Low point of the day: Visiting Graceland in Memphis would cost nearly $100 after we pay for admission and parking. A tour of Elvis's home would break the budget. We do a drive-by so we can at least see the estate and my daughter throws a screaming fit: "I want to go inside Elvis's house!" My son chimes in when he notices the deceased rock star's fleet of airplanes peeking above the walls surrounding the compound.
High point of the day: For half the price of one ticket to Graceland, our family of four gets into the Mud Island River Park in Memphis. The kids cool off by wading through the Mississippi Riverwalk--the winding 1,000-mile journey of the lower river reproduced in a one-half mile concrete sculpture, complete with flowing water.
Quote of the day: "I love this sandwich so much," says my 6-year-old daughter, after biting into a salami and cheese sub. "This is the best thing I have ever eaten. I could eat this every day." She's not talking about a sandwich from a down-home local joint; she's raving about Subway. We're in a rush to get to Indianola, Miss., by 3 p.m. to meet a friend of a friend who works at the new B.B. King Museum, so we break our "no fast-food restaurants" rule. My husband who despises Subway is revolted by his sandwich and my daughter's words, but I'll have to admit that my "Chicken Tuscan," which I stuff with potato chips, tastes pretty good.
Photo of the day: The B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center opened September 2009 in Indianola to honor a local boy who has become an internationally recognized blues star. The $15 million dollar museum is housed in a renovated cotton gin, where B.B. worked as a teen, as well as a sleek modern addition. Inside, exhibits use the history of B.B.'s life to tell the story of blues, an indigenous American music that sprang up from the cotton fields, street corners and juke joints of the Mississippi Delta. Highlights include a guitar studio where you can make your own music and B.B.'s actual recording studio, exactly the way he left it before curators arrived at his house to pack it up and put it on display at the museum.
Sound bite of the day: Ann Jennings Shackelford is a friend of a friend and she and her husband have a cotton farm near the Mississippi River in Arkansas. Every day, Shackelford travels across the river to Indianola to the B.B. King Museum where she's the communications director. She gives us the lowdown on the museum:
Most emotional part of the day: At the museum, we watch a video about B.B. performing his first San Francisco concert at the Filmore in 1967. The audience is filled with long-haired hippies and B.B. has never played for a white crowd before. "I thought my manager made a mistake but then they all stood up and applauded. I started crying," says B.B. as he recounts the memory in the video."
Low low point of the day: After a tasty meal of fried catfish at Pea-Soup's Lott-A-Freeze in Indianola, we hop on the freeway full and happy and head for Jackson--until a highway patrolman stops us. This time my husband isn't speeding. He gets caught driving in the left lane--rather than the right--that is for passing. We get off again with a warning.
Miles: 260
Total miles: 2199
Hours in the car: 5
Total hours in the car: 45
Expenses
Hotel: $72.50 (Best Western Executive Inn, Memphis; this hotel is run by a friendly, hospitable family; hot breakfast with waffles)
Admission: $18.90 (Mud Island River Park; we save $3 on admission because we're AAA members!)
Let me count the ways we have saved money with our AAA membership on our Missisippi road trip...
No. 1: Hotels. We're traveling for over two weeks and every night we get 10 percent off the cost of our hotel room. This will save us some $150 over the course of our trip.
No. 2: AAA Discounts iPhone app. This handy new free application pinpoints services offering AAA discounts near you. When we were in Memphis, the application alerted us that we could save on admission to the Mud Island River Park. Our family of four got $3 off the total admission price. Every little bit counts when you're traveling on a budget of $150 a day.
No. 3: Maps, TourBooks, and TripTik routings. We loaded up on all of these before taking off on our trip--and because we're AAA members all of these were free. The TourBooks are helping us track down sites and attractions and the maps are helpful when the GPS gets it wrong. And I'm an especially big fan of the TripTiks, which offer up detailed, accurate turn-by-turn directions. Before going on the trip, we printed out several for routes between all of our hotels.
Not a AAA member? Become one by clicking here: aaa.com.
Photo of the day: Stuck behind a tractor on the way to Memphis, Tenn.
Sound bite of the day: The American Indians who lived in the lower Mississippi Valley, known as the Mississippians, around 1000 AD left their mark on the landscape with the elaborate complexes of mounds they constructed along the river. They piled rock and soil to create burial grounds and platforms for ceremonies and important structures such as the chief's home. We visit one of these at Wickliffe Mounds in Kentucky, and park manager Carla Hildebrand tells us about the state historic site.
Low point of the day: The film we watch about the 1811 earthquake at the Historical Museum in New Madrid, Mo. (pictured above) is riveting--yet it leaves me feeling unsettled. This town that sits right on the Mississippi was the epicenter and its inhabitants supposedly saw the river switch directions and flow upstream for a moment. At a magnitude over 8.0, the earthquake was the largest in recorded American history, and more than 2,000 tremors, some as strong as the first, were felt through 1812. The earthquakes were felt strongly over 50,000 square miles; the historic 1906 San Francisco earthquake was felt over 6,000 square miles.
Quote of the day: "I want to be in an earthquake," says my 4-year-old son who has yet to fully experience the earth shaking. "Can the guy in the museum make an earthquake for us?"
High point of the day: Our evening in Memphis begins at the Rendezvous, where my husband and I share a pitcher of beer and a full-rack of dry-rub ribs. My kids split a salami and cheese sandwich, which my daughter deems the best thing she has ever eaten. Later on Beale Street, we catch Gary Hardy and Memphis2, a Johnny Cash cover band, at Blues City Cafe. Hardy belts out Cash's ballads about prisons, trains, and heartaches with the same deep groaning voice as the man in black. When he covers "Big River" and mentions many of the places we have visited on our trip--St. Paul, St. Louis, Davenport--we feel as if he has created a song for us but the lyrics are actually about chasing a woman down the Mississippi.
