Little House

Leaving Nebraska we went North, heading to Minnesota. We had a trip that picked up in Mankato, MN and was going to Kentucky. I knew that the town of Mankato sounded familiar to me, but I couldn’t remember why at first. And Minnesota was a state that we had not yet been to with FedEx.

I drove while Pops slept. I drove through a place called, La Mars, Iowa. It is billed as the Ice Cream Capital of the World! Wow, now that’s saying something. I love ice cream, too, but we decided not to stop for a cone.

As I drove forward across the prairies, it dawned on me how I recognized Mankato. It was the city from the show Little House on the Prairie. It was where the Ingall’s traveled to sell their grain and purchase their goods.

So then I wondered, ok, where is Walnut Grove? We must not be real far away from that. When I looked at the map later on, I realized that we had passed within 60 miles of Walnut Grove. But I’m sure that I would not have recognized it. I am very sure that it doesn’t look now anything at all like it did from the show. But it was fun to think about.

Mankato is a pretty big place. The University of Minnesota is there. And it still is a big place for grain sales. As a matter of fact, we were going there to pick up 10,000 pounds of whole wheat flour.

After leaving Mankato, we headed east then south. I passed Austin, MN. Do you know what famous product comes from there? Spam! They even have a Spam Museum. I used to eat Spam a lot, but haven’t had it in years. But I thought that was interesting.

We found a little gas station where we stopped for snacks and I bought a keychain. I try to get a keychain from each state. I also try to get postcards from each state to send to my dad, but they didn’t have any postcards.

Later we stopped at a Petro in Wisconsin. I got a keychain from there too because I missed getting one when we were there before, but I did get some postcards; And a pretty purple bracelet that caught my eye.

Before long it was my turn to sleep and boy did I ever.

I woke up in southern Indiana. We were just about to go into KY.

We found the bakery and delivered our flour. And then we headed toward Nashville for a layover. We found a truckstop just inside the KY line that was in layover reach of Nashville so after a quick trip to Walmart we settled in at the Flying J truckstop. Or so I thought.

We weren’t even here an hour when we got a load offer to pick up tonight and deliver on Monday in Spring Hills, TN. Well, we figured we would be here for the weekend anyway so we might as well do the load. So back up through Bowling Green (which is where the Corvette Museum and the Fruit of the Loom Factory are) and to our pick up. We were picking up car parts for Saturn cars.

Then we headed back to the Flying J. We got back here at 5am. Time for sleep.

 We woke up around noon or a little after and after having breakfast at Denny’s, we looked for a church for tomorrow.

We got our truck clean and our laundry done, so now I think we might settle down to popcorn and a movie. It is raining outside so we can’t go outside to go for a walk or do anything out there.

But it’s ok. Yesterday I was having a horribly claustrophobic day. I couldn’t stand this truck at all. I need out really bad. Well, it didn’t happen yesterday, but playing “guess where” games on Facebook with Starla, Jeff and Jim helped me some. But getting out today for a while helped “give me some space.” And I don’t feel too bad right now. But I need to get home. I am missing everyone so much.

We really want to come home next week. I don’t know if it will happen. We have to hope our company can send us that direction. We’ll see. Pray for us, please.