happy birthday Maca! 96 years young!

Today is Maca (jamie’s grandmother)’s birthday. It was expected to be somewhat sucky; she has been abruptly moved from one home to another, her daughter (Jamie’s mom) is very sick, and Sissy is sick (so we didn’t want to subject the kids to her). But it is a lovely sunny (though windy) day, the sky is blue and we’re all quite safe and sane. So Jamie took her out this afternoon and they both enjoyed some retail therapy. Jamie LOVES to shop and I absolutely hate it. So he and Maca headed to shopping, the kids watched Way Too Much TV and I cleaned the trailer. Well, I started anyway. In a nice surprise, instead of taking Maca back to Elinor’s house, he brought her to the motel where she opened a gift we’d purchased for her, an Amish quilt. She seems to really like it and I hope it will be a memory of a good day for her. We’ll take her to a buffet restaurant later for dinner (the kids have been fasting all day in anticipation of the event) and stuff ourselves silly. So, happy birthday, Maca, the first in a line of “el’s”. Helen, Elinor, Ellen and Merry Ellen.

coming out of teh froggy fog

The past couple days Jamie and I have been moving about as if in a fog. We’re not really “present” with the kids and are always distracted.  Today, Jamie and I started coming out of our froggies. The altercation with Aunt Ellen has affected us deeply for different reasons. Jamie is very concerned about Maca (his grandmother) and and I keep wondering if this is payback for the way we kicked Michael to the curb. Granted, we took months and months of warnings, of talking to him about our expectations and many “second” chances, and Aunt Ellen decided to kick us out in the space of minutes, but I keep worrying and wondering. I think about Michael all the time and really think we failed him. So I keep second-guessing our actions and keep wondering where he is, if he is warm and safe and healthy.

The kids, on the other hand, are so resiliant that I had begun to wonder if they’d even noticed that we’re not at the farm anymore for all they seemed to care.  The cheapie motels were completely booked the night we were frantically looking for lodging so we ended up at the Days Inn. The Days Inn has a lovely indoor pool and the kids are absolutely LOVING it. I had hoped to move to a cheapie but can’t take them away from the pool. It seemed like they didn’t even care about the farm and Jamie and I were moping around for nothing. I talked to them yesterday and found that they were all (except Ellen, who is so used to moving spontaneously that she didn’t even realize that Aunt Ellen had told us to leave) very angry at Aunt Ellen and didn’t want to have anything to do with her. We talked for a while; mostly me and the three eldest, but I hope Ellen absorbed some. We talked about not writing people off; that people make mistakes (and I goofed; Aunt Ellen was NOT drunk or drinking when she kicked us out and I made sure the kids understood that. Jamie tells me Aunt Ellen would be very upset at the kids thinking she was drunk) that she does love them and that just because someone does something incredibly stupid and hurtful, you don’t write them off. You’re very careful about how much you trust them, but especially if they are family, you simply do not write them off. So, Jesse is ok with being with her but Pikey, my black and white boy, cannot see any shades of grey in the situation. Sissy and Ellen are very negative about Aunt Ellen and do not want any contact with her. I’m hoping that with time and maturity they’ll forget or soften. I would like the kids to know their family but I will not allow any unsupervised time with Aunt Ellen. I cannot trust her with the children unless Jamie or myself are present. Since she has yet to initiate any contact, I can’t see that will be an issue.

In simply AMAZING news, however, Grandma Elinor showed up at the Days Inn, unannounced, and paid our entire bill! What an amazing gift! It was such a relief not to have to worry about getting the kids to a cheaper place and telling them the pool would be off limits. Thank you so much, Grandma Elinor!

shock and awe

What kind of person gets angry at her brother and shows it by having his family pack up and leave in the dark?  I’m still in shock.  I still can’t believe we’re at a Days Inn instead of Aunt Ellen’s farm.  I still can’t believe she and Jamie were arguing about the fact that she is the ONLY one (her sentiments) in the family who cares about family.  And I guess the way you show how much you care about family is to get angry at them, tell them to pack up and leave, and alienate your only nieces and nephews (Ellen is the only one who wants to see Aunt Ellen again).  Apparently, Aunt Ellen is very stressed out.  Aunt Ellen drinks an incredible amount of alcohol.  I explained to the kids last night that maybe she was drunk, that she does love them a lot (but I’m having trouble with the idea that someone who loves you would make you leave her house because she is mad at your dad), that she was really stressed out, but they were all completely devestated.  They really enjoy being at the farm, the love hanging out with her and the animals and had been looking forward to being with her at the farm for a very long time.

