist to add in a badger. To do so required that he remove one of the Civil War soldiers. Years later when the capitol building burned the mural was saved and in the restoration process (which required something like 200,000 Q-tips) the "shadow" of that soldier returned. If you look closely above the badger you might notice him. His cap is the easiest part to make out. Look directly to the right of the crucifix held by the priest or monk or whoever that is reclining to the left of the soldier with the flag. That did not help at all, did it? Sorry... Another bad thing that happened when the building burned (besides the mere fact of its burning) was that the remains of Old Abe were destroyed. Old Abe was a bald eagle that had served as a sort of mascot for a Civil War regiment for many years. After the war she was presented to the governor of Wisconsin who housed her in a special two-room apartment complete with a bathtub and a caretaker. Then a very small fire occurred in the basement, which was easily extinguished, but not before Old Abe inhaled a lot of smoke. She died about a month later. While her remains were lost in the 1904 fire, a local farmer found another eagle dead on his property, had it stuffed and donated to the state. This photo is not of Old Abe or his successor, obviously. It's one of the badger sculptures. I have always heard badgers were sort of mean, kind of like a beaver with a bad attitude, but this piece of art makes me think I would enjoy one's company. The interior of the capitol is one of the most beautiful I have seen. I tend to ignore the architecture and focus in on the decor and I found a feast for the eyes in the gorgeous mosaics below the dome. Each one, by artist Kenyon Cox, is made up of over 100,000 glass tiles and they are considered to be among the finest mosaics in the world. If you read yesterday's post you may recall I that it snowed here. No kidding. I was not completely surprised because as a native Floridian I have always assumed that winter begins right after Labor Day in all states north of the Mason-Dixon Line. But the locals I've met all say any snow before Halloween is fairly rare, and this snow did not last long. It WAS legit snow -- big flakes, not flurries. It did not accumulate and it was done before I could get out of the grocery store and get a good photo, but not before I could text a friend to whine and have her text me back to let me know it's in the 80s in Tampa.
Anyway, the whole reason we were in a grocery store was to pick up ice cream to take for a visit with a family whose acquaintance we made through the Boyinks. Adam and Christine Jeske wrote a cool book, This Ordinary Adventure: Settling Down without Settling and just a few pages in I am already hooked. In fact, I am spending some time here on the heated mattress pad with some hot tea, enjoying their book and knowing I will probably have to share it (and Christine's other book) with you in a future post. -Jenni This is Taj, my 2008 Trek Madone 6.5 WSD with the Project One "Nara" paint job. She has been my trusty steed for so many miles I have lost count, through my first Six Gap Century, several MS150 rides, group rides with my favorite biking friends, and all those Tuesday nights when I tried desperately to hang on to a pack of fast guys (always getting shelled off the back when they decided to drop the hammer). I'll spare you the details on how she got her name, except to say that if you have ever known a roadie who named their ride, then you probably realize this means I really love my bike. After we arrived in Madison, Wisconsin Kevin suddenly remembered the Trek factory is in nearby Waterloo and they give free tours. See where my bike was born? SIGN. ME. UP! We called to verify and made the drive the next morning. As expected, they don't allow photos except in a few areas out front and truthfully, there was not much I deemed photo-worthy in the back anyway. While we were not able to go upstairs to the area where they actually manufacture their carbon fiber and mold it into high-end bicycle frames, we did get to see a lot of frames hanging around waiting to be painted. And we got to see some being painted and having decals applied. The paint is mostly applied now by a cool new robotic painting deal that uses only 3.8 ounces of paint per coat, compared with the 12 ounces the job used to require. Anyone walking into the painting room has to go through an airlock where a bunch of jets blast all the dust and particles off them right down to about .1 of a micron. The workers who apply the decals (all women, as they have a better eye for detail)(tour guide's words - not mine) have a total of about three seconds to situate it properly before the adhesive makes repositioning of any kind impossible. The Project One frames all go through a totally separate room where we saw several very scientific-minded looking workers standing around in fancy lab coats waiting for something to happen. Like maybe a call that