Could I be the next Carol Ryrie Brink?

It seems like a long time since I wrote about our short vacation to Alma, Wisconsin, in 2009. So, I thought I should remind you where we were at before plowing in. My husband and I spent just a few days at the vacation home of one of his friends. It was a short peaceful trip with a wonderful view of the Mississippi River out the living room window.

July 28, 2009 – This morning we made the trip back to Pepin so we could go through the Laura Ingalls Wilder museum. They had some interesting stuff, and again I was afraid of getting sucked into the whole Laura thing. But I controlled myself, didn’t buy a thing.

Forty minutes later we were Laura’ed out, so we started for home. But as it turned out, another writer waited down the road.

Just in time for lunch, we discovered the Caddie Woodlawn Park. During the Civil War, Caroline Woodhouse, who was known as Caddie, was raised in this area of Wisconsin. Years later, her granddaughter, Carol Ryrie Brink was orphaned and came to live with her grandmother. Caddie told her all kinds of stories of life on the Wisconsin frontier. In the 1930’s Carol wrote a book, “Caddie Woodlawn” about her grandmother’s adventures.

On the property, was an old log cabin, along with the Woodhouse family home. Also, buried on the site in an unmarked grave was one of the Woodhouse children. Of course, it didn’t take long for my sexton husband to find what he was sure is the burial site. He walked across a little patch of different grass and a slight depression in the ground and knew someone was buried there. He tried to get me to coax me over it too, but I said that I believed him. Despite Himey’s gruesome observation, it was an interesting place.

Think anyone will every put a wayside park on the site of my childhood home? Someday I will have to tell you the story of the house where I grew up.

From a Mall to a Log Cabin

July 27, 2009, pm - Pottery Place Mall is one my favorite shopping places in the world. At one time it was where Red Wing Stoneware Company made all of its products, but once they moved to a new facility on the other end of town, a developer took over the huge old building and filled it with quaint shops and an entire floor of antiques for sale. I cannot drive through or even near Red Wing without stopping here. It is a shame, because there are lots of other things to see in this Minnesota city, but it seems I never get past this mall.

Once Himey dragged me out of there, we stopped at every historic marker and scenic overlook on the way back to Alma. Who knew there were so many places to pull over in such a short stretch of road? When we drove into Pepin one sign really grabbed me. The Laura Ingalls Wilder Birthplace Wayside. It was just a little cabin, a reproduction, but still quite cool. And I totally knew that we had to come back the next day to visit the museum.
The weird thing is that three days before, I had read an article in Guidepost magazine about a family who spent a two-month vacation visiting all the places Laura lived from Wisconsin to Minnesota to Iowa to Kansas. It would be a great trip. Something else for me to work on.

Eagles and a Rock

July 27, 2009, am - It was a quiet April morning in 1995. Maxine Anderson had just finished taking some pictures of the remodeling project inside her home along the Great River Road through Fountain City, Wisconsin. Suddenly she heard a noise similar to a freight train coming from the steep bluff behind her house. Before she could move, the house shook and the walls shuddered and groaned.

A 55 ton boulder had broken lose from the bluff above and rolled into the bedroom right behind her. Many of the other walls cracked, but only one window in the rest of the house broke. Unfortunately, all of the doors shifted so that frantic Mrs. Anderson couldn’t get out until a man who worked across the road at the Corp of Engineers broke his way in. Similar to the more famous family from the Amityville Horror, the Andersons moved out immediately, fearing another boulder would roll into their house from the steep hill. Not a bad idea, since a woman was killed in the house just next door when the same thing happened in 1901.

Maybe not a must see stop on everyone’s list, but my husband and I thought it was interesting. And admission was only a buck, on your honor. Our next stop that morning was a wee bit more expensive.

Wabasha is known for its Eagles. Along this stretch of the Mississippi River, bald eagles live year-round, but during the winter hundreds frequent this area, catching fish where the river doesn’t freeze over. The National Eagle Center features Angel, Columbia, Harriet, Donald and Was’aka, eagles who can’t fly so can never be released into the wild. Watch them for a while and you know where the phrase “eagle eye” comes from.

A Short and Quiet Vacation

July 26, 2009 - For several years now, I have thought that the coolest thing would be to type my travel journal directly into a laptop as I traveled. I love my paper journals, but I think that they are becoming obsolete. Well, maybe not. It is still great to page back through them to read what everyone’s thoughts were in their own handwriting and witness the chocolate stains or French fry grease. But I still feel that, today, on this trip, I have moved on.

I am typing into my new used laptop, maybe not as it is happening, but at least the same day, having returned to the vacation home of one of Himey’s friends, after a day of bumming around. And now I will type in our trip so far, and thus save it for all posterity, or at least until this laptop crashes.

Himey and I are in Alma, Wisconsin, to spend a couple days at the vacation home of one of his friends. The house is small but perfect for a vacation. It sits on the bluff above the Mississippi River and has a fantastic view of the river and the dam and lock.

After we arrived and unpacked, we drove up to Buena Vista Park and Overlook. What beautiful views of the river and Minnesota. Then rode around Alma a bit. Being built on a small stretch of land between the Mississippi and a bluff there isn’t much room to spread out. Pioneers to the area weren’t evidently daunted by that, they just built up the side of the ridiculously steep hill.

For dinner, we tried Julie’s Fin and Feather Inn. The name doesn’t sound so appetizing, does it? Makes me think “pet store”. I imagine chickens being plucked and fish being gutted on the patio behind the restaurant. And these animals all have names like Cluckers and Speedy and Sid. That’s why we went with pizza.

After dinner, we drove to the lock and dam (lock and dam number 4 to be exact – there are 29 of them on the Mississippi between the Twin Cities and St. Louis and 11 of them are in Minnesota). We watched several small boats go through the lock, but no barges. I can’t believe that they move that much water – it has to be tens of thousands of gallons - for just any little boat that comes along.

Back at the house, the only excitement of the day occurred. Around nine, Himey went out on the deck to check the evening weather. I was about to follow him out when he came charging back in. “Bats.” Which was way more than he should have said because then I was all paranoid that bats would sneak in and get stuck in my hair.

Ha, ha, with the purchase of that old new used laptop, I wrote the remaining travel journal entries as they happened. Which means the next few weeks, until I am all up to speed in 2011, my blog entries are pretty much already written. And before you know it, I will be off to better and bigger things in this blog. Please stay tuned for lots of change.