So, last night, when we should have been eating the dinner I made, we frantically tidied the trailer, stowed stuff, packed stuff away, hitched up the van in complete darkness, inched backwards down a dark dirt driveway and drove to Neenah looking for a place to stay.  We had no idea where to go and after trying a couple places ended up at the Day’s Inn.  We need electricity to run the heater as it gets quite below freezing at night here.

So I’m still in shock.  I keep turning it over and over in my head; I wasn’t around for the argument, I was in the trailer with the kids, and I can’t wrap my mind around how this can be ok.  How does she justify this?  We used not one crumb of her food, we cooked dinner for her, Maca and Nate nightly (though I found out she hates all the foods I cooked), we did use her washing machine (I told Jamie not to ), we left food in her fridge, we brought her gifts and a brand new coffee machine, how are we such terrible freeloaders and how is it ok in her mind to tell us to pack up and leave in the dark?  With 4 young children?  She has hurt the children terribly and I will NOT allow that to happen again.

La Porte, Indiana

We have been spending so much time in the Amish areas that when we moved westward today, I was shocked to find road shoulders full of debris instead of horse shit. “This certainly would not do”, was my immediate reaction until I realized that Amish buggies did not travel these roads and this is probably the normal state of shoulders in most of the US. We got to know the libraries at Syracuse, Middlebury and Shipshewana (where we spent 4 hours of a drizzly cold day) so well, that the librarians in Syracuse invited the kids for a “Sock Hop” and tried to get us to come back for a “Monster Mash”. Those crazy Indiana librarians.

The leaves are changing and changing and changing and I wish I could stop so many places to photo the leaves. The sun has been most uncooperative, however, so the urge was not strong until this morning when it made a spectacular appearance. I can’t remember the last sunny day; I suspect it was sometime in Howe. We spent two nights at the Oakwood Inn in Syracuse while Ameri-Camp worked two very full, long days repairing the slide. I have to say that it works better now than it ever did. They changed the gearing and all kinds of stuff. I’m not sure that there is anything that was NOT replaced, other than the room itself. We boondocked in Shipshe, next to the library, that night and found that the nights are simply too cold and the days too cold and grey to continue boondocking, so we found a terribly depressing “campground” and promptly got stuck in the mud. Old hands at getting stuck, we simply dropped the trailer and headed to the “Sock Hop” at the library and got unstuck this morning on our way out.

We fell deeply and terribly in love with the Bulk Food store in Shipshe (quasi-locals, we call Shipshewana by its nickname “Shipshe”). Amish food in incredible variety and incredibly low prices. We actually went back three days in a row. The roast beast (roast beef to anyone not related to me) was so tender and excellent that we got Mass Quantities to stuff into the freezer. The syrups were devoid of high fructose corn sweetner and I got mass quantities of those also. I’ve never seen such variety and quantity; where else can you find bags of colored mOOnmallows* the size of a toddler? I finally caved and purchased Amish Peanut Butter, and it is as good as it might sound.
We have moved about 100 miles west and are parked near the tollroad. This is our first sight of an interstate since we left Santa Fe, New Mexico. It is loud, it is noisy, but our blood being so thin and all, we need the juice to run the heater so we don’t wake up frozen to the core. We’re actually parked at a motel, stringing an electric cord, as the campground was so muddy we decided not to even try. Tomorrow we head for Costco (we’re almost out of BEANS (the caffeine variety) and oragnic peanut butter and many other things we probably don’t need) and then we might get to Grandma Elinor’s before Christmas.

I still can’t believe we’re heading North when the weather is already more than cold enough, thank you. We should be south. Very very very south. No, more than that. Nope, a bit more; there you go. THAT south!

* edited to please the Moon God and to keep my sanity intact.