someone somewhere in the country had just dropped $8,000 for a new bike and now they had a few hours worth of work. That was all the most interesting part of our tour. The rest consisted of trips past the rooms where the designers and engineers sit. Yes, it was mostly cubicles, but the artsy types had a pretty rocking creative environment. Our guide told us that was on purpose. As a somewhat creative type myself I will agree that it's pretty hard to come up with anything good when your surroundings are dull. I also noticed that although the sales workers and management all used Dell computers, the apparel and graphic designers were all seated in front of nice iMacs. Also, some of them had action figures on their desks. Trek has worked hard to create a company culture of fitness. If you're going to hawk bikes, this makes sense. We saw an excellent workout room where classes are offered frequently for employees. Our guide told us that they earn points for biking to work. Those points can then be used toward the purchase of gear or cafeteria meals. The cafeteria strives to serve a lot of fresh, locally-sourced fare at a very attractive price (huge salad for about $1.50) and subsidizes it by charging more for the unhealthful options. It must be working, because when we left and drove just a half mile up the road we saw a gas station and fast food joint, both out of business. So if you are not a road biking enthusiast this post might have been boring. I will make up for it tomorrow when I share about our tour of the Wisconsin state capitol building. That one will be fun because we learned about an eagle that died a tragic death in the basement, the deal with the badgers, and an explorer trying to find China but settling for Green Bay. Also, it snowed. - Jenni Check out this gem I found, a piece of genius to whom I know not to credit: "Sweet dreams are made of cheese Who am I to diss a brie? I cheddar the world and the feta cheese Everybody's looking for Stilton." We parked in Chippewa Falls on our way toward Michigan so that we could take a day to hit a few highlights along the Wisconsin Cheese Trail. It would take more than a month to visit every creamery in this state. We only saw three, but we are glad we did. If you are coming through this area, I definitely recommend a day of creamery touring. Our first stop, and by far the most fun, was Holland Family Cheese. The Pentermans make only raw milk gouda, but many varieties of it. They are not a large operation at all, but they have won numerous awards, including the 2013 National Cheese Championship. We tasted several kinds of their gouda and although we are not experts, we can understand the accolades. This is some really, really good cheese. We bought a hunk of the Burning Melange. I promise that is a cheese and not a dark indie film. We were given a tour of the facility and learned about cheese making. Everyone was friendly and welcoming and they let us walk around the barns to visit the cows. This is 21st century dairy farming: their 850 cows are all microchipped with a sensor that monitors their body temperature, when they ovulate and give birth, how much they move around and even how many times they chew their cud. Sorry, Bessie. You got no secrets here. Here is where I digress from the discussion of cheese to share cow photos. On the farm there was also a corn maze. We don't get to do that often so even though it was really cold and snowing we gave it a shot. Am I the only one who finds these things creepy? I imagine getting lost for days with only corn to eat and ultimately being pecked to death by crows. Of course, this maze was a bit on the small side and we could see the barn roof from most everywhere within it. Also, there was this one cow that started mooing so loudly it was like a form of echolocation and we emerged within moments. I'll go backcountry camping in bear and tsunami territory all alone, but corn mazes totally weird me out. We visited two other dairies, but they did not offer tours so there is not much there to share, although we did buy more cheese (banana pepper jack and bacon cheddar). Instead, we made a stop at Irvine Park in Chippewa Falls before heading home. They usually have some big animals here but that part of the park was closed and we only met the geese and ducks, and some that seem to have been interbreeding to produce curious looking duck-goose hybrids. There is a joke in there somewhere I am sure, but it would probably be fowl. That's all for today -- moooooving on to Madison tomorrow! -Jenni For the last three weeks it seems we go somewhere, change our plans for where to go next, then get out of town just in time. We are losing count of the campgrounds, doughnut shops, and restaurants that close for the season the day after our stop. Our new motto could be, "The Traveling Keiters: closing stuff down since September 29th!" The weather has not been kind to us, although it has not been hostile. We are determined to make the best of it (LOVING the electric mattress pad), but we cannot overcome closed campgrounds. There ever increasing numbers conspire to drive us southward. The upper peninsula of Michigan with its Apostle Islands and Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore got the ax. We considered an extra day in Grand Marais then decided with the forecast for snow, now was the time to scoot. So we did some Internet searching for what sort of roadside treasures we might unearth if we went south around Lake Michigan. Of course, we knew Wisconsin to be the Cheese State and we learned there is such thing as a Cheese Trail, so we planned a day close to a few cheese-making operations (cheeseries?) that looked interesting. While Kevin poured over potential route options, I visited RoadsideAmerica.com and looked at what Wisconsin and Michigan might have to offer. Now, we have quite a bit of travel behind us and many cities. We have encountered several places that all have latched onto the same motto: "Keep Austin/Portland/Asheville/Anywhere-in-Northern-California weird." I need to tell these metropolises two things. First of all, when more than one of you is using this same slogan, chances are it has lost it's ring of truth. I mean, show of hands, who else is totally and completely OVER those dumb "Keep Calm and _____________ (insert random activity here) on" t-shirts and posters? I suspect even the British hated them about three days after the Queen had them posted during the war. Like that is supposed to make me feel okay about being bombed. But I digress. The second thing I want to tell Austin/Portland/Asheville/Cali is that Portland wins the contest among the four of you, but if Roadside America attractions are the deciding factor you all lose BIG TIME to Michigan. Consider the wonderful things one might visit in the Great Lake State:
There are also three different "shoe trees" listed, but that's not weird. We've seen enough of those to make a whole coffee table book. I have no idea how many, if any of these things we will actually visit. I would like a photo opp with a large fish but the mini golf thing sounds creepy. I really love me some Cream of Wheat so I almost feel compelled to go pay homage to the Man himself. The weather will probably be the deciding factor, as is so often the case lately. The Cheese Trail will hold our attention for the next day or so. One of the farms mentioned claims the distinction of being the "Number Two Cheese Producer." Hmmmmmm....I just thought of a good reason to make a side trip and extra effort to get to that giant toilet seat. -Jenni It's cold and rainy and really cold here in Minnesota, but it's also Moose Madness Weekend so there is NO WAY we were going to sit in the Bob T sipping coffee and warming our toes by the fake fireplace. We downed some breakfast burritos then donned our fifteen collective layers of winter clothing and rain gear (not even counting wool socks, hats and mittens) and walked into town to check out the party. Grand Marais is a harbor town, and I don't know why exactly, but we usually feel compelled to eat our way around places like this. Today it seemed to be all about sugar. I can defend that by stating that Friday night we attempted to have a fire and make S'mores but as soon as we broke out the goodies a hailstorm materialized, dousing our fire, ruining the whole bag of marshmallows, and sending us ducking for cover. So perhaps we were feeling some sort of subconscious need to give our pancreases a work out. We consumed so many empty calories that I cannot even recall, a mere thirty minutes after returning from our outing, in what order we did anything. Please forgive me if this whole post seems like it was written by a ferret on espresso. It was. I'm so gittery and scatter-brained I had to hire a ghostwriter. We started off with a bang when we met Murray the Moose, handing out candy along the main drag. I should explain that Moose Madness is really just one of those local festivals designed to offer some fun and give the economy a bit of a boost. It's not like there are any bona fide moose here, but moose loom large in the art and lore of the area. Every shop seems to be named for moose or at least feature moose paraphernalia. One of the activities is a scavenger hunt wherein you must go into seventeen different shops and find a little plush moose with a tag featuring one word. You then must arrange all seventeen words into a sentence that makes sense and is grammatically correct (WHERE is the fun in “makes sense???”). The words were: usually, cows, single, births, have, late, twins, may, spring, abundant, is, she, although, if, have, food, in. I’m curious about what some of you may come up with here (Geoff?), but I will share our own. “Cows usually have single births in late spring, although if food is abundant she may have twins.” I say this is not technically grammatically correct (“cows” and “she” are not parallel)(yes, I am a nerd), but it was one of the possible