Well, it has certainly been a long time since I last posted, more than two years to be exact.  We have remembered our trip west so fondly and have been anxious to make another big trip.  Now that day has come.  We headed out early this afternoon on a much-anticipated trip to Maine.  This trip won’t be as long as our trip west, but we are planning to give it a full three weeks.  As Charlie is again able to be with us for the full trip, we feel so fortunate to be able to travel for a full three weeks.  I took most of the kids on a trip to Alabama by myself last year, and while we had a wonderful time, it wasn’t the same without Charlie there. While in Alabama, I found myself with no time to blog as I was the only driver and the only adult.

At the Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, AL – Amelia, Dominic, Nicholas, Isaac, Nathanael holding AnaClaire, Annette, and Alex. Damien didn’t want to participate 🙂

At the Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, AL – Nicholas in front of his favorite plane, an SR-71 Blackbird.

At The Ave Maria Grotto, St. Bernard Abbey in Cullman, AL – Annette, Amelia, Dominic, Isaac, and AnaClaire

Charlie wasn’t real thrilled with the idea of us travelling places without him because he wanted to be able to partake in the fun too.  We’ve talked a lot about travelling for a couple weeks and then having him fly out somewhere to meet us, so maybe we will try that someday.  For now, we just feel blessed to have him with us.

After more intense planning than we did for our six week trip west, we are finally on our way.  Because we are camping more in-season than we did in the past, I really felt like we needed to make campground reservations.  Also, because our camper is longer than most, the larger campsites are harder to come by.  After deciding on a general route, I began searching for campgrounds.  Most of the campgrounds I found were state parks, which hopefully means that we will have larger campsites than many private campgrounds offer.  On the downside, we won’t have the luxury of electricity or water within our campsite.  The kids are also two years older of course, which means they were able to be of more help.  Their help did make getting ready for this trip a little easier.  I only had about one hour of venturing into meltdown mode before we left this morning.  I have learned that everything isn’t going to be perfect.  Many people have reminded me that we can always stop and purchase whatever it was we forgot.  I guess my trip to Alabama helped me to learn that lesson last year as one child actually forgot to bring her clothes and shoes.  We made a stop at the outlets that I have stopped at countless times in Commerce, GA, and purchased her a couple outfits.  The kids and I all survived that small trip together, so I feel like I am getting a little better at this each time.

Starting out on our trip to Maine.

We were blessed to leave a little earlier than we had hoped, not because we actually finished our packing early but because Charlie got off earlier than we had thought he would.  The temperature forecast for home today was around 97 degrees, so we couldn’t wait to get out of there and up into the higher elevations.  Of course when we reached the higher elevations, it was still 91 degrees.  Hopefully it will cool down enough to make it fairly comfortable at whatever WalMart we end up at.  I am really hoping that the temperatures that we find in Maine will be a little more tolerable than South Carolina in July and August.

I have decided that the end of July is not exactly the right time to take a long summer vacation.  Our garden is producing so much better this year than it has in the last couple years.  I’ve been canning a great deal, so it is really hard to leave it.  I really had to resist the urge to put time and effort into making a batch of pickles before we pulled out today.  Our cucumbers are actually about done for the year, but we planted more cucumber seeds this week in the hopes that we can get a second cucumber harvest in September / October timeframe.  We set out some soaker hoses on our new seeds and said a prayer that they will survive to provide more vegetables for us in the coming months.  We left our garden and animals in the hands of some very capable and generous friends, so I know that everything will be well cared for.

Some of our pigs

Our lima beans

Dominic in front of our giant sunflowers.

  This was our last morning. We stripped all the beds and piled all the dirty laundry up for me to start on as soon as we walk in the door at home (one of these days, I really hope I have two washers and dryers, but that would require a bigger laundry room too…) We had a delicious breakfast of bagels and sausage. At home, we will have our own sausage to eat, and we really look forward to all that good food we have waiting for us there. I closed the slide to the camper with tears in my eyes. This has been such a wonderful trip, and something that I have wanted to do for a long time. It is so hard to believe that it is over. I could have continued to travel like this for a long time. However, God has other things in store for our family, and I look forward to each and every day with them, no matter what those days hold for us. I thank God for this special opportunity that I have had to spend with my husband and children over the past 6 weeks, and I thank God for giving us this beautiful country that we live in. I have a much greater appreciation and understanding of it than I ever did before.    We hitched up for the last time and pulled out of the campground. Home was supposedly only about 5 hours away; of course we have to add at least 2 hours for stops and slower driving than the speed limit. Driving through the hills of Tennessee we saw beautiful small farms that remind me of home. I have been dreading the end of our trip for the past week or two. However, our little trip to Bakersville in Mansfield, Missouri helped me to remember how much I love our small homestead life. I do look forward to tending to my garden and using the new tool for weeding that I picked up in Bakersville. I have no idea if any of the garden we planted survived its 6 weeks without us, but even if it didn’t survive, I anticipate doing a lot of planting this upcoming week.

