Cheese, Trees and Square Clouds

Whew!  What a day.

We started early, leaving Oak Forest, Wisconsin behind, and headed north toward Wausau.  Leah commented that it is illegal to be up before the sun is, but grandma set the alarm for 7:45.  <G>  According to Leah we chicago'd-away because Ill-a-noid-us.  (Yes, these are the conversations we are having.  LOL )

Now, what would a trip to Wisconsin be without cheese?  Pointless, right?  Not too far along our path we found the Cheese Castle.  Inside was a wonderland of cheese (and cows)!  We bought a bag of cheese curds and caramel corn on the cob (which Leah promptly devoured).

And, not to forget the Ingalls in this modern world of plenty, I also picked up Venison jerky and Elk summer sausage.  I'll..er...give you a report on those once I have tried them.  I figured tomorrow's visit to Laura Ingalls' birthplace would be the time to do it!

We hadn't gone very far when Leah shouted out that the Kristmas Kringle Shop was coming up, so off road we went to check out Kristmas (with a K) in July.  Oh my....

I'm not sure Pa, Ma and the girls could wrap their heads around this.  Laura and Mary got a little bit of white sugar, mittens, and a tin cup for Christmas and counted themselves blessed.

Next we went to Schofield, WI and drove through the hometown of Chris O'Flyng (YouTuber) and then spent the latter part of the day in Wausau, WI, which I must say is a beautiful town and where Luke Korns is from.  The Wisconsin River runs through it and we found a little park with paths beside it and walked for about a mile.  Along the way we saw a doe and, one of my favorite things, Scottish Thistles.

 
We ended the night with a visit to the Wisconsin Center Mall and then traveled to our hotel in Rothschild where we had the entire pool and sauna to ourselves!  Now there's something Pa Ingalls would have liked to have at the end of a long day.  Tomorrow we head to Lake Pepin and Laura Ingall's birthplace, plus we are going to take a look at the lake.

Oh, yes, I forgot to mention the square clouds.  From the moment we crossed the state line, all of the clouds (almost all) in Wisconsin have been flat bottomed with shadows and a lot of them are square!

Anyone out there know if something is going on?????

And we're off! (in more ways than one....)

Our journey to Wisconsin will be approximately 10 hours.  We drove 5 of it tonight.  We picked up the rental car about 5:00 and hit the road.   (Note picture - neither of us are any good at looking at the sun!)

Not too many adventures today though we did see a building in Indiana that looked like a giant candle and invented a new word 'oinkle'.  According to Leah the proper way to use it is 'Dang, man!  Look at that purty oinkle!.  For your information 'oinkle' is the word to describe the colors of the sunset (orange, pink, and purple).

We also experienced a bit of what the Ingalls must have felt traveling at night over the open prairie with nothing but the stars to guide them when we realized we didn't know how to turn the car lights on.  (Imagine, they were not automatic!)

Oops!

We're in the hotel room now and ready to call it a day.  I am amazed to think that we covered 292 miles today.  What took us 5 hours most likely would have taken the Ingalls, at 10 - 12 miles a day, nearly a month - and that would be traveling straight through with no stops.  Technology can be amazing, but then again Pa and Ma and the girls would have traveled alone to the clop of the horses with an oinkle sky above them and prairie and mountains surrounding instead of battling 6 lane traffic at 70 miles an hour.

Anyhow, we head to Wisconsin tomorrow and our first destination.  We'll tell you all about it tomorrow night.

T-Minus One Day and Counting

Okay, I feel like Charles Ingalls laying in supplies for the cross-country trip to Kansas.

In our modern world, we can buy it, pack it, use it, and then buy it again.  Of course, the Ingalls had no such luxury.  What does that do to a person?  In my opinion it makes modern man less cautious, less thrifty, and far less reliant on a higher power to supply their needs.  The Ingalls' trip was life and death.  One mistake - one supply forgotten, and things could have gone bad very quickly.

In other words, compared to that, our trip is a lark!

