Midwestern Fantasy or, A Drive Through The Middle of The Country

Jason's Mom came to visit (yep, he has family, too) during June. We gathered her up from the airport in Dallas and just kept driving north. We got caught in a whale of a storm in Oklahoma but had a pleasant night in a KOA in Checotah, OK that had a petting zoo... sort of.

Then we headed north to Kansas to visit the Laura Ingalls Wilder home (sort of) in Independence, KS. This was a GREAT stop on the trip, mostly because it was the first time we had been out of the humidity for ages - and Jason was excited to get out of the trees! Carol got to see lots of things that were in the books and her favorite thing was seeing how small everything was...these people were teeny-weeny. The tractor was NOT part of the original "Little House" equipment but it was, however, Oliver's favorite part of the trip. Isaac loved petting the donkeys.

Next we headed to Springfield, MO. Our destination was the Laura Ingalls Wilder adult home, but we also ate flying rolls at Lambert's Cafe...ouch. We also visited some "fantastic" caverns in the area.

We headed north to Nauvoo which was supposed to be our ending destination. Carol visited with her friend Debbie, Oliver pooped on Debbie's floor, and through a series of miscommunications we saw very little of Nauvoo. We did stop in Carthage, IL, however, and we had a very nice visit there.

We spent the night next to a train track and a cemetery in St. Louis - it had a KOA sign in front but we doubt it was really a KOA. We had a very nice day at the St. Louis Zoo. Oliver rode the train literally for hours, but his favorite thing was the penguin house (or was that Jason's favorite thing) where you got so close to the penguins they splash you. Isaac loved the bears eating fish. Carol was a big fan of the carousel as well as watching people trying to feed monkeys that you can't really feed and used to be birds. Long story.

After St. Louis we drifted south in a pouring, pounding, horrific rain storm to southern Illinois, western Kentucky, and on to Memphis. We stayed two nights a KOA in Marion, AK, and the whole day in Memphis at the Mud Island river park. Isaac loved the replica Mississippi River while Doris rode a river boat. We also saw Beal Street (whoa - tourist trap). Jason got chiggers.

Our final day was a sprint across Arkansas back to Texas (if anything can make Louisiana look good, it is Arkansas). Isaac got to have an icecream at Dairy Queen when we got back to Texas.

Carol drove the entire trip. Jason navigated. Boys screamed. Helen slept. Doris tried to keep the boys from waking up Helen.