[2010 Alaska]

Day 8: Thursday, June 10th: The Shower

Ahhhh……Can you hear me back in Illinois?  My shower was that good.  I haven’t had a shower since Day 3.  Brooke fell asleep on a scenic driving tour of the Mississippi headwaters or Itasca Park.  That was at about 5 pm.  She slept until 8 pm.  I only know this because Scott told me so.  I wasn’t there because he said the most beautiful words during dinner, “you can take a shower all by yourself if you want to.”

[2010 Alaska]

Mama, bear and Cody

We made it to the Mississippi headwaters (or at least the visitors center).

[2010 Alaska]

Brooke and daddy collecting feathers and rocks

Location:Crow wing state forest, mn

[2010 Alaska]

Day 7: Wednesday, June 9th - Continued

We tag teamed again today.  Scott stayed with sleeping Cody and I took Brooke on a several hour tour of a Forest History Center in Grand Rapids, MN.  Cody was not in same shape I left him when I returned, but we’ll get to that later…

[2010 Alaska]

Day 7: Wednesday, June 9th: Greer Lake Campground to

Cody slept in until 6:15 and Brooke slept until 8:00.  The Cody separation technique is working, at least on the two mornings that Scott stayed with Brooke.  I get to potentially sleep in tomorrow.  We’ll see what happens…  Of course sleep in is a relative term considering our Minnesota rooster greeted us with a hearty Good Morning at 4 am again.  We thought someone at the campground on Monday night was playing with a bird call.  There was no way such a ridiculous sounding bird really existed.  Turns out since there was no one else at our campground last night that such a bird must really exist.  He only makes noise at around 10 pm and 4 am.  We will try to get a recording of the crazy bird.

[2010 Alaska]

An interesting railroad bridge

Location:Prescott, Wi

[2010 Alaska]

Bug catcher Brooke

Brooke loves catching and examining the creatures which crawl upon the tent. This morning we found a slug and three caterpillars. Now if we can only convince her to let them go :)

[2010 Alaska]

Day 6: Tuesday, June 8th: Rain, rain….

The beautiful sunrise from yesterday morning is hiding behind gigantic storm clouds today.  Everyone, including Cody, fell asleep shortly before ten last night.  At least Cody postponed his official wake up until 6:45.  Scott took Cody into the van this morning while Brooke woke up.  Yesterday this worked beautifully.  Brooke and Scott didn’t emerge from the tent until 8:15.  It took them a little while to wrap up the tent mats and sleeping bags, but they basically had three hours extra sleep past Cody’s 5 am wake up call.

[2010 Alaska]

Lunch at Ft Snelling

We stumbled upon this great old fort while traversing the ole miss. It turned out to be a great park with a rich military history. I’d love to tell you more but Brooke wouldn’t let me stop to read any of the signage. I hear she did a great guided tour with mama after though.

[2010 Alaska]

Day 5: Monday, June 7th St. Croix (Again?)

5am

I am typing without my glasses, so please excuse any gigantic errors.  We are trying something different today.  At home when Cody would wake up I would play with him in the living room or my room quietly until the rest of the house would wake up.  Scott decided this would be a good idea again.  Thus Cody and I are hanging out in the van while Brooke hopefully catches some more shuteye.  Cody is much more of a climber than Brooke was at this age and he is happily climbing on the bins, strollers (recognize the stroller Carla?  It works fabulously! Thank you!), and the booster seat.  We were treated to a beautiful sunrise while we were hanging out too.