Day 19 - Wisconsin Dells and Laura Ingalls Wilder museum

God is so good to us. We have been tremendously blessed on this trip. Yesterday we drove a whopping 571 miles through four states and still landed farther than we had hoped and in time for a walk and shower before bedtime. To top it off, unbeknownst to me, we ended up camping within the Wisconsin Dells region (a place I had hoped we could at least drive through) at a quiet and tidy campground with virtually no one else around. A playground and the cleanest bathrooms I've yet to come across were within walking distance which enabled Joe and the boys to have a long shower with constantly flowing water (for the past 18 days, we've only been able to take Navy showers in order to conserve water). Wisconsin feels much like Idaho in terms of pace-of-life. The people we have encountered have been very friendly and the landscape is a beautiful mix of rolling hills dotted with patches of deciduous and evergreen forest. The fields were being tilled in preparation for planting and the soil was so dark that it was all I could do to not jump out and handle some of it just to feel it between my fingers :-)

I will tell you that it feels as if our RV is slowly falling apart :-) Yesterday, in addition to the refrigerator door falling off, we also had our biggest kitchen drawer come off its hinges and broke through some rough road sections (the toll road through Illinois gets our vote as the worst freeway in America). I made Joe assure me that the whole back end wasn't going to suddenly give way over a large pothole as there are times when the children are at the back end of the RV when we are driving! Needless to say, the way it sounds inside the RV as we are going over rough roads leads one to imagine this if not fear it!

We also have our first casualty -- Isabelle woke up with a terrible sore throat and is generally not feeling well today. We have literally been with thousands of people in monstrous crowds and eating many of our meals out, so it is not surprising that we might have contracted a virus. I am just so thankful that it is on this end of our journey. With extra vitamin C, saltwater, and extra rest (she's already napping and it is only 9:00 in the morning), I'm hoping this will be short lived and that she will at least feel well enough to enjoy seeing Laura's home up close and personal today.