Photo of the day: Our tight budget doesn't allow us to take the elevator to the top of the St. Louis Gateway Arch, rising 630 feet above the Mississippi riverfront. But we stop to take a few photos and walk underneath Eero Saarinen's graceful rainbow of shining steel.
High point of the day: Free lunch! From St. Louis, we travel 12 miles across the Mississippi to Columbia, Ill. Paul Ellis, the town's director of community and economic development and the founder of the Mississippi River Facebook page, found my blog and invited us for lunch. He treats us to tasty thin-crust pizza from the local restaurant Boccardi's, and directs us to the back roads that travel along the Mississippi to Sikeston, Mo., where we plan to stay that night. If you want to drive along the river, you usually have to leave the interstate.
Sound bite of the day: Louis "Hutch" Schlafly, president of the Columbia Chamber of Commerce, joins us for lunch and he tells us about the 1993 flood, when the levee broke and a wave of water wiped out the nearby town of Valmeyer. The media got footage of the flood pulling one of the homes up from the ground and Schlafly says news stations all around the world played it repeatedly. (When you talk to people who live near the Mississippi River, they usually want to tell you about the floods they have endured--just as Californians love to talk about earthquakes.)
Most interesting person encountered: We meet Bob Edler (pictured above) when we're driving through Illinois farm country on our way to Sikeston, Mo. We notice some donkeys in front of his farm and stop to snap pictures. Bob, who is well over six feet and wears a scruffy beard, starts walking over to us. He looks tough and I worry that he might kick us off his property, but instead he says in the kindest, gentlest voice, "You can go in the pen. They're friendly." His eyes light up, and he starts to tell us about his daughter, Emily, and how she raises these donkeys, which are the best in the region. "I wish you could meet her," he says.
And then Emily and her friend Adam drive up in a big pick-up truck and they have seven huge freshly caught catfish flopping around in the bed. They invite us to stay to watch them weigh, skin and clean their catch. My children stand in awe as they hang the fish on hooks and remove the skin and innards, the blood dripping down.
Emily's mom, Judy, arrives. She shows us the inside of their grain bin and gives us a lesson in wheat farming. They have nearly 1,000 acres of wheat, soy bean, and corn fields. She tells us about the cattle they keep up on the ridge. "Our cows eat only grass and fresh water," she says. "They taste like nothing you have ever eaten." Bob brings out two snapping turtles, which they caught in the Mississippi and plan to eat as well. "They're really chewy," Emily tells us.
My son plays on the tire swing; my daughter picks some flowers from a bed of marigolds. They don't want to leave the farm, but we must continue down the river. Before we go, Bob brings out a set of deer antlers from an animal he found dead in his field. "They're a gift from us," he says.
Quote of the day: "When I grow up, I want to be a farmer," my 4-year-old son says as we're driving away from the farm. "Mommy, I'll even let you drive my tractor."
Low point of the day: Everything in the adorable town of St. Genevieve, Mo., is closed when we arrive. From Illinois, we crossed the river on a ferry to Missouri and we don't arrive in the former French colonial town until 5:30 p.m. Antique shops with window displays fit for shelter magazines line the main drag and I can tell from the few price tags I spot that things are 50 percent less than what they'd be in California. I want to go inside! We find one place that's open: Sara's Ice Cream. After we order a cherry cone, we realize the cafe specializes in handmade drum sticks: vanilla ice cream dipped in chocolate and covered in St. Genevieve pecans. We can't afford to spend an extra $3.50 and I'm beginning to really hate our $150-a-day budget!
Call me old-fashioned but I much prefer to hear my kids scream "Are we there yet?" from the backseat of the car rather than "When can we watch a DVD?"
Turn on the DVD player in the backseat and your kids will never look out window.
My family is in the midst of a road trip, and I didn't bring a DVD player for my kids to watch while we travel the length of the Mississippi River and log more than 2,500 miles. I had this corny vision that instead of being glued to a Disney film my 4-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter would tell stories, play games, and sing songs. And well, it's actually happening. While I sit here in the front seat typing up this story my precious saplings are singing "You Are My Sunshine," over and over and over again. (Yes, while I tell my kids they can't watch Dora the Explorer in the backseat, I'm often up front working on my computer typing up blog posts. You don't need to tell me that I'm a hypocrite. My daughter has already made this clear.)
The first two days of the road trip were rough as my children adapted to life strapped into a car seat. They told me they were bored. They told me there was nothing to see out the window. They told me they hated road trips and wanted to go home. By the end of the second day, they started entertaining themselves. They began to ask "Are we there yet?" every two hours rather than every hour--and now that we're two weeks into the trip, I never hear those infamous words.
My daughter spends most of her time with a pad of paper in her lap and a marker in her hand. Yesterday she drew portraits of her family and a picture of a rock star (pictured above) singing into a microphone on stage. (There has been a lot of talk about Michael Jackson in the front seat.)
My son fills his time by talking to himself. He says goofy phrases repeatedly, usually with a plastic Batman figurine in each of his hands. "Garbage can head. No, you're a garbage can head. No, you're a garbage can head. Garbage can head! Garbage can head!"
Some planning went into my decision to ditch the DVD. I borrowed Books on Tape, such as Laura Ingalls Little House in the Big Woods and Mark Twain's Huck Finn, from the library and downloaded them onto the iPhone. I printed out coloring pages from the Family Fun Web site and road trip games, such as Backseat Bingo and I Spy with my Little Eye, from LilSugar.com.
The Crayola window crayons have been a big hit; they easily clean up with a baby wipe. And the Wikki Stix, bendable sticks of wax that you form into sculptures, have filled countless hours. But most of the time, my kids simply gaze out the window.
That's not to say that we're like the Leave It to Beaver family smoothly cruising down the highway. We have had our moments. Maybe you read the past blog post where I mention my kids spitting in the backseat. The lowest point was probably on my husband's birthday when the kids fought, whined and cried throughout a three-hour drive--and my husband finally stopped the car and said we're not moving on until you quiet down. And there was the day when my son said, "Hey babe!" over 1,000 times.
