We're in the Midwest!

August 6 -- After 9 hours of flight time (which managed to go very quickly -- attributable, in my case, to three movies. Let's just say I haven't watched many films in the last year. Joe and I did manage to plow through all Seinfeld re-runs in triplicate while in India, though).

Anyway, 9 hours of flying later, Northwest 103 pulled into Minneapolis, we whipped through customs, got bags, grabbed the hotel shuttle and checked into some Holiday Inn.

All those points we accrued in the Crowne Plaza Gurgaon delivered: free chicken legs and carrots w/ ranch dressing. You too could shelp to India, check into a hotel for 4 months and enjoy the occasional room upgrade, free cholesterol packed snacks and Milwaukee light or old style or whatever the flavor of the day is in Minn.

With that snack, we hit the hay, woke up at 3:00 a.m. of course and laid there until it was a suitable enough time to get up. Thus we had plenty of morning in which to use the hotel pool, have our freebie points breakfast (again, you too could enjoy this Holiday Inn perk simply by hitting the CP in India, or somewhere else less third world, of course), pick up the rental car, etc.

Raining cats and dogs in Minneapolis (didn't we leave that behind in London, for pete's sake?) we went to the destination of all destinations: the Mall of America.

On a mission to find shoes, Joe scored, I found a few things on my mad dash through Macy's, we picked up a couple of cheap items at Old Navy (cheap and Old Navy in same sentence goes without saying), we had lunch at Bubba Gump Fish Company and enjoyed such friendly service. (Do love living in London but customer service in the U.S. is delightful.)

And then it was off to Pepin, Wisconsin. Once we got away from the suburbs of Minneapolis/St. Paul the drive was spectacular -- wooded and hilly, and we followed Lake Pepin for several miles.

In Pepin, birthplace of Laura Ingalls Wilder (and one of Claire's favorite authors -- she's read all 9 books several times over) we stopped at the Pepin Museum, which is also home of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum. (Since the Ingalls family moved around the midwest there is more than one museum, btw.)

We had fun checking out the place, which has old photos, trinkets, tools, clothing, etc. which belonged to her and to others living in the area during the same timeframe.

Then we drove out to the site of the original Ingalls cabin. (After any family sees the place downsizing comes to mind; who really needs 3,500 square feet to house 5 people and a dog?)

It's a pituresque little log cabin surrounded by corn fields and hills; one can envision Pa, Ma, Mary, Laura, Carrie and Grace gathered outside to watch the sunset. Maybe I've seen too many Little House on the Prairie episodes.

From Pepin we drove on to Marshfield, Wisc., where Jack and Joan lived for several years. Their first 3 or 4 children were born there, I believe, and Jack was a high school teacher and coach at the time.

Joan's dear friend Ms. Chevy made us a lovely dinner, and we left the two ladies to reminisce while we checked into Holiday Inn number 2. (Apparently HI is a not ticket in Wisc. -- they seem to be in every town.)