Tom & Brenda's Family Journal

8400 miles and 22 states    In slightly over seven weeks we traveled across the US and back to Michigan.  We saw Jen in North Carolina, Kristen in Phoenix and Eric and Jess in Minneapolis.  We visited friends in Temecula and Shafter , California and Tom's cousins near Santa Cruz California.  We crossed many mighty rivers-Ohio, Mississippi, Red, Colorado, Missouri, Kansas and the Wisconsin.  We saw Hoover Dam, Hearst Castle, Midway aircraft carrier and many more wonders.  I think my favorite spot was San Juan Capistrano but everywhere we went we saw beauty and majesty.   It will take me a long time to process it all.  (and organize my pictures). We saw Mom Benedict this afternoon and she is doing very well.  Tommy, Sherry and the grand kids came over tonight for dinner.  It was so good to see them.  We missed them so much.   I'm back to work at Grand Rapids Public Schools on Friday.  It seems like a lifetime ago that I was there last but it was the day before we left on our a...

"Once upon a time a little girl lived in the Big Woods of Wisconsin in a little gray house made of logs."  That is the beginning of the Little House series of books by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  Yesterday we took a road trip and unexpectedly found the original home site of the Wilder family in the Big Woods.   We drove along the St. Croix River that separates Minnesota from Wisconsin on the Wisconsin side. Near Pepin, we found the home site of the Ingalls. This is a re-creation, I'm sure, but it was fun to imagine what life there must have been like many years ago. On the way home, we traveled along the Mississippi River in Minnesota.  It was a beautiful sunny day and everything glistened with the snow.

As you can probably figure out, my earlier blog was written by a guest blogger.  The entry mysteriously appeared while I was out in the car setting it up for a road trip.  We had to put up the back seats for a trip along the Mississppi River and I was helping Tom rearrange the tons of stuff we have in the van.  I wasn't aware of the blog until I got an indignant call from one of the other children asking, "Mom, what about your blog?"   All I need to add is, "The views of that writer may not represent the views of the management."