This is when I'm tempted to throw my laptop back at the kids and turn on an episode of Word Girl, but I know that once I do this, they will be asking "When can we watch a DVD?" the rest of the trip. We tried videos once on a drive from Seattle to San Francisco and for two days I was constantly negotiating with them about when the DVD player could be turned on. And then there were all the fights between the kids over what to watch.
Plus if my kids were watching a DVD player in the backseat, they never would have seen the herd of elk on the side of the road, nor the turkey buzzards feeding on a dead deer. They never would have noticed the family of gnomes parked in front of a country home, nor the blue waterfall at the miniature golf course.
They never would have seen the hundreds of lakes we drove by in Minnesota, the red barns in Wisconsin, the corn fields in Iowa, the swamps in Mississippi. They never would have seen the crop dusters, the rolled hay bales, the grazing cows, the trains carrying coal, the barges trucking down the river, the combines harvesting wheat, the firecracker stands, the manicured cemeteries, the homes with lawns bigger than football fields, the red-brick churches with white steeples. My daughter never would have been the first to spot the St. Louis Arch, and my son never would have realized the cluster of clouds looked like a dragon.
They never would have seen all of those Mississippi sunsets, the river water turning bright oranges, reds, and pinks. They never would have dozed off, watching the Mississippi flow down the center of our country. If they were watching a DVD, they would return to California at the end of the trip not realizing that they had traveled through an exotic land.
Do you let your kids watch DVDs in the backseat on road trips? Why or why not?
The Station in Clarksville, Mo., 120 miles north of St. Louis, offers outdoor dining on patio furniture that looks as if it were purchased from Smith & Hawken. In fact, this high-end road stop--with an organic vegetable garden, pots filled with herbs, a mini farmers' market, and babbling fountains--looks like the setting for a garden catalog photo shoot--or a Martha Stewart television segment.
We enjoy salads--fresh greens tossed with walnuts, cranberries, and local chicken. We sip iced tea. We walk through the surrounding garden and check out the stage that's being built for outdoor concerts. And then it's time for pie.
The coconut cream slice rises high above the plate, and it cracks in half when my daughter and son both grab for it at the same time. The filling is perfect--silky and smooth, except for the tender strands of coconut--and it's topped with a generous helping of rich whipped cream. I especially like that the pie isn't too sweet. The crust on the other hand is a soggy mess, and chunks of it never get eaten. Rating: 3.
Low point of the day: After driving an hour and a half outside of Hannibal toward St. Louis, I realize that I forgot my reporting notepad back at the hotel. We retrace our steps and drive an extra 150 miles. Ugh!
High point of the day: We break for lunch in Clarksville, 50 miles south of Hannibal. The town appears tiny so we're surprised by all that we find: a group of people taking a class on how to make chairs from willow branches, the highest point along the Mississippi that's accessible by an old-school ski lift, several high-end art galleries, and a fabulous restaurant with its own vegetable and herb garden. All of this in a town with a population of 490.
Sound bite of the day: When we first arrive in Clarksville, we drive up to the waterfront where some folks are loading sandbags into the trunk of the car. No, there wasn't a flood (at least not when we were there). The bags were "decor" at the thank-you dinner the town threw the night before for the volunteers who helped with last summer's flood. Apparently, this area was one of the hardest hit in the 2008 Mississippi flood. The National Guard showed up. Reporters from Tokyo and Germany. People magazine. And hundreds of volunteers who saved the town by filling sandbags.
Later, we talk to Dale Appel, who lives eight miles inland from Clarksville. Last summer, he brought his family to the riverfront to help fill sand bags and he told us about the experience.
Most interesting person encountered: When we meet John Whitt (pictured above) in Clarksville, he's teaching a chair-making class. In the driveway of his daughter's 1800s home, he's showing a group how to bend willow branches into a form that looks like a piece of artwork yet serves as a comfortable chair. We later visit the Bent Tree gallery, which Whitt runs with his wife, Marcia, who hand-weaves baskets, and his daughter, Stacy, who makes leather purses.
Photo of the day: Cat fish skeletons decorate a fence somewhere in between Hannibal and Clarksville.
Miles: 280
Total miles: 1559
Hours in car: 5
Total hours in car: 32
Weather: 85 degrees. It's a lovely day.
Expenses
Hotel: $89.99 (Best Western on the River; newly remodeled hotel that's right in town and only one block from Mark Twain's boyhood home)
Breakfast: free at hotel
Lunch: $30.49 (Clarksville Station; more on this restaurant in an upcoming post)
Gas: $17.63 (only $2.49 in Louisiana, Mo.; the cheapest yet)
Dinner: $24 (Hodak's in St. Louis; perfectly crispy fried chicken)
Low point: The 80-year-old Figge Art Museum in Davenport, Iowa, moved into a dazzling new home on the banks of the Mississippi in 2006. We peer inside the metal-and-fritted-glass building but with our tight budget we can't afford to go in. Instead we walk across to the river, where we cool off with fresh lemonade at the farmers' market.
High point of the day: In the car we are listening to the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Book on Tape, and when we visit Hannibal, Mo., a small port town 120 miles north of St. Louis, we step inside the home where the great American author grew up. At the Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum, we learn that Twain moved here when he was 4-years-old. His childhood and the town and the river it sits on served as inspiration for both Huck Finn and the Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I explain to my 6-year-old daughter, who loves listening to the story, that Tom Sawyer is based on Mark Twain who was really Samuel Clemens and the character of Huck is based on Twain's boyhood friend Tom Blankenship who was one of eight children in a desperately poor family headed by the town drunk. She finds this all confusing and gets frustrated. I decide to let her discover the museum on her own and she enjoys climbing around a re-creation of Huck's raft and his house and watching a Tom Sawyer movie.
