making plans...

When M and R were younger, we took awesome field trips...

On our Oregon Trail field trip, we drove into central Nebraska and followed the Oregon Trail west into Wyoming... stopping at all the places of historical note along the way. We liked that field trip so much we did it twice... stopping at Chimney Rock, Scotts Bluff, Register Cliff, Fort Laramie, etc. On another field trip we headed south, through the Great Sand Dunes, then on to Mesa Verde and Four Corners.

We really loved road trips, and the kids always learned so much from them...

Anyway... we used to take these great major field trips a couple of times a year, but then M's schizophrenia started getting in the way. He needed weekly blood draws (still does!) but even more importantly, he'd become so unpredictable... and his pdoc just threw fits every time we left town. And she was probably right to worry, we did have a couple of scary situations... being hundreds of miles from home, just me and the kids, and M's sz would start thrashing it's ugly self around... forcing us to drop all our plans and scurry for home (and psychiatric care!) as fast as we could go.

So we stopped taking our wonderful field trips... The kids and I missed them, but M was too unpredictable to make it through even a two hour car trip, so a long trip seemed impossible.

Then, about a month ago, my beloved 17 year old Toyota Previa died (at 200,000 + miles!) and I had to buy a new (to me) car. I bought a Kia Sedona, and it came with a DVD player.

Hmmm... a DVD player in the car opened up all sorts of possibilities... like M being settled enough (compliments of DVD induced-sedation) to really go someplace.

To go on a field trip like the kind we used to make.

I knew just where I wanted to go...

I wanted to go to Nebraska and find my great-grandfather's homestead.

I'd done my research and knew *approximately* where it was... but I knew I would need help if I was ever going to find it's exact location.

Fortunately, my sister knew of a distant relative who still lived in the part of Nebraska where great-grandpa homesteaded... and happened to have her phone number.

I called "JM" (who, as it turns out, is my cousin many times removed) and she said she thought she knew where the homestead was... and could probably take me there.

(I can't tell you how excited I was to hear that!)

So I made my plans... The primary purpose of the trip was to visit the homestead, or whatever was left of it, and bring home a shovelful of dirt... I wanted just a tiny bit of the land that meant so much to my great-grandparents. The land they worked with almost superhuman strength and endurance, raised 11 children on, and grieved the loss of one child on. The land that took care of their family for decades, even as they, and later their children, took care of it.

I also wanted to see their house in town (the one they built after they retired from the farm), and visit the town cemetary and make some rubbings of the old family gravestones. I'd originally planned to follow my family's "generational trail" west from the homestead... visiting the town my grandfather moved to after leaving the farm... the town my dad was born and raised in. But the weather report was HORRIBLE for that part of Nebraska (rain and cold for the whole week) so I decided not to extend the trip... We'd spend more time at the homestead (just outside Greeley Nebraska) and save the rest of the trip for later.

Any free time we had would be spent at little museums or historical sites we ran into along the way...

The kids and I (and R's dog Cody) left Tuesday and got home yesterday, and the trip turned out to be quite an adventure.

My next few blog entries will be about family stuff and our trip. They might not be very interesting to most people, but I thought my siblings would enjoy it... and it will be a good record for me too.

If you don't want to read all about our trip to a town of only 500 people, you might want to skip reading my blog for awhile.

I'd understand... ;)

Woodstone Prairie will return to it's regularly scheduled programming in a few days.