answers. Not that there was a prize. If there was I am quite certain Kevin’s entry would have won: “Late twins usually have abundant she-cows, although single births have food if spring is in May.” This is why he brings home the bacon as a superb engineer while I cover the homeschooling. Hey, we all have our gifts. If that little activity was designed to draw people into stores to spend money, I concede it’s effectiveness, especially since there were whole stores devoted to fudge. With bacon. BACON FUDGE! Also, there were doughnuts and coffee and the doughnut shop even had maple bars. We went in the bike shop to find a moose and found maple syrup, which we bought because we are out. We went into an artsy gift shop that also happened to have amazing coffee and locally produced raspberry-jalapeno jam. Yeah, we bought some of both. We did manage to get out of a bookstore without anything (don’t ask me how) and a sundry shop with a moose ornament fashioned from wine bottle corks. But someone had to consume two bottles of wine to make that dream come true so whatever. In addition to open eateries and gift shops, there was the Moose Mosey Run. I don't know how many people turned out for that. It was early Saturday morning when it was 35 degrees and raining. I was still in bed enjoying the electric mattress pad. The fun run was much later, 2:00 p.m., so we braved a sudden onslaught of precipitation to do the little sprint. Joel was totally in line to take third place but he got pipped in the very end by a kid who is from around here and must be used to running on the wet, pebbly shores of Lake Superior. But he still got one of the “Best Dressed” prizes: a $10 gift certificate to Java Moose. After the run we made a break back to the Bob T for a lunch full of antioxidants, but we had to go back into town to turn in our poetry contest entries and let the girls visit the caramel apple creation station. Also, we needed to go back to the confectioner because, you know, bacon fudge! Then we had a total of eighteen Moose Bucks to spend at the visitors center before we ran home in another brief rain shower. It is supposed to start snowing tonight (Saturday). We have just the thing for that: a Java Moose gift certificate! -Jenni Today I was planning to write a post about the Gunflint Trail, a popular drive here out of Grand Marais. It was highly recommended by lots of folks, tour books, local guides, and is also supposed to be a good place to find a moose or two. But it did not turn out to be highly scenic (leaves are almost gone) and there were no moose anywhere. We did enjoy a few nice lake overlooks and a museum where we learned a lot of local history. We had a nice picnic lunch and really excellent malts at the Trail Center Lodge. We also saw what we thought was a quail on steroids. It dodged all around in the bushes, back and forth, back and forth, trying to avoid us then finally gave up and took to the wing making a sound not unlike a small Sikorsky. We found out later it was probably a grouse. So while the Gunflint Trail turned out to be just a bit underwhelming, the weather was lovely and overall our day was nothing to grouse about. I found a lot of mushrooms to shoot and am sharing them for a certain first grader I know who is a budding mycologist. Enjoy our images from the Trail, plus a few shots leftover from Itasca and the moonrise we enjoyed this evening. -Jenni P.S. This beaver photo needs a good caption. Who's up for a contest? Still dodging national park closures, we are here in beautiful Grand Marais which is situated along the north shore of Lake Superior. This is the first time we have ever seen the Great Lakes. Well, once a long time ago we saw Lake Michigan from downtown Chicago, but I am not counting that because I have no memory of how it looked, only that the temperature was in the forties in the middle of the summer. The temperature here has not gotten out of the forties since our arrival, but the rain cleared up and we were able to get out and explore. On Wednesday we visited Judge Magney State Park just north of us. Or maybe it's east. I don't know...it's along the lake shore heading toward Canada. Anyway, the park features the Devil's Kettle, a big waterfall where half of the water disappears into a large hole in the rock and no one really knows where it goes or where it reemerges. We also spotted a bald eagle while we hiked the two mile trail to the top of the falls. After the park we stopped at the coast guard light station here in the harbor. We can see the light clearly from our campsite but to get out to it is quite a long walk along a concrete jetty, or as Kevin and Joel chose, the rocks. Along the lakeshore the wind was strong, big waves were crashing on the rocks, and we had to keep reminding ourselves we are on a lake, not the ocean. We have several more days here to enjoy the fall color,the lakeshore, and the potential for snow this weekend. We also have neighbors right next door in a Redwood fifth wheel. This