Quote of the day: "He was lucky to have such a big house," says my daughter as she's touring through Twain's two-story boyhood home. Only a San Francisco girl who lives in a condo would say this. Twain's boyhood home is quite humble and small.
Sound bite of the day: James Miller was born and raised in Hannibal and at 75 years old he still lives here. I meet him at the Mark Twain Museum, where he dropped in to say hello to his daughter who works at the admission desk.
Photo of the day: Tower of onion rings at the Mark Twain Dinette across from museum in Hannibal, Mo.
Miles: 200
Total miles: 1279
Hours in car: 4
Total hours in car: 27
Weather: Warm and muggy in the afternoon; stormy in the evening.
Expenses
Hotel: $89.99 (Best Western Steeplegate Inn/friendly service, heated indoor pool, and scrumptious hot breakfast)
Breakfast: free at hotel
Lunch: $6.14 (Great Grains Natural Foods; one sandwich, two bananas, one yogurt, and a handful of dried apricots)
When we arrived at the Best Western Midway Hotel in Dubuque, Iowa, my kids could hardly contain themselves when they saw the swimming pool. It was housed in a light, airy atrium filled with lush, green foliage. To my kids it looked like a tropical paradise.
"Mommy, the pool looks like it's inside but it's outside," my daughter squealed. "Can we please go in? Please? Please!" She was literally shaking with excitement.
My kids had no interest in going into town, checking out the riverfront. Dinner? Who cares about eating when there's a swimming pool. And I have found this is true all along our Mississippi road trip--the swimming pools are the highlight for my children. At the Best Western Steeplegate Inn in Davenport, Iowa, they loved that the indoor pool was as warm as a bath tub. At the Best Western Bluffview Inn & Suites in Prairie Du Chien, Wisc., my kids were thrilled by the pool toys. At the Best Western Normandy Inn in Minneapolis, they liked the hot tub that was shaped like a spoon.
As a parent paying for a vacation, I love the swimming pools because they offer free entertainment. For every hour we're spending at the pool, we're not about town spending money. And since we're doing this trip on a budget of $150 a day every little bit counts.
How do you cool off on a hot day in Moline, Ill.? You could jump into the Mississippi River, or even better you could enjoy a soft serve cone from Country Style. This delicious treat is made with real milk and cream, and it's richer and thicker than your typical soft serve.
We order a cone of vanilla to share--this is what a family of four on a budget of $150 a day can afford--and of course we're all fighting over it. Right when my daughter is trying to grab the cone from her brother's hands, the owner, Kent Kindelsperger, steps out to say hello. "I have kids. They do the same thing," he says.
Kindelsperger gives us a tour of the inside of the tiny little shop that sits on 16th Street in this town across the river from Davenport, Iowa. He tells us his great uncle opened the shop in 1947 and then Kindelsperger took over 23 years ago. (Now there are seven shops.)
He shows us the soft serve machine handmade by his great uncle and fills a tall cup with ice cream. He turns it upside down and holds the cup over my kids' heads. Country Style ice cream is so thick that it doesn't fall out of the cup.
Are there other flavors besides vanilla? Yes, chocolate, and Kindelsperger gives us a sample. It's the color of a dark chocolate bar--and tastes like one too.
"We originally had a lighter chocolate that tasted more like a fudgiscle," he says. "But then we decided to introduce a new chocolate and just kept adding more and more cocoa. When we taste-tested it, 99 out of 100 preferred it over the original."
I never got to try the original but I can tell you that the chocolate is the best soft serve I have ever had.
Listen to a sound bite from Country Style owner Kent Kindelsperger:
The Rundown High point of the day: The Smithsonian Institute runs the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium in Dubuque, Iowa, and it's world-class. All of the bits and pieces we have learned about the river along our river road trip are pulled together under one roof with exhibits on river otters, snapping turtles, barges, flooding, locks and dams. My husband enjoys watching a film on the history of the river narrated by Garrison Keillor, my kids like turning a paddle boat wheel, and I'm delighted to flirt with Mark Twain (pictured above).
Sound bite of the day: Helen Bolf, a volunteer at the River Museum, welcomes visitors when they walk through the door and helps direct them to exhibits.
Low point of the day: We spend too much time at the River Museum, so we're pressed for time when we arrive in Galena, across the river in Illinois. Some 1,000 buildings in town are on the National Register of Historic Places in this former lead-mining town that had a population of 15,000 while Chicago had only 1,200 in the later 180ss. We want to get out and walk around, but we only have time for a game of tag on the front lawn of a home (pictured above) where Ulysses S. Grant lived for two years.
Photo of the day: What does a family of four on a tight budget do in Davenport, Iowa, on a Friday night? Cheer on the Quad Cities River Bandits minor league baseball team at Modern Woodmen Park that sits right on the river. We pay $5 for tickets, fill up on pulled pork sandwiches for only $4, and take in the views.
Quote of the day: "How do you win at ping pong?" my 4-year-old son asks as we're watching the baseball game. It seems he confused his sports.
Miles: 110
Total miles: 1079
Hours in car: 2 hours, 30 minutes
Total hours in the car: 23 hours
Weather: Gorgeous, 80 degrees, not too hot. (I'm beginning to wonder why people who live in the Midwest complain so much about the weather.)
Expenses
Hotel: $100.79 (Best Western Midway Hotel/friendly service, spacious rooms with comfy beds, tropical indoor pool)
Breakfast: free with hotel (scrumptious hot breakfast with bacon, eggs, yogurts, juices, bagels)
Museum admission: free (our hotel stay comes with four free tickets to the Mississippi River Museum)
Pressed penny: 51 cents (souvenir at the museum)
Lunch: snacks (crackers and granola bars packed from home; apples taken from hotel breakfast)
Ice cream cone: $1.99 (Country Style in Moline, Ill.)