Funny story: when we were driving to Mammoth Cave the other day, Charlie was talking about having to go home and butcher the turkeys since we have now been through two mating seasons with no baby turkeys (poults) to show for it. We bought this breed of turkeys (Bourbon Reds) because they are supposed to be able to naturally reproduce, and we were hoping to let the turkey hens raise their own babies since they aren’t easy to keep alive when we are doing the raising. After we got out of our cave tour, Charlie checked his messages on his phone only to discover that he had a message from the girls who are taking care of our animals (thank you!) Well, guess what? They had sent him a picture of a baby poult that was evidently born to one of our hens. What a surprise! The turkeys have now received a pardon. Now we will just have to see if that poult will survive, but we are very happy to know that a natural reproduction was finally successful! The kids can’t stop talking about it.

As we drive, we seem to be bringing the rain with us. It has rained the past two nights while we were in Cumberland Gap, and it has rained a lot on the way home. I’m sure the rain will be welcome in the Carolinas as this time of year there isn’t always a lot of it. Of course, while it is raining, we get to sit in traffic. We have truly been blessed on this trip. Pretty much, until today, the only traffic that we have sat in was in a couple national parks while they were doing some road construction. However, I-40 east going into Asheville had about an hour’s worth of traffic to sit in.

When we finally make it through the traffic, we pull off at the first exit we see with a gas station. The bathroom was needed. Evidently everyone else had the same idea as the gas stations just by the exit ramp were packed. We drove a little further down the road so that we could actually find a place to park at the gas station (you need a good bit of room to maneuver when you have so much vehicle and trailer). Charlie spoke with someone saying that the first gas station had around 15 women in line and about 10 men. Glad we waited until we got a little further down the road.

We continue on home with the rain coming and going. The kids began to get excited as they saw places they recognized, like the Dunkin Donuts in Hendersonville, NC where I often get them a treat when we drive up there for a day of apple picking. As we drove up our highway, it was good to see things that felt so familiar. I had been feeling that I wasn’t ready to come home, but it was feeling good now. Then we all saw it, the place that we have called home for over three years now, our homestead that we have all put so much of ourselves into. We were finally there – we were home.    Blessings,

Rebecca

Playing in a stream along a trail

That A/C last night sure did feel good! We all slept well and got up ready to do some exploring of Cumberland Gap. After breakfast, we drove to the Visitors’ Center to sign up for a couple tours that we wanted to do. Unfortunately, due to federal budget cuts, they have had to cut back on the number of tours that they offer every day and all the tours were full. (Note to self: This is one of the problems that you encounter when you don’t plan trips in advance, especially when you have a lot of people to include in a tour.) So the rangers gave us a couple other ideas of trails to take and things to do. We headed off for a trail.

As the kids got out of the car for our hike, I noticed that Dominic got out minus his shoes. When asked where his shoes were, he replied that he had lost them. After questioning the older child that was specifically told to make all littles had shoes, we realized that he didn’t complete his task either. Not willing to go back to the campground, we put Dominic into the backpack and let him be carried for a little while. Eventually, he wanted to get out and walk. As we weren’t on a long hike, I made him walk in his barefeet the whole way back as a natural consequence. He walks barefoot everywhere at home, and even 4 year olds can learn from natural consequences. We hiked up to a cave and were amazed at the natural air conditioning emanating from its entrance.

View of Fern Lake from Cumberland Gap National Park

I’m finally seeing rhododendrons in bloom in the wild.

Nicholas and AnaClaire ready for a hike.