is significant because it is only the fourth or fifth Redwood we have seen all year (Redwood is like the Ferrari Class version of our fiver, the Blackwood, which is no longer being made). Also, every other time we have pulled into a campground and seen a Redwood, the owners pulled out the very next day, or in some cases, right after we rolled by. Really. Anyway, Kevin has chatted with our current neighbors and we are planning to swap trailer tours later. Yeah, us full-time families...we're a real barrel of monkeys! So enjoy our Grand Marais photos. Up next: the Gunflint Road and Moose Madness Weekend! -Jenni Between the national park closures, unpredictable weather, and the excellent advice of other travelers we meet, it seems our plans are ever evolving. Itasca State Park in Minnesota was one of those “Plan B” locations last year when we were listing all the things we wanted to see. Sure, Lake Itasca is the headwaters of the mighty Mississippi River and that makes for a great geography lesson, but is it worth driving out of the way? We can now answer that question with a resounding, “Yes!” We arrived here Monday afternoon, knowing the weather forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday did not look promising for hiking or biking. With that in mind we chose to get out and see the headwaters right away. It was late afternoon as we hit the trail so the light was just perfect for photos and the air was warm enough that getting our feet wet crossing the river was not painful. You can cross the very beginning of the Mississippi on a small rock path, a log bridge, or just wade across it. So we did. A few times. We have heard that a drop of water that falls into Lake Itasca will be in the Gulf of Mexico about ninety days later. I poured out some water from my bottle and Joel hocked a small loogie (boys) and set a timer on his phone to remind us on January 13, 2014. In all likelihood, we will beat it to the Gulf. On Tuesday, despite the gloomy skies, we took a drive along the Wilderness Road through the park. The oak, aspen, and maples are in the midst of their fall fashion show and the clouds created a nice filter allowing me to get some good shots at midday when the light is normally just too harsh and flat for good photography. We walked on a couple of short trails and climbed the 100-foot tall Aiton Tower for a great view of the autumn color. The rain began to fall around 2:00 and was predicted to continue unabated through tomorrow afternoon so we checked out the visitors center then headed home to cozy up indoors for the rest of the day. Kevin has modified our space so that it is much easier to keep warm in cold weather. He added window insulation panels, a space heater (the propane heater is very inefficient), and a heated mattress pad for our bed. The result? I can blog without my hands freezing (computer is by a large window) and I have actually had to kick the covers off in the middle of the night more than once. This is all great and just in time, as we will head north from here and the temperatures are only dropping.
-Jenni Friday morning in Minneapolis the weather was lovely and mild, the trees are brightly clad in fall color, and we had the whole day spread before us. Being lovers of the outdoors and surrounded with so many choices for lakeshore and river walks, bike paths and parks, we chose exactly what you might expect us to choose: the Mall of America! I hate shopping (unless we're talking art supplies), ergo I avoid malls at all costs, but I can explain this little detour from our modus operandi, and I am going to do it with bullet points:
In my opinion the only thing worse than a mall is a crowded mall. You could not pay me to do Black Friday. The main reason this venture was even remotely tolerable is there was hardly anyone there. I even saw a sign proclaiming a welcome to all homeschool families and yet there were so few kids I decided either there are precious few homeschoolers in town or else they are just really, really smart and stayed home. Then we got to the Lego Store. Turns out that is where about 90% of the mall-goers had hunkered down. I've been in Lego Stores, but this one feels like Lego Heaven. It's clean. It's bright. It's full of helpful employees who seem to really like kids. It's full of parents who clearly have not outgrown Legos (no one should ever outgrow Legos. EVER). The shelves are lined with every set Lego makes. There was even a wall with all the "hard to find" sets. I almost passed out in the Star Wars section. The kids busied themselves with the table in the center of the store where you can sit down and create away. Emily made an entire house and Kristin crafted a mining cart full of gems. I watched another kid collect all the little leaf pieces and make a three foot tall beanstalk. I think we were there for about an hour. After lunch we walked around a bit. With over 500 shops, I kind of wanted to see what other oddities we might find. There are five Caribou