Serious Love for Iowa

Jill's Journal: Lazy days soaking up the wonderfulness of close-knit family ties are quickly drawing to a close. The girls’ Great Grandpa treated us to a super nice lunch and we stuck around for a few hours for a surprise early Christmas and to play. I hope I’m that spry when I’m nearly 87! The girls really think the world of him and are building such tremendous memories. The pictures alone are treasures to me.



Great Aunt Julie joined us for a visit to the Ice Cream Capital of the World. More ice cream is produced in Le Mars, Iowa, by Blue Bunny than by any other city in the world. Their little museum simulates their factory and taught the girls a little bit about how ice cream is made. And what kids don’t like ice cream? They were, of course, enthralled. The 1920’s-style ice cream parlor is a must-visit as well.

My Dad will appreciate this one…his “domestic” brother serving up dinner. It ranks up there with the picture of my Dad running a vacuum. :)

God’s Molen Malen Langzaam Maar Zeker

(God’s Windmills Grind Slowly But Sure)




Jill's Journal: For the first time, the girls got to see the workings inside of a windmill (the Old Mill at Diamond Vogel Paint), including the cheery and charming living quarters of a Dutch miller and his family. After seeing other mills which were powered by water, it was super easy for them to understand that windmills harness the wind (and wonderful to see they’re retaining many of the things they’re learning on this trip!).

Notice the Dutch storefronts downtown and actually throughout all of Orange City. I appreciate this town more every time I’m here. And Mom, yes, we went to the wonderful Woudstra Meat Market today and have as many saucijsjes as our little freezer can hold!! Saucijsjes are a Dutch-style pig in the blanket, a spiced pork/beef sausage wrapped in a delicate pastry. They are divine and can’t seem to be perfectly replicated anywhere outside of Orange City. Of course, we’ll have to try the versions in other Dutch towns as we travel. :)

The girls were particularly taken by the phone booths in town…

And visited Great Aunt Julie at work (she’s a librarian!).

But I think the most educational thing we did today, hands-down, was give the girls an idea of where their bacon comes from! They got to go to a hog confinement and learn a tiny bit about how pigs are raised. They’ve only ever seen one pig in their entire life – in Plymouth in September – so seeing 1,000 at once was wild. Erika found it fascinating, Madelyn was a little overcome by the smell, and Victoria was intimidated by their size and number. Erika got to touch several and was surprised at how “not-soft” they are and how clean they are in comparison to what she expected. It was something I don’t think they’ll forget. Thanks so much to Uncle Kim and Denny V.R. for giving us the opportunity.

Idyllic Days

Jill's Journal: Orange City, all American with a hearty dose of Holland. It’s a fantastic combination.



These are idyllic days, these beautiful days in Iowa focused on family. Great Grandpa spent part of his afternoon teaching the girls how to play Chinese Checkers on a board that belonged to their Great Great Grandfather.

My sweet cousin Kelsey showed the girls how to gather eggs! Her family added a few of yesterday’s eggs to the mix to make sure the girls had plenty to find. How sweet is that?

Kelsey with her parents, the girls’ Great Uncle Ward and Great Aunt Brenda, in the gorgeous horse arena they’ve nearly finished building on their acreage. Ward is the aforementioned uncle in the infamous strawberry skirmish of my childhood, a fact that still provides plenty of fodder for ribbing all these years later. And I just learned today that Brenda makes the meanest apple pie around. YUM. That should help take the sting out of Ward’s strawberry deficiency. :)

The adorable Levi, another cousin, in a photo taken by Victoria. The girls are not used to hanging out with 11-year-old boys and they think he is just soooooo cool!

Here’s Erika playing on the VERY SAME playground equipment I have so many memories of playing on in kindergarten and first grade. And goodness knows how long that giraffe was around before my time! It must be an antique.

Madelyn on more school yard equipment I remember! Wouldn’t these girls make cute little Iowan farm girls?

What It’s All About…

Jill's Journal: This is what it’s all about…three little girls getting to know their great-grandfather. This picture wasn’t posed in any way. They were simply sharing ice cream together. Look at that adoration on those faces – all four of them! Victoria is notoriously aloof with new people, but at the first sight of Great Grandpa yesterday, she immediately hugged him. And look at her here all snuggled up to him with her hand on his leg!

Of course, a great uncle who spent hours today playing the Memory Game, reading them books, and just being silly earned quite a bit of adoration of his own! At bedtime, Erika told me, “It’s so nice to have so many people that love us here. I really like it here, Mom.”