Dressing up at the Cumberland Gap National Park Visitors’ Center

Dominic dressed up as a pioneer boy

After our hike, we returned to the campground for lunch. The kids were all moaning about “peanut butter and jelly again?” but when you don’t eat meat on Fridays and you are having quick lunches, PB&J is an easy, go-to meal. We all climbed back into the van for a little driving. In the hopes that some littles would sleep in the van, we ran a couple errands: a quick oil change and picking up charcoal for grilling dinner. Next we took the pinnacle drive up a steep, narrow road to an overlook where you could see the surrounding areas as well as the point where the three states of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia meet. The kids all thought it was neat to drive into three different states in a matter of about two minutes. We finally went back to the Visitors’ Center to see the film about Daniel Boone. They had a nice dress-up area for the littles, which kept them occupied for probably thirty minutes. I sure would like to have some dress-ups like that at home – nice quality wool coats, linen shirts, wool trousers, and wool tricorn hats for the boys. The girls had some really cute hats and cotton dresses along with wool capes. There was also a craft center and a gentleman demonstrating his craft of broom making. I bought a beautiful piece of pottery as a little remembrance of this trip.      We headed back to the campground for our dinner of grilled salmon with mango salsa and broccoli. We were going to finish our last night on this trip eating well. The kids even had s’mores for dessert. We all had a little down time in the campground, just enjoying the outdoors. It is hard to believe this is our last night of our trip of blessings – I guess all good things must come to an end. We will be home tomorrow.

Dominic eating a s’more

The results of Dominic’s s’more: sticky hands. He thought it was funny, as we all did, to stick his hands to his face and pull his cheeks out.

Ryon, just one of the family pyromaniacs

S’mores are enjoyed by all except Charlie and I. We opted instead for an all-fruit sweetened Larabar – no sugar for us!

Some people are even happy with cooked-to-a-crisp marshmallows!

Damien, with a large branch that he was attacking me with and laughing about it.

Nathanael enjoying his chocolate

As a side note, Happy Birthday to my dad and my sister, Karen! (Of course, this is a day late when I finally get it posted.) Blessings, Rebecca

It is official: we won’t be camping at WalMart anymore on this trip. It is just way too hot to camp without the electricity required to run the A/C. Yes, I am spoiled. I guess air conditioners are why God put me living in the 20^th and 21^st centuries. And if I ever did live off-grid, it would be in a cooler and less humid region of the country than where I live now. The humidity of the South is just horrible combined with the summer heat.

We finally pulled into a Sam’s Club in Bowling Green, Kentucky last night. We quickly put everyone to bed – AnaClaire in just a diaper because it was stifling outside and inside the camper. We opened all windows as well as the roof vents, but I had a hard time sleeping because it was so hot.

View of Kentucky in Mammoth Cave National Park. I’m so glad to see hardwood forests again!

The night eventually ended, and we quickly got up and into the van to get cool and leave. We drove the 45 minutes or so to Mammoth Cave. We had talked of taking turns doing a tour of Mammoth Cave because that would allow us to not take little ones into the cave, but we nixed that idea so that we could get on the road a little quicker. We took the 2 hour Domes and Dripstones tour which took us to the “new” entrance of the cave (built in the 1920s). This required descending about 280 steps into the cave. These passages were fairly narrow, but our guide explained that most of them were natural passages that we were descending through. Only a little blasting had to be done to put that entrance into the cave. The tour opened up into some great big rooms, and we did eventually get to see some beautiful flowstone, stalactites, stalagmites, and other formations. AnaClaire did better on this tour, mainly because I let her get down and walk around some. We all thoroughly enjoyed the tour. Our tour guide even surprised us all by telling us the zip code of our town when we told him where we were from.

Dominic pouting after not getting a ticket to take the Mammoth Cave tour (he was free)

Mammoth Cave

Mammoth Cave

Due to the horrible humidity, we even opted to not have a picnic. Instead we started driving east again deciding that we would stop for lunch later. However, a later lunch never came. We had granola bars and apples and such in the van. We just kept driving until we finally made it to Cumberland Gap. At Cumberland Gap, we quickly chose a campsite, turned the A/C on and went out to dinner. Afterwards, we came back and relaxed at the campsite for a while. I was trying to get some knitting in so that I could finish up my project sometime in the not-to-distant future. The littles were all filthy after playing for a while, so we took them for some showers. Before we knew it, it was bedtime on the last leg of our trip of blessings.

Games at the campground

Blessings,

Rebecca

Kids’ Corner:

Alex: I want to go back to the Wild Mustang Preserve or to Yosemite. I love waterfalls so that is one of the reasons I want to go back to Yosemite. That one time when they locked the road we had like an 8 hour drive to get back to the campground. Yosemite was my favorite. The Ingalls’ homestead was also neat. Before we went there, I always thought that Silver Lake was a lake, but it is really more like a bog. Making the jump rope was my favorite thing we did at the homestead. One person holds one end of the baling twine and another person spins the little machine that the twine is attached to at hooks. When each piece of twine gets very twisted, then they start braiding together.