I learn that we're near the Field of Dreams movie site in a tractor store. On our drive from Prairie Du Chien, Wisc., to Dubuque, Iowa, my son spots a row of John Deeres from the road and begs me to stop. We play around on the tractors and end up inside the shop for a potty break. That's where we see a few miniature toy tractors sitting on a shelf, and one of them is emblazoned with the words "Field of Dreams."
"Are we near the Field of Dreams?" I ask a salesclerk.
"Oh yeah, only about 20 minutes or so." He shows me a map and how to get to Dyersville, the closest town to the site of the 1989 Academy Award nominee for "Best Picture of the Year" starring Kevin Costner. "Once you're in town, you'll see the sign. Can't miss it," he says.
I'm torn on whether to drive an extra 40 miles to see a baseball field, but I feel a nagging urge to seek out the famous site, and I practically hear a voice telling me, "They built it, you must go."
We drive through lush cornfields--a seemingly endless sea of green. A storm passes over and the sky changes from bright blue to deep purple to dark gray--and then rain dumps, lightning flashes, and it suddenly clears up just as we pull up to the Field of Dreams parking lot.
As a San Francisco girl who is used to sitting in bleak fog all summer long, the volatile weather seems almost magical. I begin to understand how the author of the book, Shoeless Joe, on which the movie is based, might have been inspired by the landscape. The story goes that an Iowa farmer is standing in the middle of a cornfield when he hears a mysterious voice telling him to cut a baseball diamond out of his field so the ghost of Joe Jackson (aka Shoeless Joe), who was a member of the infamous 1919 Black Sox team, can come play some ball.
We get out of the car and join another dozen tourists who are also arriving. Later a bus pulls up. The site gets some 50,000 visitors a year.
I sit in the bleachers while my kids run circles around the perfectly manicured diamond. Other folks, their baseball mitts in hand, toss balls. It's almost surreal to see this field surrounded by cornfields--especially when another storm starts to sweep through. As the wind picks up and the sky grows dark, I get goose bumps. I hear a muffled voice and turn my head, half expecting to see Kevin Costner sitting next to me. Instead, it's my son who has run up the bleachers and excitedly says, "Mommy, let's go play baseball. Come on!"
We don't have any mitts, balls or bats, but no matter because imaginations can run wild in Iowa cornfields.
Low point of the day: Lost in Wisconsin! We end up 40 miles off track, which is particularly frustrating when you're on a budget of $150 a day (every little bit counts). Luckily, the scenery is gorgeous. We drive through lush green corn fields under a deep purple sky, and there are cows everywhere.
Quote of the day: "Mommy, I just saw a cow wearing earrings," says my 4-year-old son, who spots a milk cow with tags in his ears grazing in a pasture.
Sound bite of the day: We hop on the Cassville Car Ferry (pictured above), which has been transporting cars and people across the Mississippi from Cassville, Wisc., to Turkey River Landing in Iowa, since 1833. We chat with the pilot, Steve Vogt, who pointed out two bald eagles perched high in a tree when we were crossing the river.
The Rundown Low point of the day: Lost in Wisconsin! We end up 40 miles off track, which is particularly frustrating when you're on a budget of $150 a day (every little bit counts). Luckily, the scenery...
Day 6: Prairie Du Chien to Dubuque
High point of the day: Driving through Iowa farm country, my son spots a row of sparkling green and yellow John Deeres lining the side of the road. Some of the tractors are as tall as one-story homes. To my little boy, they look like gigantic toys, and when we stop at the tractor lot he has a ball climbing atop them and sitting in the driver's seats. How much do you think a full-size tractor costs? My daughter sat in one that goes for $87,000--luckily she didn't break it.
Most interesting person encountered: My son announces that he has to go to potty now at the tractor lot! I tell the kids to hop into the car so we can find a gas station but they ask if we can use the bathroom in the tractor store. As a city girl, I'm a little uneasy in farm country and worry about how the salespeople in the shop might react to us. But my kids persuade me to step inside and we surreptitiously slide behind two farmers and sneak into a bathroom. But when we're coming out, Darlene Schmitt catches us--and good thing she did because she tells us all about farm life and treats us to glasses of cold water and a heavy dose of Iowan hospitality. She and her husband have owned Schmitt Implement for 40 years. They also lived in San Francisco for six months while her husband was stationed in Fort Winfield Scott (now a part of the Presidio). "Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like if we stayed in San Francisco because we did think about staying," Schmitt says. "But I'm glad we came back to Iowa. We have family here. We're real happy here. It's a friendly place." And I couldn't agree with her more.
Photo of the day: Playing farmer at Schmitt Implement tractor store in Tipton, Iowa.
Weather: Sunny then rainy then sunny then rainy...
A decrepit hand-painted sign, the paint peeling, marked the turnoff for the birthplace of Laura Ingalls Wilder, the beloved author of the Little House series.
"Laura Ingalls Wilder's birthplace," I excitedly screamed. "Stop, turn around, we need to go!"
"We're going to Laura's born house!" my son chimed in.
The seven-mile winding road from Pepin, Wisc., to Lund passed by big red barns, a one-room schoolhouse, and cows grazing in wide-open pastures. We drove through groves of pines, poplars, and cotton woods, and past corn fields. And then there it was: the gray log cabin.
You might remember how Wilder's first book Little House in the Big Woods begins: "Once upon a time many years ago a little girl lived in the big woods of Wisconsin in a little gray house made of logs." Well, this was that house--at least an authentic re-creation of the original one in the same location where Laura lived with Pa and Ma, her sister Mary, her baby sister Carrie, and their trusty dog, Jack, before moving to Missouri, and then Kansas, back to Wisconsin, on to Minnesota, and then South Dakota.
My daughter and I, our hearts pounding, ran to the front door. There's something so exciting about visiting the birthplace of an author you love. Your connection with the author is deepened. You feel as if you're getting a glimpse into the personal life of the person behind the book.