Great Uncle Kim also taught the girls how to feed chickens with dried ears of corn; they thought this was about the funnest thing ever and are starting to think Kim practically walks on water. Madelyn can’t contain her adoration; she even leaned over and spontaneously gave him a hug during dinner tonight.

Chickens!

Naturally, Great Aunt Julie ranks pretty high up there too. This picture was snapped within about three seconds of our arrival yesterday. The two older girls took one look at her friendly face and were immediately ready to move in with her.

The wonderful barn, built meticulously by Kim’s hands, that we are staying in…

And when I say “staying in,” I really mean staying in. Kim had us back the fifth wheel inside so we would be entirely protected from any weather. It’s a balmy 70 degrees in here! We have every comfort you could imagine. It’s like a vacation at the beach without all the sand! Good, old-fashioned Iowa hospitality is out of this world.

Rob with his girls, who absolutely insisted he needed flowers on his birthday cake yesterday. Look at Victoria’s eyes on the prize!

Grandpa with my cousin Blake. There aren’t too many pictures from my childhood without me and Blake joined at the hip. How fun and special to grow up with cousins…my daughters need some cousins!!

The landmark Orange City water tower.

If you’re ever in need of wooden shoes or countless other Dutch goods, Orange City is the place to come.

Just because someone loves the Midwest, it doesn’t necessarily mean they love the weather!

Such special times in Iowa...

Orange City, Iowa

Jill's Journal: Nestled in the Northwest corner of Iowa is the teeny-tiny little Dutch town of Orange City, best known for its annual Tulip Festival. Named after William of Orange (part of the Dutch royal house) when it was founded in 1870, Orange City today sports a population well under 6,000 people.

On the edge of this little town is one of my favorite places on earth, a very special, honest-to-goodness farm.

My great-grandfather built this farm from rich earth nearly 100 years ago. My grandfather was born in this home in 1924, grew up here, and didn’t leave until he retired, unless you count time in the military serving our country during World War II. My father also was born here and grew up here, although he left the day he turned 18 to seek adventure out West. He too served in the military, but the farm must have had a great pull for him also, as he returned with his bride in 1969. I was born a few years later and most of the memories from my first seven years of life are from this very farm.

This is where my grandmother picked strawberries from her garden with me, much to an uncle’s consternation (at 10 years older than me, apparently he wasn’t allowed to pick those same strawberries). This is where I’d urge my pony, Flash, to full speed – as fast as her short little legs could carry us (which in hindsight must have been a dawdling pace but at the time felt like I was riding Secretariat) – and leap off in front of my grandparents while they sat on their front deck. My grandmother would feign a heart attack and chide me, while my grandfather would grin from ear to ear and give me the “thumbs-up” sign behind her back.

This is where my father milked his cows and let me feed calves. This is where my mother and my aunt spent countless hours while my cousin and I played. On cold days, if I had happy news while at my grandparents’, my Mom would call my Dad in the cow barn – which is in sight of the house – and he would pause from his milking and come out to “jump for joy,” much to this little girl’s delight. Oh, good memories indeed.

And now a very beloved uncle and aunt live in this wonderful old home and farm this land, the third generation to do so. Three generations. In this world where people move so much more than they used to, I find the constant of this farm and this small town very special. Only the sophistication of the farming equipment has changed over the last century. And the people, both then and now, are surely some of America’s finest.

I used to make it a point to visit about once a year, even early in our “child years.” But December of 2006, with a 34-month-old and a 12-month-old in tow, was the last time I went for fun. The next year the third child arrived and it got more difficult to travel, so our last trip to Iowa was out of necessity and sadness in December of 2007, when Alzheimer’s disease completed its thievery and stole my grandmother’s body as it had her soul.

My grandfather is 86 now, my only surviving grandparent and one of the girls’ only two surviving great-grandparents. He has been a central figure in my life and I know the years where I can cherish him and not just his memory are growing short.

So, while our original plan was to head to Florida following our Northeast tour, we decided to make a detour. If we didn’t do it now, it could easily be a couple of years before our loose “itinerary” brought us to these parts. I’m so glad we’re here.

Tough Day

Jill's Journal: Lo and behold, it’s amazing how some truck trouble (yes, more of it), harsh winds, icky weather, and the desire to cover nearly 700 miles with a trailer and three kids can wreak havoc on a perfectly fine day or so. But we’ve had so many good times on this trip that we can’t complain toooooo much when we have a rough one (although today definitely qualified as such). By the way, the snowman on a flat-tired tractor has nothing to do with this post, other than the girls got a kick out of it at a random stop for gas in southern Iowa today.