Coffee shops and Nickelodeon has an entire amusement park inside. Almost every clothing retailer you can think of is here. There is an Apple Store, which we were careful to stay far away from. There is Moose Mountain Adventure Golf and Bubba Gump Shrimp Company and cookies and frozen yogurt. There is actually a place called "The Art of Shaving." We were hunting for a restroom when I spotted the Archiver's Memory Store and I was all like, "Girl, Ima hafta call you back!" If I can be a bit philosophical for a moment, one of our main aims in selling our house and traveling has been to further remove ourselves from those pieces of American culture that we have found severely lacking in real value. We wanted to simplify our lives and a consumer-mentality has no place in the life we aim for. I thought we were doing really well, but nothing will yank you back to reality and draw you up short like being faced with a giant store full of every sort of beautiful paper and ribbon and glitter and embellishment one could ever need to craft lovely birthday and greeting cards. I love paper crafting. As we walked into the store, I sort of flinched, expecting God to give me a bit of a spiritual drubbing for indulging the lust of my eyes, even if I wasn't going to purchase anything. Instead He gave me the gentle reminder that He knows I love to create because duh, He created that desire in me, and when He gives us a talent or ability He fully expects us to use it to glorify Him. So I snapped a few photos and gathered a few new ideas and walked out of the store totally content knowing the supplies I already own are more than enough. I even had the joy of hearing the girls express an interest in creating memory books of this year when we get home. Now there is one reason we will truly enjoy being settled in a house with space to create. In the interest of full disclosure I must admit we did make a small, silly purchase. Remember the aforementioned Peeps Store? A whole store! Full of Peeps! And Peeps go great in S'mores! And we were all out! So we bought some. I am ashamed. -Jenni So here we are in Minneapolis and the weather is absolutely fantapolis. We are told by our friends, Justin and Shelley, whom we met back in Glacier, that this is unseasonably warm and the leaves are a little behind. I don't care because I had on SHORTS and SANDALS two days in a row. Kevin had to fly back to Tampa for business and that left us with a couple of days to explore. Yesterday we took full advantage of the beautiful conditions and headed for the outdoor sculpture garden downtown. My main focus for the next couple of days is "free or pretty close to it" and the sculpture garden fit the bill. We even found free parking, but it was a one-hour limit so we sort of rushed through. After getting our culture on with the public art, we headed across town to the Como Park Conservatory and Zoo. We were told the Minnesota Zoo is better, but remember, this is all about the free. We saw the San Diego Zoo in February and we have enjoyed Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo on numerous occasions and we still have the national zoo in DC next month. Incidentally, I just learned that a group of baboons is called a congress. Awesome. We began our visit in the conservatory, which houses a Japanese bonsai exhibit and a collection of excellent ferns in a very humid enclosure. Walking in there was like going back to Florida. The other thing that reminded us of home was the tarantula exhibit. Not that we have tarantulas in the Sunshine State, but we do have spiders large enough to take on small alligators and there is not really much difference, in my opinion. Como Park is not a very large zoo. They have all the usual suspects: a few big cats, penguins, primates, a polar bear, and a small assortment of African beasts. One of our favorites was the giraffe family. They had a baby that could not possibly have been more than a few days old because it had what looked like a bit of umbilical cord still attached to it's belly. There was no signage and no staff on hand to query and I don't feel like googling for newborn giraffe info right now. Also, I feel like adding another photo block here so I can quickly scroll far enough down my own page to get this tarantula out of my view. Anytime I see giraffes I stare for several minutes, amazed by their intricate coat patterns and their soft, meek eyes. But it is not long before I am inevitably struck by their oddness. Aside from warthogs, I think there may be no greater proof that God not only exists, but He has a sense of humor. I don't know if all the animals were bored or hot or holding a grudge of some sort, but no one cooperated for photos. The result is a few random images of various goofy faces and wildly patterned backsides. I did not even try to photograph the gorillas because big apes give me the creeps worse than arachnids. I have to add in a cute kid hugging a sculpture. THAT'S a subject I can manage and enjoy.