I recently read Little House in the Big Woods to my daughter and we have listened to the Book on Tape probably three times. The book is based on Wilder's early childhood living on the edge of the Wisconsin woods in the 19th century. In it there are wonderful scenes depicting pioneer life. The family celebrates Christmas with homemade toys, cure bear meat, and visit town for the first time. And every night they are safe and warm in their little house, with the happy sound of Pa's fiddle sending Laura and her sisters off to sleep.
My memories of the books and the TV show are most closely linked to my childhood friend Carol, who was obsessed with Laura Ingalls Wilder. While I never had my own collection of the books at home, my friend Carol did and her sister, Diana, used to read us chapters. We would re-enact scenes, and in our minds her backyard was the wild Midwest where we were pioneers hunting for our own food, churning our own butter, and fending for ourselves.
But that was all pretend. Here I was at the actual place. We walked inside the log cabin. It was as if we were stepping inside one of Wilder's books.
"Mommy it's so small," my daughter said.
The long, cold winter the Wilder family endured in this little log cabin suddenly seemed all the more impressive.
Were you a Little House on the Prairie fan? Please share your childhood memories of the books and TV series.
Driving through farmland along the Mississippi River just south of Minneapolis, I noticed a lush green field filled with sculptures--huge, interesting masses of steel that us urban folk are used to seeing along our city sidewalks, certainly not in pastures.
"Pull over!" It turns out we had stumbled upon the Anderson Center, an artist community outside of Red Wing, on the site of Alexander Pierce Anderson's former laboratory and farm. Who was Anderson? Well, he invented puffed rice cereal, which made him a wealthy man, and he was a great supporter of the arts.
We strolled through the grounds--dozens of sculptures, a large patch of native prairie grass, a platform for gazing out over the garden, and a red-brick water tower built by Anderson. My kids were captivated by a great white shark created with recycled stuff, a surfboard, a skate board, pieces from a lawnmower.
We peeked inside some of the studios and that's when we met Art Kenyon, who is a painter and print maker. Kenyon worked for the Red Wing Shoe Company in town for 34 years and now he's retired, living the artist's life. He gave us a tour of his studio, the walls adorned with a wide variety of works, and showed us the different stages that a painting goes through before becoming a final product. I asked him about the Anderson Center and here's a sound bite from him:
For my 6-year-old daughter, Paris, this encounter with Kenyon has been the highlight of the trip up to this point. When we left his studio she said, "He was a real artist Mommy. A real artist!" And the day after she kept asking, "Can we go see another artist?"
Paris always says that when she grows up, she wants to be an "artist mom," and so far she has shown dedication to the trade as all she does in her free time is draw and draw and then draw some more. On this road trip, she sits in the backseat drawing nonstop (when she's not throwing raspberries at her brother). Of course, this all could change but for now that's what she wants to be and for her the opportunity to step inside an artist's studio was a real treat, something she had never done before.
The experience made me realize the impact travel can have on kids. Many of the memories from this vacation will fade but I have a feeling that Paris will remember Kenyon, who took the time to talk to her and who gave her a glimpse into the life of an artist.
Please share your memories from childhood travels. Are there any specific experiences that you will never forget?
High point of the day: A few days back my daughter asked me for the definition of the word quaint, and when we arrive in Red Wing, Minn., I feel as if I can provide her with a real-life example. This town is right out of a storybook with red-brick buildings, old-fashioned lampposts, and flowers spilling out of planter boxes. To top it off, we arrive in the midst of a plein air festival; the sidewalks are filled with artists at their easels, paining the charming scenery.
Sound bite of the day: We walk along the Red Wing waterfront lined with a beautiful park, where we meet former mayor Donna Dummers who is weeding a flower patch.
Quote of the day: "Where are their mommies?" my 6-year-old daughter asks about the group of girls who look to be of about the same age walking without an adult in downtown Red Wing. For a San Francisco kid this is an unusual sight.
Most interesting person encountered: We stumble upon the Anderson Center in Red Wing, an artist's retreat founded by Alexander Pierce Anderson, the inventor of puffed rice cereal. Here, we meet Art Kenyon, who is painting in a studio at the center. "This is a great place to be an artist with the river right here in our backyard," Kenyon says. "There's always inspiration." (More on the center in an upcoming post.)
Low point of the day: Our search for the best slice of pie along the Mississippi is stalled when we learn the Pie Company in Stockholm, Wisc., is closed. The Harbor View Cafe just down the road in Pepin is also closed, and it's supposed to have some of the best strawberry rhubarb pie in the state, according to Gourmet magazine columnists Jane and Michael Stern. Who knew it would be so difficult to track down pie? We're over budget for the day anyway, so maybe it's better that we never find a slice.
Photo of the day: How would you like to have a seat in one of these chairs? This pretty spot on the Mississippi River is in Wabasha, Minn.
Miles: 225
Total miles: 829
Hours in car: 6
Total hours in car: 17 hours, 30 minutes
Weather: Gorgeous, 80 degrees
Expenses
Breakfast and snacks for the road: $16 (We go shopping at The Wedge, a food co-op that's basically an indoor farmers' market)
A paper map used to be the way travelers found their way on road trips, and we have a whole stack of AAA maps in our car to help us make our way down the Mississippi River. But we also have a AAA Magellan RoadMate 1440 GPS and while I have always been a paper kind of gal, I'm definitely warming up to the more high-tech system. It especially comes in handy when I think we should turn right and my husband thinks we should turn left.
The first time we turned it on, my kids were quite impressed. "It talks Mommy!"
The kids decided to name it "Cutie," which might seem odd but you have to understand that these days my kids name everything from caterpillars to stuffed animals Cutie.