We overnighted last night in Ottawa, Illinois, and tonight we’re safely ensconced in Sioux City, Iowa. We’re only about 45 miles from our destination but we just.couldn’t.cover.another.inch. Tomorrow is another day. (And it’ll also be Rob’s birthday – shhhh!)

RV Museum and Hall of Fame

Jill's Journal: I suppose it only makes sense to have the RV Museum and Hall of Fame in Elkhart, Indiana, the RV Capital of the World. I haven’t quite figured out exactly how one qualifies for the Hall of Fame, but the museum part was fantastic. Dozens and dozens of RVs from the last century showed exactly how camping has evolved over that time. We saw the first known travel trailer in the world, which was pulled behind a 1913 Model T, and a great number of RV examples from every class for every decade since.

The girls had a ball going in one trailer after another and seeing how camping used to be. I do believe the general consensus at the end of the excursion was that we, in our 42-foot fifth wheel with all the modern conveniences (except a dishwasher), are in no way “roughing it!” I especially think of the Moms who went camping with their families over the last decades and my hat is off to them. I don’t know how they kept their husbands and kids fed with the Spartan “kitchens” and how they kept their sanity while doing it. Suffice it to say -- since I am not a true camper by any stretch of the imagination -- our little family would most certainly not be traveling like this in those trailers of yesteryear!

Das Dutchman Essenhaus

Jill's Journal: Northern Indiana has been such a pleasant surprise. One quaint town after another, gently rolling hills, pretty little rivers, and the heavy Amish influence all contribute to a really lovely place. Tonight we tried the most famous Amish-style country kitchen around – Das Dutchman Essenhaus in Middlebury.

The 1,100-seat restaurant is massive and runs like a smoothly-oiled machine. They specialize in family-style dining, where large dishes of steaming food are passed around the table. With particular little girls, we opted for the menu section and still enjoyed a hearty meal of pure comfort food. If this is truly how the Amish eat, it is certainly a testament to their hard-working, active lifestyle that they’re all so slim.

The Amish

Jill's Journal: If we had to break down, I’m so glad it was here! The little town next door to us, Middlebury, Indiana, is cute as a button. Apparently there’s a huge Amish and Mennonite population. The girls and I spent the afternoon exploring a little bit and came across one Amish country store after another. We stumbled across a small cheese factory (Deutsch Kase Haus) and a small noodle factory (Katie’s Homemade Noodles at the Dutch Country Market), both of which sell their wares and have large windows into the factory floors so customers can watch them whipping up their respective creations. We went into a few of the Amish markets and each is piled high with homemade preserves, flour, popcorn, salsa, rugs, furniture, woodwork, you name it.

The girls were enamored by all the horses and buggies. They counted gleefully as we passed one after another and didn’t get distracted until we’d passed more than three dozen. We saw the cutest pony ever pulling a little cart piled high with laughing Amish kids. And we saw a four-wide hitch of Belgians turning over the soil at a farm.

It was awesome to find hitching posts in so many parking lots and we got a good laugh at one sign that said, “No Buggy Parking.” The girls love this quaint town and I do too. They keep telling me, “It’s so peaceful here!” Between all the horses used in everyday life and the cute little bonnets all the Amish girls wear, our girls are completely enamored and quite ready to convert.

Break-downs happen...

I know that Jill already posted a bit of this, but I had to put my own twist on it all, for the sake of history. We hadn't had a breakdown yet, but of course one had to come. Its just too many miles for something not to go wrong. The injector that I thought was the problem back in WV - turns out could have just been a preliminary sign of this issue... hopefully we'll never know.


The problem, it turns out, is that the FICM (at the dealership they called it the FICK'em -- which I will forever refer to now as the FIC Me) - Fuel Injection Control Module - went bad on the truck, which is why I could limp it along for a bit, but then it just died and wouldn't catch. No fuel, no fire.

Anyhow - everything is all fixed now, with an oil change and an alignment to boot. Even the brakes were checked out - so I think we're back in good shape. Towing sucked, and was a tad bit more than I'd expected, but we'll go sign up for one of those service plans and we won't have to worry about that again.

I'm glad that I listened to my phone on this search tho. You see, as I was sitting in my dead truck on the side of a busy freeway (or 'the toll road' as they call it here) I tried to find towing options. There were 4 or 5 good options, but with the map the way it was, and how I put it in, when I'd try to touch any name the phone would bring up the same shop. Well, after the third or fourth misclick to the same shop - I decided that had the be the company I called. I'm going with that instinct from now on. Not only did Moore's Towing and Service show up quickly, act professionally, and generally live up to as the best towing company I've dealt with, but they recommended who I should take the truck to - even excusing themselves from the service because they probably didn't have all the equipment I'd need to get it fixed quickly. WOW - honesty in car repair - novel concept.