My favorite thing at the Wild Mustang Preserve was going on the tour. We stopped and got off the bus in a couple places and were able to pet the horses. I just thought it was cool to see the mustangs there. I’m a little nervous around horses, but I did pet some of the mustangs. Something else that was cool was seeing the petroglyphs. The guide asked us questions about what we thought the carvings were pictures of. One carving kind of looked like a snake, but it also could have been a river.

Amelia

We left our campground a little before 10:00 this morning without a real destination. We wanted to head east towards Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, although we have no idea if we will be stopping there. We had to stop three times in the first three hours for bathroom breaks. I think I am going to ban Charlie from any more iced tea.

After our lunch stop, we were close to the border of Missouri and Kentucky and Illinois. We pulled out of our lunch stop heading in the wrong direction, so we had to turn around. We took another road to take us on the bridge over the Mississippi River. While driving down that highway, we observed lots of cropland that had been planted in wheat. The wheat had been harvested and the straw cut and now they were burning the cropland. There was the pungent smell of smoke permeating the air. The next thing we know, we saw a sign stating that the bridge for our highway into Illinois was closed and to take a different highway. After a couple more miles we discovered that we were actually going to have to turn around to take that other highway. There was no detour to take us to that highway – we just had to figure it out on our own. Well, we finally made it to that highway and crossed the Mississippi River and then the Ohio River.

Burning the wheat fields

Now that we were finally in Kentucky, we started following the directions for the highways that I wanted to take (read “not interstate”). After just a couple minutes, I realized that there was a road that could cut off some mileage for us, so I wanted us to turn around. We pulled into a scenic overlook to turn around and realized that it was an overlook of the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. There was a huge cross there at the overlook, so we decided that it was a good opportunity to stretch our legs and take a look.

Fort Jefferson Cross at the Confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers

The confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers

A little bit later, we hopped back into the van and began heading in the correct direction. I worked on my blog posts for a while; Charlie was following the GPS. A little later he asked me a question about directions. I looked at the map and realized that we were going in a totally different direction than what I was planning on. I had assumed the GPS was taking the route that I wanted (a southeasterly direction) when in reality it was taking us a northeasterly direction. We decided at Paducah to start going south to pick up the highway that I wanted to take (we took this highway 5 years ago and loved it). I decided not to rely on the GPS anymore because it wasn’t taking us the way I wanted to go and turned it off.

We took that highway all the way south to a cute little town called Mayfield. In Mayfield, we began looking for the highway that was going to take us east. We found the sign and turned in the direction of the sign. To make a very long story shorter, the signs were a disaster, and we had to turn around two more times before we were finally able to get on the road we wanted. Finally, we were on the road that would take us toward Mammoth Cave.

Amelia and Dominic

We were happily bee-bopping down the road that we wanted to be on when we saw a bridge coming up that was under construction and a detour sign for our highway and the direction we were going. There was no notice – just a quick detour sign to send us north. We quickly turned. When we looked over our shoulder, it appeared that there were vehicles travelling from a westerly direction across the bridge and it appeared that there may have been one car crossing the bridge coming from our direction. We decided to keep going in the direction that the detour sign pointed us. The next bridge to cross that river was 20-something miles to the north. We drove up there only to realize that we were going to end up taking the same highway that the GPS tried to put us on from right after we crossed into Kentucky at the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. We had basically just completed three sides of a rectangle and added hours to our day. I finally gave up and decided that God must want us to go this way for some reason. There was no way I was going to try to put us back on the highway I wanted to take when we had been taken off it three times for various reasons. We gave up on all ideas of stopping to make dinner somewhere and went and bought sandwiches in Arby’s.

After buying dinner, we were back on the road driving with our destination of Bowling Green. We had about 2 hours more of driving time. We sat back to enjoy the ride and let the long day roll off our backs. I was doing some deep breathing to get rid of the stress that I was experiencing from all the extra time we had had to spend in the van. I finally mellowed out just in time to come into Bowling Green. We had turned the GPS on because I was done with trying to get us there for the day. We were just going to rely on the GPS for now. The GPS said to get off on exit 2B. I looked at the sign and saw 2B and told Charlie that this is where we needed to exit because the GPS said so. He had to really hit the brakes before he missed the exit, but he made it. Just after we took the exit, the GPS told us to get off the interstate in 14 miles. Evidently, the GPS should have told us to take 2A because the A exit was going northbound, the direction that we wanted to go, and the B exit was going southbound. In the GPS’ defense, it did show us that we should have taken the next clover leaf exit, but it said and displayed “Exit 2B”. So much for relying on the GPS. Now we had to drive another 14 miles before we would even reach the next exit to be able to turn around. Another ½ an hour out of our way. Will this drive never end? What a day! I know there are blessings to be found in this, but I believe I will wait until tomorrow to try to be able to find them.