-Jenni Normally at this time of year I get excited. It's fall! It's time to think about holidays! And pumpkin-flavored stuff! And the temperature won't top 85 until at least 10:00 a.m. most days! I can hear marching bands rehearsing and I want to paint my nails some sort of shimmery bronze color. I'm thinking, "October. Bring it!" But that is not really how we feel this year. We crossed the Mississippi River yesterday and the point was driven home: we are back east now and there is not a lot of time left in our journey. Friends and family are beginning to ask the inevitable questions. When are you coming home? Where will you be for Christmas? What is the plan for after this is over? And when are you coming home??? I don't want to think about going home. But I can't seem to think about much else lately. Not everything about full-time RV life is like a vacation. I want to go home every time I have to navigate a new grocery store (weekly). I miss my old life each time I get a great homeschool idea and then remember I cannot access a library (monthly). I miss living in a house every time I have to tunnel like a weasel into a deep storage space to find the Q-tips, or when my back pocket catches the drawer knob behind me, not because my butt is that big, but because my kitchen is THAT. SMALL. In the last five days I have had an hour-long phone chat with the Bestie, received a wonderful surprise call from another close friend whose voice I have not heard since New Year's Day, engaged in a deliciously random and hilarious text thread with another friend concerning mainly corn and vegetable emojis, and met three really nice cats. All of it left me missing home so badly that, ironically, I was left thinking of how badly we will miss this. In a few months we may well be sitting in a house near a Publix, close to a library, with a larger kitchen and feeling a whole different sort of ache. We have forever ruined ourselves to Suburbia. So to answer the questions, we will be in Orlando for Christmas and back to Tampa December 29. We do not know about next year for sure beyond fetching our kitty and being wide open and available to where God might send us. We are learning to embrace whatever adventure He hands us each day, even if it does not fit within our usual definition of the word. Maybe we will even keep blogging about it, because we have learned we definitely enjoy blogging. Now if you will excuse me, I need to go find a pumpkin spice latte and some nail polish. -Jenni Being fans of the Little House on the Prairie books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, a visit to the Ingalls homestead in DeSmet was one of the very first items I added to our "Stuff to See" list when we were planning this year. About a month ago we realized a trip to Teddy Roosevelt National Park would take us too far north to justify the drive back south to see this. I was disappointed, but knew we could not do everything. Then the government shut down messed up our plans and we ended up being able to visit after all. I was unsure of exactly what to expect here. I will admit I was fearful that this would be kind of boring. In the interest of full disclosure I have to tell you that I normally loathe "walk through history" style field trips. You know, the kind where you have a restored or preserved pioneer village and you stroll around looking at dusty farm implements and creaky barns with some hay and chickens added in an attempt to lend an air of authenticity. I know, I should hand over my "Homeschool Mommy" card so you can tear off a corner because we home educators are supposed to eschew textbooks and eat this stuff up. I don't like textbooks, but I would still prefer to learn history by reading it. The homestead was not at all what I was expecting and that is both good and bad. It was bad because although the buildings sit right on the Ingalls claim, there is no way to stand in modern South Dakota and get a feel for what Laura must have felt when she walked out her door in the mornings to fetch water or pick vegetables. Although DeSmet is tiny and the area is still mostly farmland, you cannot look out over a vast and mostly unsettled prairie. You see cell phone towers. Trucks rumble by on the road. A huge combine harvests corn in the distance. While I knew well that the world has moved on here, I think I was sort of expecting to feel the openness of the frontier and get lost in Laura's childhood world. That world is long gone. But it was cold, windy and rainy enough to give a slight idea of the beginning of the long winter Laura immortalized in the book of the same name. My pleasant surprise was in how educational the site is. Visitors can touch pretty much anything on the premises. Kids are encouraged to climb on the farming equipment and covered wagon. They can touch the antique machines and the vegetables in the garden. The girls made a button string like the one Laura and Mary made for baby Carrie and also a corn cob doll. They were helped to make a rope using a twisting machine that cranks by hand. We are used to walking into old historical buildings where touching, sitting, using anything is verboten and we basically fear that every exhalation takes three months off the life of the site. How refreshing to experience history on a different level. Off the site, you can visit the shores of Silver Lake, Almanzo's homestead site and one of the store sites in DeSmet. However, tourist season is pretty