Randy towed the truck ++ and the trailer, on the back of his rig to the campground I was trying to limp to, and after a little trouble with figuring out the campsite did something I'd never thought I'd see. He backed up the tow rig, the truck, and the trailer - twice, in one shot both times, to get them into position - and put the trailer exactly where he wanted it both times. GOOD Tow drivers amaze me.

After sitting in camp last night, and cleaning out the entire contents of the truck over a couple of beers - I was resigned to fate. This failure was going to be in the 5K range, and I was going to have to decide - this truck, or new truck with warranty... And I cleaned it all out, down the the coins in the ashtray. I spent last night pulling everything I had in place - radios, floor mats - all of it. I was certain this was going to be the big expense, and a new truck would be cheaper.

So - morning of the next day (today), and the new tow shows up. It takes him some time to hook up, because he's not Randy (sorry John) and is having a little trouble with the axle, but we finally get moving. I've called the dealership - and all seems well. When we get down to Harold Ziegler Ford, which Randy recommended yesterday, I'm generally pleased. They seem to have put another truck on hold to take care of me in my broken down state so that they can get me out that day (forgetting that I tow my HOUSE, I'm not entirely inconvenienced by the breakdown, which once they figure out is kinda novel to them). We're taking a wait and see approach as to what the problem is, but because I'm a priority, they'll have it figured out 'within an hour' after I arrive - psshaw. Never seen a dealer actually mean that. They meant it.


Within an hour of sitting down and them looking at the truck they came in with a real estimate - down to the penny - this is what we found, this is what we think, this is what its gonna cost. The total was so much lower than what I had in my head that I don't think the Service Writer has ever had someone who he handed a Plus 1K estimate to be so happy. I think it made him uneasy. :) At that point I added the other services (oil, alignment) and said get'r'done.

Bottom line is this - Elkhart was the place to break down. Right campground (open), right tow company (not sure I'd have gone to a dealer without that recommendation - ask and listen rather than flying blind), right fix-it shop (I'd recommend them by name). While this failure was expensive, the dealership did everything it could - without my asking - to help me out. Even found a way to get me fleet pricing on the fix, saving me a few hundred. Paul the porter (at age 82) made my day with his stories, and the two Jacks, while corporate, did what they could to make me welcome and I left without the usual feeling of dealership slime. They are a good dealership - they are good people. Go there, if you break down anywhere close - or if you're just in the area and looking for a Ford.

The good thing about all this is that it proved a concept I had in place when we planned this trip. I have redundancy in most things I do. I bought a fifth-wheel thinking that if the truck ever died I'd still be able to keep the house, have the van to travel in and ship the truck for repairs. In a Class A you can't sleep in that when its getting fixed. Everything is coming together, and learningly working well now.

My apologies for the long post - its been a long couple of days and I wanted to remember as much of this as possible. Someday it'll matter to the girls. ;)

A Happy Truck Again

Jill's Journal: Our truck spent plenty of time at the mechanic today and came away with a new fuel pump/computer thingamajigee. All I know is it wasn’t cheap, but it’s fixed, so yay! It looks like we’ll be around these parts for a few days though as packing up and traveling more than just a short distance during the week is out. Rob has to work and the girls have school (I guess I’m the only one free as a bird...ha ha!).

The Best Laid Plans…

Jill's Journal: We have one last cold-weather detour in us before calling it a season and heading for warmer pastures. Niagara Falls is almost a straight shot across I-90/I-80 to Iowa, home of some pretty special and beloved relatives. What’s 1,000 miles when it’s been a few years since we’ve seen them? :)

We’ve driven a few hundred miles each of the last few days and had just gotten started this morning, chugging along merrily, when suddenly we puttered to a halting stop. One large tow truck later, we are now safely ensconced in a near-empty campground near Bristol, Indiana, just about two miles from the Michigan border. It seriously looks like we’re in the middle of nowhere, so we were stunned to find an open campground within a few miles and very excited to learn we’re near Elkhart, the RV Capital of the World where more than 50% of all RVs are made. We suspect people around these parts are familiar with big domestic trucks and how to fix them, so things could always be worse – if we had to break down, this was probably about the best place we could possibly pick to do it.