Blessings,

Rebecca

The raised bed gardens at Bakersville

We started our explorations in the Ozarks by driving to Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds in Mansfield, Missouri. I have purchased several seed packets from them in the past year or two and have really enjoyed their company. I highly recommend them: www.rareseeds.com Their Rocky Top lettuce mix is delicious! We ate those lettuces all winter long. Anyway, I had read that they had built a little pioneer village there (and that it was FREE!), so we decided to go check it out. The first thing that we encountered when we arrived was a beautiful raised bed garden. We were able to walk around on it (the paths were all paved with what appeared to be slate tile). There were flowers, herbs, small trees, lettuces, and such planted throughout as well as a beautiful fountain with fish pond. Charlie and I were so impressed with it and would absolutely love to do something along those lines at our home. It was gorgeous and so functional. The kids loved running around, and we had to keep an eye on some of the littles to keep them from swimming in the fish pond (and changing clothes in the monkey house – haha! I guess it would have been the chicken house there.)

Dominic petting a sheep

The pioneer village was a lot of fun to see. They had built a building that was a hotel/restaurant. I don’t believe there were actually rooms to sleep in, but there was a vegan restaurant where we ate lunch. The kids weren’t so sure about the menu as there were only two choices, and they didn’t include hamburgers, pizza, chicken fingers or grilled cheese. The choices were hummus with flatbread and veggies or roasted cauliflower with lemon and capers pasta. The kids are very familiar with hummus, so most of them chose hummus with flatbread. I, on the other hand, tried the cauliflower with pasta. It was delicious. Charlie was able to get a mixture of the two: roasted cauliflower and other veggies with hummus. The kids all gobbled up the hummus and flatbread as well as some of the veggies. Isaac had chosen the pasta and ate all of it. Most of the people in the restaurant worked for the seed company and were dressed in pioneer clothing. That was a fun and healthy experience.

Charlie and Damien

In the pioneer village, they also had a general store where they had a couple things for sale, an apothecary where we found various herbs, teas, and handmade soaps for sale, another building where they had pioneer clothing and such for sale, a blacksmith shop, a jail, and various barns. We had a lot of fun and bought a couple things. The girls so wanted me to buy them pioneer dresses, which were beautiful but way too expensive, so instead I bought a pattern so that I could see about making some dresses, bonnets, aprons, and pinafores. Isaac, Dominic, and Damien all received coon-skin caps (I’m not planning on going coon hunting any time soon or skinning any coons to make coon-skin caps). We finished by going to the seed store where I was able to buy some Lady Pea seeds that they had been out of when I placed my order in the early spring. Nicholas found a watermelon that he wanted to grow (and will share exactly 1 with our family J), and Nathanael bought a few sorghum seeds because he has been begging us to be able to grow some sorghum this summer. I believe doing some more planting will be one of the first things we do next week after we get home.

After Bakersville, we drove to Ava to do some grocery shopping and stopped at the local Ava Drug Store to buy ice cream for the kids at $.25 per scoop. At one scoop per child, we walked out of there having spent less than $3 on ice cream for everyone, although I added on a tip for the mess that we made sitting at the counter.

Next we drove around through the Ozark countryside for a while. While driving, we stumbled across a sign that said Assumption Abbey, so we ventured 5 miles down a dirt road looking for this monastery. We finally found it, and Charlie and I quickly went in to visit for a few minutes before the Blessed Sacrament. Nothing else appeared to be open for us to see, so we glanced around the grounds and left. On the way back to the campsite we drove through yet another big rainstorm. It finished just before we reached the campground. Charlie began cooking stir fry for dinner, and I took the older five children to venture into a cave on the property next to the campground.

