Madison - 7th Day Today the three of us did some touristy sightseeing. We started at Cave of the Mounds, a limestone cave full of cool formations that started forming 488 million years ago. Next we visited Little Norway, a Norwegian farm started in the 1850's. It was then bought in the 1930's and kept as a museum to preserve the Norwegian way of life. The biggest and most amazing building is the "Norway Building", it was built for the 1893 World's Fair then purchased and moved to Little Norway in 1935. We would love to live in it. The whole place was old and magical, tucked into the woods and we wanted to stay forever. Mavis wanted to take us to a local vineyard for a wine tasting but unfortunately they were closed so we ... read more

Wisconsin Dells - 5th Day After an early morning goodbye we left Minocqua and drove 3 hours south to Wisconsin Dells, checked into the Great Wolf Lodge then met up with Laurie's brother and his wife and son, Nelson. After spending time catching up and looking at old family pictures we went to downtown touristy Wisconsin Dells. We split up pretty quick because the kids, John, Marleah and Nelson, wanted to go to "Wizard's Quest" and the adults wanted to shop. Wizard's Quest is an interactive game where you run around and solve riddles and puzzles to rescue the trapped wizards. It was a totally fun, fantastical game with hidden doors, slides, trick mirrors, fairies, a castle, unicorns, dragons, and trolls, all based on the elements. It was work trying to keep up with Marleah's 14 ... read more

Day 17 Oh geez louise, driving in Brussels is so hard!!!! The street signs, which are in two languages, don't match the map and it took us forever to get out of there. On the highway there was car accident traffic jams, construction and blinding rain and then when we crossed the border into France the rain stopped and the sun came out. We love love love the French countryside! Far reaching plowed fields of all colors, hillside villages of old homes and farm houses all centered around a little church, tree lined lanes, big open sky and autumn colored trees filled with birds. Black Sabbath on the radio, speeding down the road, excited for Paris. Well, then we got to Paris... It took ages to find the car rental return, it started raining and the ... read more

Day 13 The drive to Amsterdam took about 4 hours. We parked the car outside the city and took the metro to the central station. Our hotel is on a boat and the walk there was great. We walked over bridges, saw a heron and passed a floating Chinese restaurant covered in lights! The room is teeny tiny and sorta wet but what do you expect, it's a boat! It's really sweet and totally fun and the man and wife who run it are wonderful. After getting our sea legs we decided to venture back to land for some dinner. We ate Greek food and Marleah found a new kitten best friend, then we wandered the cute cute streets having tons of house crushes and pretending which ones we would live in. We also walked around ... read more

Day 11 Driving through Poland was sooooo booooring! It's just like Nebraska. The only thing interesting was the forest right before we reached the border where people had foraged for mushrooms and were selling them on the side of the road. Nothing in the world feels better than Germany right now! At 3:00 we arrived in Beelitz, the sparglestadt of Germany (the white asparagus capital). But we weren't there for the asparagus, we were there to explore the Beelitz-Heilstätten Sanatorium. A huge abandonded hospital complex with tons of wonderful run down buildings which means lots of wonderful pictures. We tried to get in one of the main buildings but since we didn't bring a flashlight we couldn't make it up out of the basement, it was really dark. We had so much fun! Walhalla hotel in ... read more