July 7th: "Cheese!"

No, today's trip did not involve a trip to a cheese factory (though Erik would have been in heaven) nor did we enter the state of Wisconsin, though we were close. We did stop and "say cheese" a lot for pictures so hence the title of today's update.

It poured rain as we loaded up the van in Waterloo, IA. Perhaps we should have known this would happen from the name of the town? As you can see from the parking lot photo, they were having some localized flooding. The rain was pretty heavy heading north into upper-mid Iowa.

We stopped in Nashua, IA, to see a little brown church. www.littlebrownchurch.org

 I'm not sure of the accuracy of the information, but it makes for an interesting story and another historical marker we could check off our list. The song is called 'The Little Brown Church in the Vale'.

Further north we stopped in Mason City. This is the boyhood home of Meredith Wilson whose claim to fame is "The Music Man". 'There's going to be trouble, right here in River City'. Evidently, Mason City was the inspiration for the musical. When asked about how he created The Music Man, Meredith Willson would always speak of his hometown: "I didn't have to make up anything. I simply remembered Mason City as closely as I could. "The Music Man Square area (museum, tour of his home, etc...) didn't open until 1:00 PM and we arrived before lunch, so we just peeked in the windows and wandered the grounds.

Lunch was just south of the Minnesota border. As always, I find the things people take on the road to be interesting and amusing. At lunch we spotted an "on the go" potty. I love the toilet paper hanging out the back and had to grab my camera for a shot. It made me laugh, hope it makes you laugh too.

We found a great cornfield and snapped some shots. I believe they say "knee high by the fourth of July". As you can see from the photo, it is well above the knee. We also visited a marker celebrating the Norwegian Immigrants that came to this area near Mills Lake. Erik celebrated his Viking Heritage by standing with the statue family as they looked to the west.

Just over the border in Minnesota we turned onto Interstate 90, our road home. When we reach the end of I-90 we will be back in Seattle. We stopped in Blue Earth, MN, to take a photo of the 60 foot statue of the Jolly Green Giant. It made me want to say "ho ho ho" and eat green peas.

We are overnight in Sioux Falls, SD. We happened to pick a hotel that unbeknown st to us had an awesome kids pool. That was a real treat and the kids had a blast. What a fun surprise to head down to the pool and find all the fun water toys.

Tomorrow is a packed day with lots of sites to see, so I'll sign off for now and get some Zzz.