While there's not actually much that's cute about the Magellan unit, there's certainly a lot that's helpful. Since the Magellan talks, telling you when to exit and make a turn, you can keep your eyes on the road. Plus, it's stocked with information from AAA's TourBook, including diamond-rated restaurants, hotels, and roadside assistance for AAA members that shows your current location. Nearly all in-car GPS units come with a large database of "points of interest" but these rarely include more than an address and phone number. Magellan's AAA TourBook takes points of interest to the next level: Restaurant listings include a one-paragraph restaurant review, hours, meal price range, parking, and more.
To make our device even handier, we downloaded (it's free and works on most GPS units including Garmin and Tom Tom) the locations for every Best Western hotel in North America. Now the crown logo shows up everywhere a Best Western is located—and we can easily find where we're going to bed down each night.
Price: The listed price for the Magellan GPS is $199 and AAA members get 15 percent off. Amazon also sells the unit and sometimes at an even lower price.
Big cities? They're expensive for traveling families, right? Not necessarily. In fact, often urban centers are the best places to find free and inexpensive things to do with kids. We found this was particularly the case in Minneapolis, where we recently stopped for a two-night stay on our Mississippi road trip. Here are seven things to do in this Minnesota city on the cheap with kids.
1) Slurp up a bowl of noodles at Jasmine Deli. This Vietnamese hole-in-the-wall makes up for its lack of atmosphere with tasty barbecue chicken sandwiches and steaming bowls of pho, chicken noodle soup. A family of four can eat here for $20.
2) Pick up picnic fixings at The Wedge. This food co-op is basically an indoor farmers market with piles of produce, most of it organic. Also, the deli stuffs everything from tofu to nitrate-free salami into sandwiches. The best picnic spot around may be at Hidden Falls Regional Park in neighboring St. Paul.
3) Ride the Como-Harriet Streetcar. The last bastion of the streetcar system runs between Lake Calhoun and Lake Harriett. It costs only $2.
4) Explore the Guthrie Theater. This architecture marvel rising above the Mississippi River is the place to see a play, but it also offers sweeping views of the area and lots of nooks and crannies for kids to explore. It's free to walk around.
5) Drive a virtual tugboat at the Minnesota Science Museum. It's all about hands-on exhibits at this science museum. Kids particularly like the Human Body Gallery and the the dinosaur lab in the Hall of Paleontology. Admission: free to $17.
6) Step inside (or outside) an art museum. The Minneapolis Institute of Arts is always free and houses an amazing collection ranging from a 2,000-year-old mummy to works by European masters such as Rembrandt and Monet. The largest urban sculpture garden in the country surrounds the Walker Art Center and there's no fee to browse its works.
7) Stroll around Lake Harriet. Circle this lake at sunset and then head up the hill to Sebastian Joe's for ice cream (two scoops, of course).
High point of the day: My husband is a river scientist and so this trip down the Mississippi has special meaning for him. While I'm on the hunt for historic buildings and pie shops, he's more interested in dams, locks, fish ladders and geological formations. Because of him we received a private tour of the new Outdoor Stream Lab at the St. Anthony Falls Laboratory right on the Mississippi River. Researchers from all over the world conduct experiments on this re-creation of a stream that pulls water from the Mississippi. It's the only lab of this sort in the world, and even I, the non-scientist, find it interesting.
Sound bite of the day: Mary Presnail, 25, is one of the many student researchers at the Outdoor Stream Lab. Here she offers up a rather technical, though impressive, description of the research she's conducting at the lab.
Low point of the day: After our tour of the lab, we planned to walk along the Mississippi River and go for a swim at Lake Harriet Southeast Beach. But dark clouds suddenly swoop over the city and it starts raining. The kids are disappointed. So we opt for an indoor attraction, the Guthrie Theater, an architectural marvel rising above the Mississippi. New York Times writer Nicolai Ouroussoff called it a "a Modernist heaven on a former industrial strip along the riverfront.
Quote of the day: "This place is cool," says my 4-year-old son, as we're touring the Guthrie. "Maybe we could live here."
Photo of the day: The ninth floor of the Guthrie Theater.
Miles driven: 30
Total miles driven: 604
Minutes in car: 30 minutes
Total hours in car: 11 hours, 30 minutes
Weather: Hot and muggy in the morning; thunderstorms in the evening
When my kids started spitting at each other in the backseat, I knew it was time to pull over for a break. We were driving from Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota to Minneapolis and we had been in the car for two hours. But where could we stop? We were in the middle of nothingness just south of Motley (pop. 585) where the attractions were open pastures, farms, and industrial buildings. That's when I noticed the grassy field with dozens of sprinklers spewing across it.
"Pull over!" I told my husband.
I stripped the kids down and put them in their swimsuits and we ran wildly through the sprinklers on what turned out to be a airstrip next to the Trident Seafoods plant.
Stop every two hours--that's my No. 1 tip when road tripping with kids. Pull off at a rest stop for a game of tag, park in a small town to grab an ice cream cone, track down an elementary school with a jungle gym--this is the key to keeping children sane in the car. Out in the middle of nothingness? Run through the sprinklers, of course.
Does your family take time to stop on long road trips? What are your tricks and tips?
High point of the day: We visit the headwaters of the Mississippi River at Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota. Wading through the waters, we walk across the river where it starts its 2,552 mile journey to the Gulf of Mexico. The kids put on their swim suits and jump around in the cool, fresh water. We see loons and a snapping turtle.
Quote of the day: “If you want to write about something provocative you should cover the controversy over where the real headwaters of the Mississippi is," says Maris Kurmis of Minneapolis, who we meet at the headwaters. "Some people think it's Lake Itasca but others insist it's Elk Lake. People round here can get really worked up over this."
Low point of the day: A mother duck and her ducklings are waddling across the freeway between Lake Itasca and Minneapolis. My husband changes lanes to avoid them but the semi-truck behind us runs right over them. The urban-wilderness interface is often unkind to the little creatures.
Photo of the day: The headwaters of the Mississippi River at Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota. Sound bite of the day: Nels Tryggestad was dropping a fishing line into the Mississippi River in Little Falls, Minn., between Lake Itasca and Minneapolis.
