Check out the miles and miles of sunflower fields! (makes us really miss our friends at SunFlower school!)
lots of yummy sunflower seeds here
We saw them harvesting some of the fields and assume they have let the flowers go to seed for those yummy sunflower seeds.
Oh yeah, we just passed over the Missouri River.
Missouri River
Peter asked for a latte. I pushed a button to make one appear while he was driving. (that’s somewhere in South Dakota out the window).
I’m sure there are other people who travel with their espresso machines, but I haven’t met any yet.
Did you know Maytag Blue Cheese is made in Newton, Iowa? It was serendipitous that we stumbled upon these tasty crumbles after just visiting the Anchor Bar, where buffalo wings were invented.
We had a nice little tour of the factory & saw workers actually wrapping the cheese wedges by hand! We were treated to a 15 minute video filmed circa 1960. Not much has changed in the way of production at the Maytag Farm. Except that instead of shipping 250 lbs of cheese each year, they ship one million pounds!
Cheese heaven, straight ahead
Handwrapping the blue cheese wedges
The farm has caves where they age the cheese for six months
We held physics class at the Science Center of Iowa. We were the only people in the whole science museum. Seriously.
Cornfields of Iowa
We left Michigan on Monday (official state motto: “if you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you”, our unofficial motto: “when can we leave?”
We drove through a sliver of Indiana, blasted through Illinois, and ended up in Iowa. Yes, Iowa. State motto: “Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain”. We suspect it’s code for “we grow corn. lots of corn.”
We did see some bison at a wild animal refuge, and they sure saw us too.
Iowa, where the bison roam
Who knew there was a Newton, Iowa?!
Newton, Iowa
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Dog Beach!
Shawn & Mary packed up their motorhome and joined us for a great camping weekend at Warren Dunes State Park in Lake Charter Township, MI.
There are some crazy cool sand dunes here on the shore of Lake Michigan.
We trekked up this dune, some of us more easily than others… our four-footed friends had a blast.
Summer & Rachel couldn’t wait to visit Uncle Shawn and Aunt Mary in Ypsilanti, MI. Home of the country’s largest private collection of stuffed platypus.
Daisy, Rufus, Summer, Aunt Mary, Uncle Shawn, and Rachel
Frank & Teressa’s Anchor Bar in lovely Buffalo, NY is where the buffalo wing was “invented”. Their suicide hot sauce is really good, but unlike Quaker Steak, they didn’t require Peter to sign a waiver.
Home of the original buffalo wing
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