We had a rough night last night. Phoebe developed a cold and sniffled all night. I got up at 6am and got myself ready. Jada lay with the girls for a couple minutes, but neither of them wanted to get up. I went down to breakfast with Ellen first, and Jada and Phoebe weren’t far behind. We had hoped to be on the road by 6:30am, but that didn’t happen. We finally shoved off at 7:15am. The drive was pretty uneventful except for the rain we ran into starting at Six Flags, but it only lasted about 20-30 minutes, I think. Then it was sunny the rest of the time. We got off the highway at Rolla, MO where I attended a one week engineering camp during high school. It was one of the schools I had been accepted to, but it was out of state.
We had really light traffic after that. The tire inflation light came on again, and since I had to make a bio break anyway, I checked again to make sure all the tires were at the right pressure, and they were. We arrived at the Rocky Ridge home of Laura and Almanzo Wilder by 10:40am. There’s a little parking lot across Highway A from the main house that Almanzo built and where Laura wrote some of her books. Tickets to get in to the museum were $8 for adults and $4 for children, but that included a video and a guided tour. We saw Pa’s fiddle (well, the rest of us saw it, Jada didn’t notice it since it was in the middle of the room the first time through. She went back to see it later) and the lap desk on which Laura kept her notes that made up the book of her trip to Mansfield. There was a replica of the wagon they took, and original manuscript pages and notebooks. No photography was allowed in the museum or house so I don’t have pictures to show except for the outside. Inside the house, they have kept just about everything as it originally was when Laura died. The two original rooms plus the expanded rooms added on through the years to accommodate Rose growing up including a library with I think our tour guide said 300 books. We picked up a few things in the gift shop, but once again, no stickers.
We also drove out to the Stone House that Rose had commissioned for them to retire in with all the modern trimmings. She had ordered the plan from Sears, and she had local workers do the building under her watchful eye. The stone work on the exterior was really nice. The interior had most of the original hardware even though once Rose moved to Connecticut, Laura and Almanzo moved right back into the original house where they were more comfortable. They eventually sold the Stone house and several acres with it. But the historical society was able to find many of the old fixtures in either the garage or the attic. We ate our lunch at a picnic table near the parking lot before going through that tour. Finally, we drove out to the cemetery to see the grave stones for Laura and Almanzo which were shared, and Rose’s individual one.
From there it was only a 45 minute drive to Springfield. We didn’t quite finish the 3rd Harry Potter book again. Luckily Jada had thought to ask at the front desk if the hotel was 100% non-smoking or just partial since we found out that there are 6 rooms on the first floor that were still smoking rooms. Of course, they had put us on the first floor. However, they were able to move us up to the second floor. The pool was outdoors, but it was so hot out, we didn’t even want to leave the AC. We had some behavioral issues too. The fitness center only had cardio equipment and no weights. No Versus on the TV either. But they did have free ice cream bars at the desk. We didn’t partake of that. We saw a Red Robin on the way into town, so dinner was set. We passed an afternoon in the coolness of the room as temperatures soared to 100 degrees outside. When we went to dinner at 4:30pm to Red Robin, it was still 100 degrees out, but at least it wasn’t very humid. It was a nice little touch of home to eat there. We all got our usual. When we got back to the hotel room, I brilliantly realized that we could finish the Harry Potter CD in the room if we used the laptop. DUH! So we listened to that until bed time.
After putting the kids to bed, I went down to try to burn off some energy and dinner on the treadmill to keep my back from getting too achy. For some reason I sweat a lot more on the elliptical than on a regular treadmill. I can’t run any more (ok, basketball and soccer don’t count) because of my knees. Anyway, I washed my favorite workout shirt in the sink to see how that would go since we’re a long way from free laundry. It worked out ok for one item. I don’t think it’d do well for more than that. Phoebe was still awake when I got back to the room, but she must have fallen asleep while I was in the shower. No Tour coverage in this hotel unfortunately, so I had to turn to the daily coverage replay on the web. Contador took the yellow jersey in a controversial move when he attacked as the current leader suffered a mechanical problem. I thought it was a fair move, but it sounds like there are a lot of people who feel that they shouldn’t have attacked when the current Yellow jersey wearer was in difficulty. If it’s a crash, sure, but missed shifts are part of the game. Besides, Contador put more time on Schleck on the tricky decent, so he would only have held on to it by the skin of his teeth anyway.
We only have about a 3 hour drive again tomorrow to the Little House on the Prairie site when Pa moved them all the Kansas only to find out he wasn’t allowed to be there.