As summer wound down this year, I really felt the need to take my kids on a family vacation. They initially had a vacation planned with their grandparents, but that was cancelled due to health issues. Then their mother was going to take them on a vacation, but she had to cancel that when he contract at work was cancelled. And, yes, I know Emmett did get to go to Washington, D.C. with me earlier in August, but Isla didn’t get to join us. So, on the last possible weekend before school began, I took Isla and Emmett on a road trip to exotic southern Minnesota and northern Iowa.

Our first stop was Historic Forestville. This is one of the Minnesota Historical Society’s 26 locations, and if you recall from my previous post, some of the sites are shutting down indefinitely. One of them is Forestville. So…yay! I did make it to one of the sites mere days before it closed, and am hereby labeling it as Noteworthy Event #8! Here are some photos from the event…

In the same state park as Forestville is Mystery Cave, Minnesota’s largest cave system (that we know of). So of course we had to explore that as well…

Noteworthy event #9 occurred the next day, when we kicked things off with a visit to the SPAM Museum in Austin.

We next visited the Jolly Green Giant statue in Blue Earth. Isla said it was creepy.

We next crossed the border into Iowa, and first visited the Kinney Pioneer Museum. Alas, I have no notable pictures from our time there, but I do encourage a visit!

We then stopped outside the Surf Ballroom to visit the last place Buddy Holly ever performed. Then, after checking into our hotel, we paid a visit to Central Garden Park. Here’s a nice picture from our time there:

Later, we went to buy dinner. We first tried to eat at Rice Garden, but they were permanently closed. That did not stop us from going through their drivethru and pretending they were open.

The kids found this quite funny, especially once we realized there was a Wendy’s right next door, and a lot of people were there – probably watching us.

The next day, we first spent a couple of hours at an antique bazaar at the lake front park. Both kids bought a little something.

From there, we stopped at the Buddy Holly Memorial site and paid our respects to a music legend. I had been there once before, but it was wonderful to give Isla and Emmett the opportunity to learn about and see it. Bonus: we played some Buddy Holly music in the car ride.

Then, it was back into Minnesota to visit another Historic Site – the W. W. Mayo House. I initially thought this was another site that is closing indefinitely, but I just checked, and I was wrong. Either way, it was great to get a chance to visit this site I’d never been to before.

Finally, we passed through the town of Jordan, which meant we had to make a stop at Minnesota’s Largest Candy Store.

As you can see from this photo, we were feeling pretty spent by this time. Within an hour of this picture being taken, we were back home.