Assumption Abbey – a Trappist Monastery

We found the owners of the property next door to check-in with them about the cave. They told us that if the creek inside the cave reached waist-high, we probably didn’t need to venture any further as the water level in the cave may get too high. I told them that we weren’t wearing bathing suits, and I wasn’t going to do a bunch of wet laundry, so we wouldn’t be going that far in. We ventured down to the cave where we found a creek flowing out of it. In we went. There wasn’t a whole lot of dry dirt to walk on; it was mostly creek flowing through the middle. Since we had all put on our sandals appropriate for water (except Annette who somehow missed that message and wore tennis shoes) we walked through the water deeper into the cave. The deeper we traipsed, the lower the roof of the cave became. Most of us were walking quite hunched over. We reached a long tunnel part and decided to keep going. However, we didn’t get very far before I (who was in the lead) started slipping some in the silt of the creek. It was at that point that I decided we should turn around as I didn’t want one of us to slip and hit our head on a rock. Supposedly, if we had continued a little further, the cave would have opened up into a nice big room. However, it has been a long time since I have been caving without the benefit of being in a tour cave. Not having my dad with me (as I did when I was caving in Alabama) meant that I was in charge and responsible for everyone else. Maybe I’ll have a little more gumption the next time. Ryon saw a bat hanging from the ceiling while we were in there; at first I refused to look at it because I remember getting freaked out in the cave with my mom when I was young, but I finally summoned the courage to at least look at it on the way out of the cave. We sure did have fun doing that. It brought back a lot of memories of my childhood in Alabama, and I sure am glad that we ventured in a little. Hopefully that experience built some more great memories for the kids as I know it certainly did for me.

The cave in Mansfield, Missouri

Alex, Nicholas, Annette, Ryon, and Nathanael in the opening of the cave

Blessings,

Rebecca

Such a pretty girl

We left Lewis and Clark State Park and started driving south towards southern Missouri. The drive went without any problems, and we pulled into Mansfield, Missouri around 3:30. Mansfield was the home of Almanzo and Laura Ingalls Wilder from the 1890s until both of their deaths. We visited here 5 years ago, but several of the younger kids didn’t remember that trip, so we decided to stop again. Annette really wanted to see Charles Ingalls’ fiddle. We had passed an RV park, the Laura Ingalls Wilder RV Park, just before arriving at the Wilder homestead, so we eventually pulled in there to camp for a couple days. The Ozarks won my heart when we drove through here 5 years ago, so I was excited to be able to spend a little time here exploring.

Wilder home in Mansfield, Missouri

It had temporarily stopped raining when we pulled in to the Laura Ingalls Wilder museum and home. We went through the museum seeing many of the belongings of the Wilder family, as well as many things that belonged to Rose Wilder Lane as an adult, and then toured their home. It was interesting to hear that Laura had been just 4’11” and Almanzo just 5’4”. They had built their kitchen cabinets to be short to work better for Laura’s height. Interestingly enough, they had originally lived in a small log cabin, and when they built a larger home, they had put the kitchen from their log cabin on skids and pulled it over to the location of their new home and attached the old kitchen to the new home. Over the years they added on to their home a little at a time to make quite a nice-sized home for themselves. Their daughter, Rose, eventually purchased a home kit from Sears and Roebuck catalog. This home would normally have cost just $2000 to build in the early 1920s, but Rose added so many upgrades that it cost her $11,000. She even ran electricity to the home from the nearby town of Mansfield. That added an additional cost of $3000, an enormous sum in those days. Laura and Almanzo lived there from 1928 until 1936, when they moved back to their farmhouse that they had built themselves.

Sunset in the Ozarks

After the Wilder homestead, we pulled into the RV park, set up camp, and the kids ran for the playground. The two kids who live at the RV park came running out to play when they saw other kids to play with, so everyone was thrilled to have some new playmates. We made dinner, the kids played, and I went and visited with the owners of the Laura Ingalls Wilder RV park. It was such a nice, quiet campground. The owner gave us some recommendations of inexpensive things to do in the area, so we planned to take advantage of some of those suggestions the next day. Ryon and I went out and just drove around for a little while as I love to be able to see an area and turn down various roads to just see what I can see. I also had to pull into a realty office and pick up one of their booklets as I enjoy looking to see how much it costs to buy property in an area. This part of Missouri is fairly inexpensive, maybe even less expensive than our part of the Carolinas. I went to bed dreaming of our explorations for the next day.