much over here and those sites are not open. Silver Lake is a pothole lake, which means it is really just a low, muddy place during times of drought (like now) so we did not bother stopping there, knowing it would look nothing like Laura described it. If you read Laura's books as a child or are presently enjoying them all over again with your children, this is worth the visit if you are in the area. The frontier as the Ingalls family knew it is a relic of the past, but an appreciation for the hard life they experienced it alive and well. -Jenni When life hands you lemons in the form of a blizzard and a government shutdown, what do you do? YOU VISIT THE WORLD FAMOUS CORN PALACE, OF COURSE! Since our original travel plan took us north from Custer and far from Mitchell, South Dakota we thought we would not get to see this little agritectural (made that up, like it?) marvel. And a gem it truly is. But it is far different from what we were expecting. One child thought it was a whole building made entirely out of corn (it's just a regular building with a corn facade). Another thought it was going to be in the middle of a corn field in the country (it's in downtown Mitchell). The other thought it was originally built by a monarch a few hundred years ago who actually lived in it but then he died and someone preserved it for the rest of us (one guess which child that was). To be honest, I thought it was in Nebraska. I am going to stop short of saying the Corn Palace surpassed our expectations because, well, that would be straying dangerously close to some middle school humor I am fighting desperately to keep a lid on. And a certain friend keeps texting me and is not making it any easier (not naming names, but her blog rhymes with "Skinny Tans are Bought"). Instead, I will share with you some of the neat facts we learned here. Why in the world would someone build a corn palace? I am glad you asked! According to the informative film inside (free admission!) The Corn Palace was an attempt to convince folks that one could indeed grow corn in this part of South Dakota. Apparently farmers were not exactly tearing up the roads to get out here. Also, the nearby town of Plankington had just constructed a grain palace and everyone was vying with Pierre to be the sate capitol. The response in Mitchell was, "We can't just sit here and let Plankington develop their grain palace! We have to do something here to establish ourselves." Really. That was in the film. After the Corn Palace was built and successfully attracted visitors and put Mitchell on the map someone else said, "The Corn Palace is an object lesson of great importance. It tells the absolute truth." Yes, I would agree. Corn does eventually tell the truth. Usually within three days. Now, as funny as I think that is (the film, not my own joke), I don't want to poke fun at this excellent attraction. A lot of work goes into the creation of each year's mural and I was impressed. The art work begins in June when the rye and some other kind of grass go onto the walls. The corn is added beginning in August. It takes months. All the corn used is carefully grown just outside of Mitchell and is hand-selected for color. An artist designs the murals and a giant template is created showing workers where to attach corn of various colors. The film said to think of it as a large "corn by numbers." About 275,000 ears are used, requiring about 100 acres of land. It costs $130,000 to create. We felt compelled to buy some popcorn and a postcard. If I had seen a bumper sticker I would have been all over it like white on rice. And this building is a legitimate center of activity, boasting of some real classy music acts such as Raven Symone, REO Speedwagon, Neil Diamond (stay seated, Wendy), and The Newsboys (I thought they broke up). But check out some of the other fabulous gifts you can get at the "Corn-cession stand." So don't just take our word for it -- if you are going through Mitchell, South Dakota, the World's Only Corn Palace is worth a visit. Don't pass it up!
-Jenni If you are like us, you probably had no idea what sort of treasures South Dakota holds beyond the Badlands and Mt. Rushmore. Yesterday we shared with you the Annual Buffalo Roundup, which happens each fall at Custer State Park. We only recently heard of this place as we talked with other RVers in our travels. What typically happens is that someone sees our decal on the truck or Bob T and asks about our trip. The second thing they usually ask is, "Where are you going next?" By the time we hit July, South Dakota factored into the "next" explanation and pretty much everyone responded with, "Oh! You have to see Custer State Park." And so we did. And they were all right. Besides the Annual Buffalo Roundup, our two favorite Custer experiences were the Wildlife Loop and hiking around Sylvan Lake. Kids can earn junior ranger certificates and there are multiple places to lodge, picnic, camp or just relax. The wild burros are a favorite with a lot of visitors because they come right up to the car window and poke their big shaggy heads in, looking for a treat. We met another family who shared some apple wedges for us to feed the burros, but later as we drove out we noticed a sign that said not to feed the wildlife. I guess they count as wildlife. Oops. Anyway, this is definitely a place to add to your itinerary if you are coming this way. -Jenni |
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