Growing roots

We had planned to leave last Friday, waiting out winds and snow the previous two days but when we tried to put the slide in it would come in about an inch, no more. We tried all our normal tricks (we’ve had trouble with the slide since purchase) but it was no-go. We had really enjoyed our newly working slide after it got fixed at the factory but it sure was coming in a LOT differently than before. We’ve used the slide many times since leaving the factory without incident, so this was a surprise. We called the factory and they suggested doing the manual crank. Trying this resulted in horrifically bent metal beneath the entire slide. So we were most definitely stuck. You can’t travel with the slide out. AmeriCamp promised to send someone from the factory (luckilly, we’re still very close to Syracuse) out today; simply to get the slide IN. Once the slide is in, we’ll take it back to Syracuse, drop it at the factory, head to the Oakwood (again!!) and wait for repairs. So, that is where we sit. I’m beginning to think we’re the only family who can take a week to travel through Kansas and two weeks to traverse Indiana.

Real estate p0rn

This is one of the reasons we’re going “SCHWIIIIINGG” at the homes out here… Here is another; Jamie and I are crying about this one… This has lovely acerage and we love the town of Bristol… Here is another lovely Bristol home… My heart about stopped looking at this house… And if this is what they consider a “starter” home in Nappanee, well, you can just shoot me now.

It snowed today; weird for me, because I expect different weather for snow, having been in snow about twice in my adult life. It would be sunny and blue skied and snow coming sideways (due to incredible wind), then black clouds and lots of snow, the sunny and blue and snow all gone. Weird. We spent the afternoon at the Bristol thriftstore getting coats for the girls, mittens and hats for everyone and boots for the boys. I think we’re now ready for our month of cold.

After perusing a few more real estate listings, I have come to the conclusion that Jamie and I should most definitely, stay Very Far Away from Elkhart. Otherwise, we might be spending the winter in a gorgeous old farmhouse. Something like THIS one. I wonder if we could move this one to Chama?

This must be why I love him

He’s got chicken soup on the stove, just cranked the stereo and is hip thrusting to “Burning Down the House” and he knows All The Lyrics. He’s cooking up grilled cheese with the Amish cheese and bread we bought yesterday and while he is doing NOTHING the way *I* would do it, but he’s doing it, he’s listening to pure crap (i’d have NPR on), he’s dancing with the kids and he’s goofy beyond belief. And I love him.

Fat and sugar and all things refined

What with the prevalence of Amish foodstuffs and having our trailer in for service (and eating out instead of making our own) we’ve been indulging in Much fat and Much sugar and Much high fructose corn syrup and Much chocolate (we visited a candy factory in La Grange; Plyleys) and then, just when we were getting back on the road to food again, Ellen had her birthday. She wanted fried chicken and shrimp and cake and we basically filled the day with sugar and fat. Yesterday *I* had had enough. I had coffee and eggs with salsa and good whole wheat bread from the Health Food store in Goshen. Then I did YOGA. For the first time in what seems like forever, definietly since Michael came, I did Yoga. And Jamie went for a bike ride. Of course, today, I can’t raise my arms higher than my elbows…

 

We headed to the Shipshewana Flea Market to get apples and a quilt (and came away with much much more) but while shopping for Amish apple butter I got so discombobulated by the ingredients of Amish peanut butter (sugar, peanuts, marshmallow creme, fat, sugar, fat, oh, what the hell, lets throw a couple odd peanuts in, more sugar and some fat) that I completely forgot about the Apple butter. Not a problem, it is raining today and SNOW is forecast for tomorrow (Michelle emails me that it is snowing in Minnesota NOW) that we’ll stay put until the weather clears. And maybe head to Shipshe for some truly decadent Amish peanut butter. My children, should I decide to allow them the hedonistic pleasure of a sample, may never be the same again.

International "buy Amish" Day

Well, international in the sense that we’re an international family. I’ve been thinking of how I can show my support to the Amish for the tragedy in Pennslyvania. I’m being diliberately vague in the event that children are reading. I know mine do. Today we headed to the Shipshewana Flea Market (which runs Tuesday and Wednesday) and shopped at Mennonite and Amish stalls. We bought 1/2 bushel of Fuji and Honeycrisp apples, 2 loaves of bread (whole wheat), breadsticks, whole wheat pita, cinnamon rolls and bread, salt rising bread, (all the breadstuff was a dollar each), a quilt (!!!), cheese, salami and meats, little dollar stuff of which I can’t even begin to remember the specifics and beanie baby cats for the kids (the boys have begun a campaign to get a kitten to travel with us). We dropped close to $60 dollars or more (I haven’t run the tallies yet) and the headed over the border (to Sturgis, Michigan) to do enormous quantities of laundry. Yesterday we stopped at both Goodwill in Goshen and a private thriftstore in Bristol and stocked up for the kids. Again I was surprised at the prices at Goodwill. Three dollars and 50 cents for a child’s shirt??? The store in Bristol was much more reasonable and we spent about $37 there, compared to $5 at Goodwill. As long as we’re in the area, we’ll continue to shop Amish and hope it will make a small difference to their economy, and, by relation of religion, that of the families in Pennsylvania.

