Adventures in Iowa

Most folks probably don't think of Iowa as the place to go for adventure or vacation. We have enjoyed our visits to Iowa. We've been here twice.
Well, three times, but the first time we just drove through to get to Minnesota. And every time we go to Nebraska, but that's only a few miles.

We've had a lot of really pleasant experiences in Iowa.

The capitol is Des Moines - we have not been there yet.
They call it the Hawkeye state.
It is bordered on the north by Minnesota; on the East by Illinois and Wisconsin; on the south by Missouri; and on the west by Nebraska and South Dakota.

We stayed in Keokuk for about a week.
We got to go to a civil war reenactment.
We had never seen one before.

 

The cannons were bigger than some of thought they'd be.

 Dan: It was so cool, I want to go to more of them. There was a cannon and it was amazingly loud. Dave asked Mom if the ladies were wearing hoop skirts and one of the ladies started laughing at him.

The ladies who laughed at Dave.

I saw a Confederate prisoner shoot a Union soldier. Then he got shot. The Union wore blue and the Confederacy wore gray. The horses were freaked out by the thundering of the cannons.

Dave: My feet are bigger than President Lincoln's.

It was the Battle for Wilson's Creek. We passed that battlefield yesterday in Missouri. The ladies were wearing hoop skirts. The prisoners had to either fight against their side or stay in prison. Some of them actually fought for the opposing side. The prisoners wore bright red shirts and striped pants, in case they tried to run away. The problem was the cannon guys also had red markings. The Calvary had yellow markings, the infantry wore blue. We saw a man fall off his horse during practice. The horse started bucking. Robynne, our sister's dog, was in the camper a half mile away and she was so upset by the cannon fire that she threw up on the floor of the RV. That's how loud they are.
Now I am reading this book:

Dom: We got to see a doc, they fixed wounds mostly by amputation. My feet are not quite as big as Mr. Lincoln's. The guys all came back to life when the leader yelled, "Resurection!" They sold donuts and the cinnamon donuts were really, really good.  Dan bought a baker's dozen for us. That's 13. We saved one for Dad, the rest of us got two.

Dave: They were good, but not as good as Mom's!!!

There were no battles fought in Keokuk, IA. But there was a Union hospital there. It was easy to send the injured up the Mississippi River.
The Confederates won the Battle for Wilson's Creek.

What we saw. (Not a book)

A kildeer plover just hopped across the driveway here in York, NE. Very briefly he looked around at our campground and then - he was gone.

Little Britches by Ralph Moody

This series is one of our favorites.
Ralph Moody is a real boy who tries his best to do right so he can grow up to be a good man.

Second AB: "Well, there was this storm coming and it was a twister. Ralph had a horse named Fanny and she got caught in a bridge and she slipped down and died. It was very sad and I cried. (But the First Mate didn't cry.) Ralph loved his horse and he had tamed her."

First AB: "My favorite part is when Ralph meets Hi. Ralph had to go work when he just 10 and he worked on a ranch. Hi is a cowboy, he has a blue horse and Ralph, who Hi nicknames 'Little Britches,' likes Hi's horse. Hi does lots of tricks with Sky Blue and Ralph would like to learn how to do tricks. One day, he asked the Boss if he could train a blue colt and the Boss told him that Ralph could ride the horse if he could train it. Hi and Ralph enter a trick show. There are a lot of really good parts in this book. Ralph gets into a lot of mischief. I really liked him."

First Mate: "Ralph lived in Colorado. His family moved from Massachusetts because his father's health was not good. His father got a lot better in the West. One day Ralph's father was driving a cart and the horse got scared by a car. The horse ran away and got caught in the barbed wire. This part of the story has a really sad ending. (But I didn't cry. Some others did - I think my dad almost cried.)"

Mom: The whole family enjoyed these poignant stories of Ralph Moody's family and his coming-of-age on the frontier of Colorado.

My Dog, My Hero

My Dog, My Hero by Betsy Byers, Laurie Myers and Betsey Duffy is a book of true dog stories.

Second AB loves these stories and has insisted that we review this book. He is quite impressed with a dog named, Blue. It seems one day Blue's owner went out to cut some trees. He cut his leg with the chainsaw. Blue saved this man's life by summoning help. To find out how, you'll have to read the book. In another story, Dopey is out for a drive with his owners. Dopey begins to bark and bark and bark at another car. Dopey's owner is really annoyed at the barking, but he kept on barking eventually the owner checked the car next to his and discovered that someone had forgotten their baby!

