We're home!

We are back from an absolutely wonderful two week road trip to Iowa. It was so much fun seeing our family and friends, and even the drive to and from wasn't that bad.

We left our home early Tuesday morning and were on par for the SLOWEST START EVER with stops at Werner's school, McDonald's (because Werner got hungry after packing the car), and a detour in New River. Things picked up once we could go 80mph and we spent the night in Grants, New Mexico. Rand was quite impressed with the indoor swimming pool, and Werner made a trip to the local ER because his mild ear infection was getting worse instead of better. He returned to the hotel loaded up with meds.

We stopped at a rest stop in New Mexico where there were horse corrals. Here is Ella attempting to crawl without actually touching the ground:


On Wednesday, we stopped in Tucumcari, New Mexico to visit a dinosaur museum. It was owned by the community college and featured lots of bones that were dug up in the surrounding desert. We arrived in Dalhart, Texas, just before a huge Texas thunderstorm. Rand and I put on our sunglasses to protect us from the flying dirt and stood outside in it for a while. I was washing dirt out of my hair for days. The next morning we found a beautiful little pond behind the hotel and Rand caught a teeny tiny little frog. We had waffles for breakfast in the shape of Texas.

Thursday we left Texas and immediately after we crossed the border into Oklahoma we were stopped for speeding. Apparently the speed limit changed and Werner didn't notice. Luckily, the nice officer let us go with just a warning.

We stopped in Greensburg, Kansas, which is the site of the world's largest hand-dug well. Unfortunately, a tornado had devastated the town a couple of years ago so people could no longer walk down inside the well. It was both sad and interesting driving through the town -- it was very obvious where the tornado had hit and where it had passed by. In the picture you can see a big pole on the right side that had been completely twisted by the tornado.

There was a little park next door with three big culverts and the kids had a great time running through them.

We spent the night in Wichita and had breakfast complete with with biscuits and gravy. I did the laundry (woohoo!) and took the kids swimming in some chilly water.

This did not happen very often. But when it did, Werner and I practically cried tears of joy:

On Friday we arrived in Iowa just in time for dinner with all of the out-of-town Fisher relatives. Grandma Fisher was the first person we saw and she was so happy to see us. The church where the dinner was at was right next to a graveyard. Rand called the headstones the "golden stones." We had a great time seeing everyone and headed off to our cabin that night.