We are absolutely LOVING the northern Indiana countryside. Like Kansas, we never expected to spend any time here other than time waiting for the trailer to be fixed. We are loving the small Amish farms, the lovely rolling hills, the gorgeous fall colors and the quiet streams and rivers. It is absolutely beautiful here; we must have picked the perfect time to visit. There are renegade mosquitoes about and I can only imagine how fierce they must be in Summer. We have visited many of the towns in the area, La Grange, Shipshewana (aka Shipshe), Bristol, Howe, Honeyville, Goshen (a very large town) and Benton, but find that the most touristy is also the most “Amishy”, Shipshewana. There are buggies absolutely EVERYWHERE and the roads sport large, wide shoulders for their travel. It still must be absolutely nerve-wracking as the horse seem to be terribly spooked by the cars. I can’t imagine how terrifying it must be in Summer when the tourist population explodes.

Each and every day I have so much I want to record here and by the time I’m at the laptop it has all escaped. There is so much we’ve done over the past few days and many memories I wanted to record, but it is all gone. I suppose I should force myself to sit down every day, but I’m verbose enough as it is; I just might be responsible for death by boredom. The other day we celebrated Ellen’s 5th birthday. It is odd, after 12 years of babies, to have a five year old as your youngest child. She is so much a first child personality and very much like her brother Jesse.

Tomorrow we plan to visit the Indiana Dunes State Park (or National Lakeshore); dunes in Indiana? Who knew??? It is getting colder and colder and it is all I can do to keep the car pointed northward. Next year we do the Midwest in Summer. Course, then I’ll be complaining about the heat, humidity and incessant mosquitoes.

Ameri-Camp rocks our world!!

Ameri-Camp ended up footing the entire bill at the Oakwood Inn. I was absolutely astounded and shocked. According to the front desk, they do this for all their customers who bring units in for service. Just reason number 308,743 to buy AmeriCamp. We slept in so late this morning it wasn’t funny. Two days ago we had a factory tour at AmeriCamp and were up early (8am) for that and I have no idea WHY we got up early yesterday, but we made up this morning. We were rushing around trying to meet the 11am checkout time, pack, draw bath #87,641 for the girls (to be honest, the heat hadn’t been turned on at the Inn and the only way to stay warm was in the gigantic bathtub or under covers), do a load of laundry and pick up the trailer (at 11am, natch). I left Jamie at the hotel after packing almost all up and picked up the trailer. I was astounded at the work they did. We complained about the screening coming out of the door; they replaced the ENTIRE DOOR. I complained about the insulating sheathing coming apart on the electrical cord; the replaced the ENTIRE CORD. We complained about two little guides not working on the bedroom window; the replaced the ENTIRE WINDOW with a new, updated model. I could go on, but I’m sure you get the drift. They found stuff that we didn’t even complain about and fixed it! We got a brand new awning (not under warranty; the way that awnings warranties are written, I think it is about impossible to get one replaced under warranty) and love the new one. I think it is a better and stronger awning but we’ll see what Mexico has to say about it. I can’t make any complaints about their service; they went above and beyond. We stopped by to say goodbye and thank them for picking up the hotel bill and found another AmeriCamp owner in the yard who recognized our rig, knew about the website (HI! Nice man! Sorry I forgot your name) and said a lot of the reason he bought AmeriCamp was due to our experience with it. So, if you’re in the market, you can’t go wrong with AmeriCamp. We have never had a poor experience with them. Truly, they are the best. And if you get the chance, stop by Syracuse and visit them. They’ll go out of their way to please you. We’re still astounded by their excellent service.

