Monday, we toured the Wisconsin state capitol in Madison. We found some Bucky Badger statues that were part of a fundraiser. Bucky is the University of Wisconsin-Madison mascot and the badger is the state animal.
See the badger on the wall in the arch?
The capitol is labyrinthine enough that the light fixtures on the ground level floor are labeled so you know which direction you are headed as you head outside.
Tuesday we went for a Jelly Belly tour. Sadly, this is just a shipping facility, not a manufacturing facility, but we got a "train" ride as we got our tour and a free sample at the end!
Part of the sample was a box of Bean Boozled Beans--think Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans. The dead fish flavor made J kind of ill, both kids were totally grossed out, and just a sniff of the box made my eyes water big time!
The cool thing for sale in their shop was the Belly Flops bag--all the Jelly Belly beans that were not conforming enough to sell! (Limit 30 bags per day....)
We ended up spending the night just over the border in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln welcomed us to the state!
Wednesday we drove out of Illinois, through the bottom of Wisconsin, and into Iowa.
Look, the GPS dude is the guy from the American Gothic painting!
FYI, you can only get screen shots of these guys if you're using your Google maps GPS while crossing the border. Whichever one of us isn't driving, or maybe even J, if I had him my phone, takes a screen shot. It's been fun to see who pops up on the screen, welcoming us to the state.
Our first stop was this lock and dam. We were a little disappointed at first, we did hear some pretty insistent eagle cries as we got out of the car, but there was no one in the lock and no wildlife to be seen.
Okay, there was algae
And then we saw this great blue heron on the gate at the end of the lock, he stayed there the whole time
We heard a horn blast and ran over to see this personal watercraft making its way up the lock. They blast a horn when the gates open fully, to tell you you can come in. The boats blast a horn to say they're in the lock or clear of the lock, when they clear the lock, the lock blasts another horn in response and then starts closing the gate.
While we waited for the water level to rise from 12 feet..
...to 15 feet...
We spotted this pelican. And the great blue heron rode the gate as it opened all the way and shut all the way. While we were watching the boat and the pelican, a bald eagle flew over our heads, just about 10 feet above us.
Our next stop was the Fenelon Place Elevator, a funicular railway. That just means there are two cars that counterbalance each other, as one goes down, it pulls the other one up.
We could see three states from the top platform and a great view of the Mississippi River (yup, we crossed it again!)
Supposedly, this is the steepest and shortest funicular railway in the world. This picture almost shows just how steep it is.
Our last stop for the day was the Field of Dreams, from the movie
J and S imagined a game of baseball...
And disappeared into the corn, until a big spider chased them out
We took photos and headed out
We actually ended up in Wisconsin for the night and came back into Iowa for the morning.
Thursday we went to Effigy Mounds National Monument. These were mostly burial mounds and so hard to take pictures of, amongst the trees in the dappled sunlight.
Our view from the hike up to see the mounds
On our drives through all this Midwest farmland, we started seeing these on barns:
We went to Burr Oak, Iowa. This is the first Laura Ingalls Wilder site that we had visited so far that had actual buildings from Laura's time there. She didn't write a book based on her time in Burr Oak though.
Friday we stopped at the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site in West Branch, Iowa. It is right next door to the presidential library and museum, but we didn't have enough time before they closed to do both.
Herbert Hoover's birthplace cottage was here, along with other original buildings from his childhood that had been relocated to this property
Hoover's gravesite and wife's gravesite were here too
Saturday we made a brief stop at the Mormon Handcart Park in Iowa City. This is where the Mormon handcart pioneers prepared to make their trek westward.
Our big stop for the day was the American Gothic house!
They have a small museum, a gift shop, a 30 minute video, and then dress ups for the perfect photo op! It was hard to not be squinty in the photos and keep the perfect, straight and dour face for the photos.
Our last stop was the Iowa state capitol in Des Moines. They were 30 minutes from closing up for the day, so we dashed in and looked around.
Today we attended the Ankeny Ward, Des Moines Iowa Stake.
Then we headed to Living History Farms. They have a 1700 farm, an 1850 farm and a 1900 farm, plus an 1875 village. We only had time for the village before they closed.
They have a church at the end of the main street, lots of different buildings including two houses (one was a very lavish mansion), print shop, drug store, general store, and a school.
We got to learn about leeches at the drug store. Yum!
Our last stop for the night was the Kanesville Tabernacle, I totally forgot to get a picture of the outside of the building!
We are on a Utah-bound trajectory for a bit, plus doing school, so there's a fair bit of driving and school and not a lot of sight-seeing right now.
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