Heading to Wisconsin Dells. Day 1

After some months of planning, the day had finally arrived for us to go on our family vacation.  Mindy sent me a picture of one the girls' new swimming suits.

The day before we were going to leave, I watered the flowers around the house and had the sprinklers going on the grass.   I printed out a "chore" sheet for our neighbor kids who agreed to water the plants and feed our orioles.

A storm rolled through the night before we left, which added extra moisture.

See the wheat field?  They had just begun harvesting when we left.  With the rain, they would have to wait to cut more until it dried out.

We have such good memories of harvest when the kids were little.  We would go out to help Allen's parents each summer.  

I'd help Mom Graber make meals that we'd take out to the fields.  There is just something so special about eating out there!

I have digressed from the original post....going to Wisconsin Dells for our family vacation. 

We noticed that the ponds along the way had filled up due to recent rains.  Some ponds had become bone dry with the drought we've had.

Just south of Des Moines, we stopped to have a picnic lunch.

I talked with this young mother who was travelling alone with her 3 year old.  They had come from Wisconsin and were headed to Kansas, just opposite us.  This little boy was enjoying running around and out of his car seat!

We pulled into a gas station at Highway 330 on the edge of Des Moines.  My car holds 18 gallons and Al filled it with 17.99 gallons!!  We knew we were low, but didn't realize how low!  We thought we had about 30 more miles.  Usually we never let it get below 1/4 tank.  It would not have been fun to run out on the bypass around Des Moines!

Twelve hours later, we pulled into the kids' place.  Of course I had a presentation to give to Jill!  She won the Graber March Madness trophy and since I won it last year, I needed to pass it on!