So, we headed not too far up the road to Benton or Benson or some tiny town a little south of Goshen and tomorrow will go a bit more north to Middlesomething to a Mill. Or maybe we’ll stay here. We’re at a spillway on the Elkhart river and Pikey is certain to get some fishing in. The moon is enormously full and we are loving the Amish country. I really need to post about the fun we’ve had here in northern Indiana, but I need to sleep more. Maybe tomorrow.

syracuse, Indiana

The children do not want to leave the room. We dropped into Ameri-Camp’s parking lot late last night and carried the sleeping children from the car to the trailer and settled in. The little road next to us was amazingly busy with Semi’s and RV’s and traffic most all night long. I was amazed. For such a tiny road, even on maps, it had more traffic than the large divided highway we’d left. We slept horribly, awfully, woken by thunder and lightening and rain so loud it sounded like hail. Finally, after the morning shift arrived at 5am, we slept until 9. AmeriCamp squared away all the items on our “to-do” list as the kids packed toys and clothes for a few nights away from home. I had expected to look for a little Mom and Pop motel, hoping to spend $20-30 a night, but we’ve apparently hit the resort area of Indiana. Syracuse is surrounded by many many lakes and Amish communities and Kerry (the warranty guy) at AmeriCamp kept pushing the Oakwood Resort/Inn on us. It sounded terribly expensive to me and I was very reluctant to accept his help in making a reservation but Jamie interrupted and said we’d take his help.

It only took us a couple hours to go over the list and pack up, drop the trailer and leave but we somehow managed to leave the trailer without packing absolutely everything from it in the van.
We drove around town a bit; very very many of the homes have docks and boats tied up behind them in place of backyards, found the Post Office (where mail and a phone await me) and the library (where the Jesse wanted to immediately head to) and after getting lost only once, found the Inn. I didn’t expect to be able to check in; I just wanted to see if they had a place for the kids to swim, but they were unexpectedly ready for us. I still have no idea who is paying for the room, AmeriCamp or us, but the kids are in absolute heaven. The bathtub is larger than any tub we’ve ever seen. The room is about twice as large as our trailer, there are TWO lazy-boy type chairs, a closet the size of a bedroom, a hallway and a bathroom the size of a kitchen. I guess they make everything bigger out here. A balcony surrounds one wall of the room and an interior atrium outside our room. We have a lovely view of a lake or one lake or some lakes; there seem to be many lakes here in the Syracuse area. The kids are astounded and so excited by the luxury of it all. The very first item on order was a bath. Both girls were swimming in the extra large tub; then Jamie and Pike shared a bath and now Jesse is bathing. As the kids got somewhat hungry they started making sandwiches from the fixings I bought and were fainting with happiness when I walked in with the lunch special. Three pieces of Amish fried chicken, garlic mashed potatoes and a salad. They are now sipping coffee and Jamie and I are cleaning up the leftovers.

I doubt they will want to leave the room; it is enormous (compared to our normal home), luxurious beyond belief and so relaxing. They keep exclaiming, “it couldn’t get ANY better than THIS!” and sigh and smile and giggle and laugh and appreciate. We’ve been thanked a million times and told that we’re the Best Mom/Dad ever and as their bellies fill, they are finally slowing down…

Farmhouse havens

I spent a couple days trying to recover my budget file and have given up. For now. I’m disgusted that I never put August on the blog; if I’d done that, I would have had to re-create September only, but at it is, I now have 2 months to reconstruct. I have a vague idea of August being $2800 in expenses but it is lost now. Along with September. I have no idea how it disappeared; I had two spreadsheets open when I shutdown the computer (as I normally do) and the next time I went to open them they were gone. I keep all spreadsheets on the external drive so I can move them around from computer to computer but now I’m going to have to save everything in a few places. So all online time has been devoted to trying to recover this file and as such, postings have been scant. We’ve also been setting mileage records (for ourselves) and haven’t had time to do anything at night other than find a place to boondock and sleep. I hate traveling this way; driving to simply put miles on, but we spent so much time at the lake at Chase County (Cottonwood Falls) that in order to be only a day late for our twice-rescheduled appointment with Ameri-Camp we have to drive and drive and drive.

We obviously LOVED Chase County Ole Fishin Hole. Fishermen arrived daily at dawn and late afternoon (there seemed to be two seperate shifts) for fishing. Pike was so inspired by the fish and the prospect of getting a fish that he fashioned a pole out of a tree branch, scrounged line from the shore, found a bouy and a weight and tried and tried. He even found a rubber worm but the fish were not interested in his treat.

