The Road Less Traveled

Took our annual vacation. Same places but it seems as often as we go to SW Wisconsin we always experience some new adventure. I never look forward to our annual fall vacation. I know what towns we will visit. I know what apple orchards we will stop at. I even know most of the highways and county roads we will travel down but for some reason I always arrive home feeling as if I had fun even though it definitely wasn't Disney World or the Florida Keys. I think the only thing worse than going on our annual fall vacation would be attending a Minnesota Wild game. I hate hockey. Maybe because I don't understand the game and how it's played. One good thing about our fall vacation is it's easy because I know the route. I could drive to these place with a blindfold over my eyes which I actually did all of (not the blindfold part). We lowered the windows in every little town where a train was rolling through or where people were burning leaves in firepits because we both love trains and the smell of leaves brings us back to the days of our youth.

We spent Saturday afternoon at Michael's college buddy's and watched Wisconsin beat Iowa. The "fun" there was seeing Michael laughing and joking with his buddies about old times (kind of like the commercial when they get to the description of "priceless").
We were one week late for the leaves which is Michael's favorite but the cornfields were harvested so I was able to get a good picture of a Illinois landscape. My dad was from there and he always told me Illinois has always been known for three things: trains, black dirt and flat land. We stopped along a county road and I jumped out and took a picture. You could see for miles and the quietness and the smell in the air was truly mind-boggling. I almost felt my dads presence with me there on that Illinois highway. There are some things that still make me miss him.

Our pumpkin is always picked out the last day of this annual trip. We stopped at a patch with no one there. Just a lockbox and a note telling you to put in two dollars and pick any one you want. I always enjoy the simplicity of that. The vacation ended 4 days later but we had packed alot of memories along the way. Maybe next year we will go to the Black Hills or even Disney World. Did I mention I hate crowds and spending large amounts of money? I guess I prefer quiet country roads filled with the rolling hills, cows, and farmers markets. And if you get out of the car for a moment you might see a beautiful landscape, smell the freshly harvested cornfields, and hear the locusts. And don't forget the "wooly-worms" as we called those beautiful caterpillars back in my day. Thanks to the insecticides that kill off the mosquitoes each year you're lucky to see any of them anymore, unless of course you come to SW Wisconsin.