I thought about the Ingalls as I went to Meijer and Walmart with Leah and picked up - out of the thousands of choices - what we needed, put it in the basket, paid for it, and walked out.  I often wonder what our ancestors would think of this modern world and all its easy goods - would they be awed or appalled?  One character trait of both the real and the TV Charles Ingalls was that he provided for his own - no handouts, no taking and always giving.  Now, that trait can be prideful as well as showing strength - and I imagine Charles had a bit of both, but - for the most part - it shows the spirit of our early self-sufficient and hard-working ancestors.

I always say I would go back to the 19th century in a heartbeat, and I mean it.  But there is another side - during the long hard winter the Ingalls had no food or fuel due to a long series of blizzards. Charles had to fear his family would starve.  We have a hard winter?  When I was a kid we lived in the country.  We had a hard winter with a blizzard that left seven feet of snow piled up against the house.  What did we do?

Someone came out on a snowmobile and brought us food.

Makes you think.


 

 

Stalking takes a lot of planning

Its interesting how reality and fiction dovetail at times.  (All too often in my life!)  Many moons ago, or so it seems, I was recovering from surgery.  I had to spend endless hours on the sofa and one night I got to thinking about a Bonanza episode I had loved as a kid and wondered if it could find it on YouTube.  I checked and - lo, an behold - there it was, entitled 'A Matter of Circumstance'.  It was what is called an SJS episode (suffering Joe syndrome), and I was propelled back into my childhood when I would just wait for the episodes where Little Joe would get hurt.

We won't go there...LOL

Anyhow, I then looked further and discovered almost all of the 14 seasons of Bonanza were online and available on DVD.  I now own all 14 seasons and admit, yes, I am obsessed.  Mostly with Little Joe, though I enjoy watching him now upright as well as in bed with a bullet wound. <G>

Anyhow, the next step was to rediscover the TV show, Little House on the Prairie.  I watched it as a teen and early twenty-something, but not that faithfully.  I picked up all nine seasons and began to enjoy the stories as an adult in a way I never did as a younger person.  In other words I was not waiting for all the SCS episodes (yes, suffering Charles syndrome LOL).

Then, as I continued to watch, I became curious about the Little House on the Prairie books, which I had never read.  You see, I was weaned on Shakespeare (yes, really!) and skipped kid's literature almost entirely.  That's what comes from having a mother, father, and grandmother who are all teachers.  So I sent for audio books of Laura Ingalls Wilders' Little House books and started listening. (Finding time to read is difficult, but you can always listen while doing something else.)  Next, of course, came a curiosity about the real Laura Ingalls Wilder and I moved on to the non-fiction books.

So here I am, getting more and more intrigued by this woman and her real life and thinking to myself 'I sure would like to go up to Minnesota and see where Laura was born, maybe walk the shore of Lake Pepin, see the dugout...."

This is where YouTube and my 13 1/2 year old granddaughter come in.

For a couple of years I have wanted to take a road trip with Leah.  This year, I decided, was a good one to actually make it happen since by next year (if a boyfriend comes into play), grandma might be chopped liver.  LOL  Anyhow, I asked Leah, 'Where would you like to go?', and she answers - now, get this - Minnesota!

God does work in mysterious ways.

Anyhow, she wanted to visit the hometowns of some of the young men she watches and admires on YouTube.  I said, 'Let me see if any of the Wilder sites are near there.'  They were, and on Friday we will be on our way to stalk both Charles Ingalls (real and fictional) and a bevy of YouTube boys including Luke Korns and Connor Franta.  Of course, we aren't really stalking them, but we are going to go eat in Connor's hometown pizza parlor, drive past his school and hope we maybe run into a member of his family among other things.  (The town has 4000 people in it, so its a possibility.)

We decided to drive, so there will be lots of time to bond and listen to head-pounding music and take breaks and discover things like cheese factories on the way there and back.  Once there, we are going to visit the Laura Ingalls Wilder sites including Walnut Grove and Pepin.  We will be in Wisconsin and Minnesota and I, for one, am just looking forward to the scenery.  Leah is a little nervous about the lack of civilization, but I told her take heart - there is a Starbucks outside of Walnut Grove.  <G>  Also, to give her her fill, we will be going to the....God help me...Mall of America.

Anyhow, once we hit the road, I will document it each night here.  If you are interested, be sure to subscribe to the blog so you get updates, or follow on my Facebook page where I will be posting as well.

And we're off...well...will be in three days.