The rest of Kansas, from Cottonwood Falls to KC, MO was flat and windy. We had steady crosswinds and sometimes a tiny fraction of a headwind, but mostly it was a hard, driving, diesel guzzling wind. It was hot hot hot hot hot also; hard to go from snow and freezing temperatures to mid 90’s. Missouri was hilly. Roller coaster hill and valley and hill and valley. We stuck to the backroads, even trying to make up mileage and it was lovely to have Jamie in the passenger seat to navigate, get stuff for the kids and talk to. We do most of our talking while driving and had really missed that when he was driving the Westy with Michael. I oscillate between guilt that we didn’t do enough or the right thing or something that wasn’t “enough” on our part for Michael and anger at him for not trying. I think about him all the time, especially at night when I wonder where he has driven to, how he is coping and what he’s experiencing. I wonder if we’ll ever see him again…

We took highway 36 straight across the state and found an absolutely LOVELY state park in Missour in Macon. Long Branch State Park has basic camping sites for $8, electric for $14, electric and water for $15 and full hookups for $17. We decided that we were just going to sleep and if we stayed at the campground the kids would want to stay for days and days and we’re running out of weather to dawdle so much. We stopped at a wonderful playground and the kids played, we made dinner and cleaned up. While the kids played long into dusk, the campground host from the state park took it upon himself to drive by and tell us we couldn’t park there. I remembered the sign at the playground entrance notifying the public that it closed at 10pm and was about to speak up he finally got across to Jamie that we couldn’t camp the night there. I was doing an amazing impression of white trash by taking an outside shower (at the trailer) and washing my hair for the first time in over a week. I was topless, trying to get a good washing in and thought for certain he was going to tell Jamie to “get some clothes on your nekkid woman” but he never knew I was there. We drove on into the night and spent the night at the Welcome Center (to Missouri; we were about to leave) in Hannibal. I SO wanted to let the boys explore Hannibal as they have been reading and listening (on MP3) to “Tom Sawyer” and “Huck Finn” since we started our journey. They put it down and then engross themselves again, and this week has been a Mark Twain week. They were so excited as we drove through downtown this morning and I pointed out various Samuel Clemens landmarks. I really hope we get back to Hannibal to let them explore another time.

I was up at the very early hour of 7am today, make pancakes and breakfast boxes for the kids, coffee for myself and readied the car for travel. It still took us until 8:30 to leave. We drove around downtown Hannibal and marveled at all the real estate porn (I swear, houses just keep getting more and more impressive the further east we travel) and made our way across the mighty Mississippi. The kids were suitably impressed.

Today we crossed Illinois and Will finish with Indiana once we stop for the night. We are parked in an enormously flat church parking lot now, bathing the kids after dinner and I’ll drive the remaining 75 or so miles to Syracuse and the AmeriCamp factory before stopping for a good long while. We all hate traveling this way and I’m as glad to stop the mileage as the kids will be. Today we took I72 across Illinois to Springfield, where the kids are CERTAIN that the Simpons live and were not the least bit impressed at Abe Lincoln’s home. Jamie took the wheel outside Springfield and we took highway 54 northeast and fell more and more in lust with the enormous farmhouses and gorgeous enormous craftsman homes lining the streets of the tiny towns. We stopped in the town of Watseka, just before Indiana and found a lovely park for the kids to play at. I surprised them with ice-cream cones and I’m not sure anyone had lunch. If we had not yet been impressed with the real estate porn of Missouri and Illinois, Indiana has shown us that we ain’t seen nothin yet. The paint may be peeling, roofs rotting, porches falling, but the architecture, turrets, Victorians, farmhouses, old barns; they are all pure and unadulterated real estate porn. And we’re lusting more than Jimmy Carter ever considered possible. We took highway 24 across Indiana to Logansport (where we are right now) and will now head north (where we would have had a tailwind these past two days) on 25 to 31, then over 6 (or something that looks like “6″ to these old eyes) and then we’re almost there. Indiana seems to be going by so quickly; even stopping (because that’s what the road does) in each and every little town.

I’m thinking we’ll be at AmeriCamp getting repairs done for a week or so, then up to Grandma Elinor’s for Halloween. After weeks of listening to “Little House in the Big Woods” and “Little House on the Prarie”, I’m looking forward to Pepin, Wisconsin and the Little House museum.