First AB: "It was pretty good. A lot of dogs saved their people's lives." He really did like it.

And the First Mate: "Another dog saved another baby from being struck by a garbage a truck, but I don't want to ruin the ending for you."

Hello, World

Maybe you should know who we are first:
We are three brothers who have four older sisters. We are best friends with each other.

The First Mate is 12-going-on-13 and he loves to play with Legos and learn different languages, this year he is studying Greek. He likes adventure books by Gary Paulsen. He's helpful to his younger brothers except sometimes he tries to get someone else to do his chore.

The First AB is 11 years old. He LOVES gardening and farming and reading books about these subjects. He likes to read seed and chicken catalogs. He loves to plant and transplant all kinds of growing things. He is really funny and a little wild. He's the loudest, quickest-tempered, goofiest of us all.

The Second AB is 7 years old. He was promoted from Ship's Boy in the fall and he is very proud of the hard work he had to do to achieve a higher rank. He likes NASCAR racing and is one of Jimmie Johnson's staunchest fans (he even eats peanut butter on his pancakes!). He takes this very seriously and he is currently reading The Physics of Nascar by Diandra Leslie-Pelecky. Everybody likes to hang out with him and he is amiable and fun.

Well, it's been kind of difficult to start this blog since we had a hard time deciding on which book deserves to be first. Should it be Hop on Pop? Freckles? The Dangerous Book for Boys? Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief? Pagoo? Redwall? The Big Friendly Giant? The Mysterious Benedict Society - oh no, there are three of them?
Oh, goodness, which one...

Drum roll.....

Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons
(note: This review encompasses all the books in the series that we have read. We still have to read Missee Lee, The Picts and the Martyrs, Great Northern, and Coots in the North.)
The order of the stories:

• Swallows and Amazons (published 1930)
• Swallowdale (1931)
• Peter Duck (1932)
• Winter Holiday (1933)
• Coot Club (1934)
• Pigeon Post (1936)
• We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea (1937)
• Secret Water (1939)
• The Big Six (1940)
• Missee Lee (1941)
• The Picts And The Martyrs: or Not Welcome At All (1943)
• Great Northern? (1947)
• Coots in the North

The First Mate's take on the series: "This series takes place mostly in the Lake District of England. The first book is about the children of the Walker family: John, Susan, Titty and Roger. They have a baby sister. Their family vacations near a lake. The landlords let the children sail a small sailboat, Swallow, around the lake which also has a few islands. The children pack up their things and set sail for Wildcat Island, where they meet up with a couple of Amazon Pirates named Nancy and Peggy. Nancy's real name was Ruth but she changed it because Amazons are ruthless. The adventures of these children are really fun. Sometimes they get into really serious trouble but they manage to solve their problems. I love these books because I like to solve problems on my own and I like being part of my family's crew. If you noticed, our screen names show that we really aren't duffers. A duffer is just about the worst thing to be.

Coot Club is a book that doesn't include the Walker children. It is about their friends the D's - Dick and Dorothea who meet the Coot Club - a club of children who protect coots. Tom, the Coot Club leader, is checking on the birds and sees that there are some "hullaballoos," a group of loud, obnoxious people who blare music loudly on their boat. They are about to crush a coot's nest and Tom asks them to leave the birds alone. The Hullaballoos are not very nice and not very cooperative and so Tom unhooks their anchor and sets them adrift. When the Hullaballoos notice that they are floating away, they become angry and speed down river to find Tom. To find out if Tom evades capture you will have to read this book. But read them in order or you won't know who is who."

The First AB chimes in: "In the book, Secret Water, the Walker children decide to sacrifice their baby sister, Bridgette. They meet new friends called the Eels. These friends offer one group member as a sacrifice every year. They tie someone to a stake and then eat eels. This year, they decide to use Bridgette. Bridgette falls and pricks her finger on a thorn bush. Roger is very happy about that because he was hoping that they could become blood brothers and sisters with the Eels."

The Second AB speaks: "One time they did not mean to go to sea. But they accidentally went to sea and saved a kitten. They sailed from England to Holland and their father was there. He was very proud that his children had safely navigated the stormy waters of the English Channel. He would have been heart broken if his children had been duffers! We like to play Swallows and Amazons when we are traveling."