Miles: 254 miles Total miles: 574 Hours in car: 7 Total hours in car: 11 Weather: Sunny, clear, 85 degrees
Expenses Hotel: $76 (Best Western Bemidji Inn) Breakfast: free at hotel Lunch: $13.69 (Lueken’s Village Foods/picnic of two sandwiches, fruit salad, cranberries) Itasca State Park entrance fee: $5 Pressed penny: 51 cents Soda: $2 Gas: $31.76 Dinner: $16.30 (Morey’s Fish/picnic of peeled shrimp, smoked salmon, cheese and crackers) Dessert: $4.26 (Culver’s Frozen Custard/one medium) Coffee: $1.70 Total:$146.96 Total for trip: $335.21
High point of the day: We stop at the Boondocks Cafe in Wadena on our way to northern Minnesota and the waitress gives my husband a free slice of cheesecake for Father's Day.
Low point of the day: It's pouring down rain outside. Our waitress at the Boondocks Cafe tells us there was a tornado warning last Thursday, the night of the town parade. The police department directed the spectators into the restaurant basement. I begin to worry about the weather. Quote of the day: "What's all that stuff on your sandwich?” my 4-year-old son Dante asks his father about the turkey sandwich that is drowned in gravy at the Boondocks.
Sound bite of the day: Boondocks Cafe waitress Laureen Huttenen shares the day's specials.
Photo of the day: An 18-foot-tall Paul Bunyan and his blue ox Babe in Bemidji, Minn. Miles: 200 miles Total miles: 320 Hours in car: 4 Weather: It's raining! It's pouring!
Expenses Hotel: $86.25 (Best Western Chelsea Inn, Monticello) Breakfast: free at hotel Lunch: $21.41 (Boondocks Café, Wadena, Minn.) Dinner: $25 (Dave's Pizza/I read on Chowhound.com that it's as good as what you get in Italy, and the thin crust pizza slathered in a fresh tomato sauce and heaped with tasty mozzarella is really that good. Who would have expected this in northern Minnesota?) Total for the day: $132.66 Total for the trip: $188.25
A good pie makes you weak in the knees. It's sweet fragrance, perfectly flakey crust, and soft, moist filling overwhelms you and you're transported to heaven every time you take a bite. You don't dare leave a single crumb on your plate, and if you're a family of four sharing a single slice, you're pushing away one anothers' forks, fighting for every bite.
On our Mississippi road trip, we hope to hunt down the best piece of pie along the river. We'll be driving through the Midwest and into the South, so we should be able to find plenty of pie. I'll be offering up a description of each slice and offering up a rating on a scale from 1 to 5.
Pie #1, Fisher's Club, Avon, Minn. Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie You might have heard Garrison Keillor mention this pie, in his folksy drawl, on the Prairie Home Companion. Maybe you have heard him sing this little ditty:
But one little thing can revive a guy, And that is home-made rhubarb pie. Serve it up, nice and hot. Maybe things aren't as futile as you thought.
DUET: Mama's little baby loves rhubarb, rhubarb, Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie. Mama's little baby loves rhubarb, rhubarb, Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie.
We tried this pie at Fisher's Club (Keillor is one of many owners). The slice of rhubarb came with a heaping scoop of vanilla ice cream. The flavor was wonderful--sweet and cinnamony. The crust is advertised on the menu as rivaling the best and it was that good. But the filling was a bit pasty--possibly too much flour or corn starch. Rating: 3
Do you know of a great place to get pie along the Mississippi River? Please offer up your suggestions in the comments.
Fisher's Club is the sort of place where you'd expect to find Garrison Keillor sitting at the bar. Step into this rustic supper club in the central Minnesota town of Avon and you can picture the Prairie Home Companion host sipping a martini, savoring a fried walleye fillet and gossiping with locals. Turns out Keillor is a regular here and in 2005 he and a group of investors purchased the restaurant.
But Keillor isn't the only colorful character in the Fisher's Club's history. George "Showboat" Fisher is the original owner and he opened the place in 1932 after 10 years of playing major league baseball. Back then the place was hopping with a dance floor and slot machines. Supposedly Showboat, who got his name for being a flashy dresser, spent most summer nights sleeping by the front door with his shotgun to protect the day's gambling takes.
When we stepped into the restaurant on a warm June evening, we found that it's still a lively place. The tables on the patio overlooking Middle Spunk Lake were full, so we sat in the back dining room with knotty pine paneling. A large party next to us was celebrating an 80th birthday. We listened to some men talk about fishing for walleye. "I caught 80 walleye in one day last week," one guy boasted. "Eighty fish!"
Their conversation spurred us to order the fried walleye off the menu. It was the best thing I have ever eaten out of a plastic basket. The white fish was sweet, moist, flakey, and perfectly crispy. Apparently, the restaurant uses Showboat's original bread recipe--that has been kept a secret over the decades. If we weren't on the tight $150-a-day budget, I would have ordered a second fillet--especially since my daughter ate nearly half of mine and neglected her mac and cheese. How often does a kid prefer fish over Kraft macaroni and cheese?
*To read the complete Mississippi Road Trip series, click here. If you want up-to-the-minute updates, follow OnTheGoWithAmy on Twitter.
I'm a girl on the go. I travel for fun. For work. With my kids. With my husband. With my girlfriends. For me, traveling is not about luxury. It's about getting out there and experiencing new things. Best Western signed me up because, like me, they want to get people talking about travel. So let's talk! Tell me your travel tales, teach me your tips, and, when the airline loses your luggage, feel free to throw a temper tantrum. Believe me, I understand.
Got a travel question? Looking for an affordable hotel in New York City? Planning a family trip to the Caribbean and want to know which island is best for kids?
Send your questions to onthegowithamy@gmail.com for advice. Questions may be edited for clarity and space.
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