Dominic lost in thought

Fog in the Ozarks

Blessings,

Rebecca

Nicholas and AnaClaire

We began our morning at a WalMart in Sioux City, Iowa. As it was Sunday, we looked up nearby Masses on our MassTimes app (that is SO handy!). We decided on a Mass at St. Michael in South Sioux City, Nebraska (Sioux City is in 3 different states – Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota (where it is North Sioux City).) It has been so interesting to attend Mass in so many different places, visiting with the people of each parish and seeing how different each church can be. It also does make me miss our beautiful St. Michael parish, wonderful priest, Fr. Buettner, and our fellow parishioners simply because we have such a wonderful parish in ALL ways! After Mass, we did some shopping, changed clothes, went to the bathroom multiple times, bought the necessary caffeine required for the day (for adults ONLY), and started driving.

Yes, he is still paying attention to the road

As I favor the backroads, we chose a US highway to drive south on that supposedly followed the Missouri River and was a scenic drive. Well, I believe we glimpsed the Missouri right after we got on that highway and then never saw it again while we were on it. We did, however, drive through some nice, small towns and see lots of farms as this was definitely more Big Ag country (lots of Round-up Ready corn being grown in that area). We were heading down to Atchison, Kansas, which is on the Missouri River, so we tried to continue to follow the river. We started down a smaller state highway near the border of Missouri and Kansas. This was not a busy highway at all. After we made it into Kansas, we saw the river fairly close to us, and we were all excited to finally be travelling where we could see the river. However, we didn’t go much further before we suddenly encountered a Road Closed sign. There was absolutely no warning; there were just barricades with a Road Closed sign. Fortunately, there was no one else on the road around us, so Charlie somehow managed to turn the van and camper around and begin heading back the way we came. I started looking on my phone, which fortunately had a signal, and managed to find a different road that it appeared we could take. We turned on there and eventually turned on our GPS to take us a different way (we would have turned it on earlier, but we were afraid it was just going to take us back to the road we had just left). Well, that was a real opportunity for driving down some big time back country roads, some of it was even through the Iowa Tribe Native American reservation. We finally made it back to civilization and Atchison, Kansas, where we were all in desperate need of bathrooms.

Annette with AnaClaire

Can you tell who likes getting her picture taken?

After gas and bathroom breaks, we drove up to Benedictine College to see the campus and view the Missouri River from the cliffs where the monastery is located. It was a beautiful site. We all enjoyed some running around time out of the van (Charlie wrestled with a couple of the boys – they all needed to get that out of their systems, Charlie included!), and then got back in to drive to our campsite. We drove over the river into Missouri to Lewis and Clark State Park where we also stayed when we visited Atchison 5 years ago for a friend’s wedding. We let the kids play on the playground while we fixed dinner, but the mosquitos were so bad that we didn’t keep them outside for very long. We even managed to get laundry done, and then it was off to bed for all of us. It had been a long day of driving without much play, but it had been a good day.

The Missouri River from the campus of Benedictine College

Benedictine Abbey overlooking the Missouri River

Damien and Dominic getting some of their male wrestling needs released

Blessings,

Rebecca

The covered wagon ride

Today was the day! I have always wanted to go to De Smet, South Dakota and visit the Ingalls homestead there. When we pulled into WalMart last night, we realized that we were now back on Central Time, so we had lost an hour. We stayed up way too late, so we slept in a lot later than we were hoping. We pulled out of WalMart around 9:00 a.m.(our goal had been 8:00 – it took a little while longer because Charlie and Ryon had been clowning around and had somehow broken Ryon’s top bunk in the camper, so then Charlie had to fix it.) We drove to De Smet and went to the homestead. A lady there explained to me that there was a museum in town that would take us to some of the buildings that the Ingalls family had lived in, so we decided to do that first. We were able to drop our camper at the homestead since we would be going downtown De Smet, and they had a big festival and parade going on there that day.

The kids in one of the barns

When we arrived downtown, we were able to park easily. Charlie took the younger kids across the street to play at a park while I signed us up for a tour. The older kids and I spent time looking around the museum they had there, and then we all went out for the tour. We saw the Surveyor’s House, which is where the Ingalls lived during their first winter in De Smet. Then we were able to see an older school like the school Laura would have attended as well as a small school that would have been like the school she taught at. Next we had to drive (following the tour leader) to the home that Charles Ingalls built for his family in town after Laura was married. However, due to a parade for the local festival they were having, we were delayed a bit. We had to stop and wait on the parade. While we were watching the parade, the people in the parade generously threw a ton of candy our direction. We ended up with a grocery bag full of candy. Just what we needed! Candy for children who are riding in the car multiple hours every day! The kids were so excited. I just groaned every time more candy was tossed in our direction. AnaClaire got a small Twizzlers that kept her happy for quite a while. They all did well and didn’t overdo it.

The covered wagon ride

The kids waiting to use the functional, two-seater outhouse. I even locked the outer lock on Ryon for a little bit. I used to see them do things like that on the Little House TV show, of which I have seen all episodes!

Ryon thinks we need to install a windmill to pump our water and save us money.

The kids in the back of a covered wagon.

After the in-town tour, we drove out to the homestead. Thank goodness this was a good place for them to all run around and burn off their energy from the candy. We ate lunch, saw a short video, and went outside to see the property. The Ingalls family received 160 acres from our government via the Homestead Act. Charles and Caroline Ingalls had 5 children of which 4 lived to adulthood.  Of those 4, only Laura had biological children, a son who died as an infant and a daughter who lived to adulthood.  The daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, only had one stillborn child, so there are no direct descendants of the Ingalls family.  Assuming I understood correctly, none of the original buildings from the Ingalls’ homestead still existed. However, the people who own the property now had brought in old buildings from other locations and maybe built some of them in order that we could see the size and manner in which these late 1800s buildings were fashioned. We saw a dugout home, a homestead shanty, a sod-roofed barn, a huge wood barn, an old schoolhouse, and a home that would have been about the size that Charles Ingalls had eventually built for his family on their homestead. There was a lot of information and references to the books that Laura had written. In the school, the kids were able to dress up in period hats and sit at the desks and listen to a teacher talk about school in the late 1800s. They were also able to take horse or pony rides, and we all rode in a horse-drawn wagon. They all were able to take turns making jump ropes from a little machine with baling twine and making corn-cob dolls (or super-heroes for the boys). Needless to say, we all had a wonderful time. It was a very full day. We had thought that we would finish here in a morning, but there was so much to do that we spent the whole day there and left happily exhausted and full of smiles.

Dominic and Amelia sitting in the school listening to the teacher (Dominic never sits that still)

Damien on horseback.

AnaClaire playing the organ

Alex on horseback.

Blessings,

Rebecca

Charlie and I just found out a couple days ago that Ryon had two Religion tests and two papers that he still needed to turn in to

The Badlands

finish his Religion course and that they are due Monday (June 15). Needless to say, we have been insisting that Ryon spend the time needed to finish his work, so he got up early this morning and Charlie took him to find a wifi connection to send in a paper and a test. Now he is half way done.

The Badlands

After they returned, we hooked everything up to pull out. I was nervous about whether we were going to be able to get out of that campground. This part of South Dakota usually gets around 12 to 15 inches of rain per year. The campground owner was telling us that they had had 12 inches of rain in the past two weeks. The ground was pretty saturated when we arrived in the Black Hills – we saw large puddles of standing water in many areas (and having 6 boys means that lots of them walked right through those huge puddles – all those wet shoes make for some really stinky feet!). Well, it rained all day on Thursday leaving the roads in the campground muddy. Our campsite was situated toward the bottom of a hill, so as soon as we turned out of our site we were going to have to go uphill in the mud. I was worried we weren’t going to get the speed and traction we needed to get out, but fortunately we had no problems. Thank you, God!

We got out on the road, heading to the Badlands. We weren’t exactly sure what the Badlands were but had heard they were beautiful (I can’t seem to find my AAA book for the Dakotas, so I haven’t been able to read much about anything in the area). We finally found a good map so that we could drive through as much of the Badlands as possible, so we pulled onto a dirt road. As we drove down that road, we saw very few cars. In a little while, we realized why – the road was closed. We turned on another road that led us out and around some of the park. We finally got back into the park and began a scenic drive. The drive was gorgeous. It was amazing to see the beautiful sandstone formations of many colors, often with bison roaming through them. The formations really looked like giant sandcastles. The sandstone appeared so fragile; it looked as if it would crumble apart if you tried to walk or climb on it. I could easily understand how the elements have eroded these formations to be what we see today. The film we saw said that the Badlands could totally disappear in 50,000 to 100,000 years due to erosion. We had a picnic, visited the Visitors’ Center, did the Jr. Ranger program, and finished our drive through the Badlands. I am so glad we decided to drive through there, and we all wished we had had more time so that we could do some hiking while we were there.

The Badlands

Back on the interstate heading east we drove through flat southern South Dakota seeing large farms for as far as the eye could see. We finally got off the interstate and drove to the town of Huron, SD for more Wal-Mart camping, not far from De Smet where we planned to visit the Ingalls Homestead, the setting for the majority of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books.

Blessings,

Rebecca