Learning on the Road

My family and I just returned from four weeks on the road.

That's right - four weeks together in a van with three children and two adults and hotel rooms.

My husband is a solo musician, and we decided a few years ago that we could visit our favorite parts of the country and pay for it by turning it into a working musical tour.

It also becomes homeschooling on the run.

Because of our travels, we will not officially begin our homeschooling year until this coming Monday.  All three of my kids, however, already have more than 60 hours of schooling already logged.

While we were gone, we visited a really fun place called Bookworm Gardens.  It's in Sheboygan, WI.  The place is an outside garden with blooming flowers and vegetables that they harvest.  It's a mixture of a botanical garden and a storybook theme come to life.  Best part - It's free.

We also took a 1950's steam ship across Lake Michigan.  This is the last working steam ship on the lake, and it was really awesome to experience.

We also discovered that we were within only a few miles of where the ice cream sundae was invented.  Of course, we had to stop in.

While we waited for the SS Badger steam ferry boat, we spent our time touring a submarine at the Manitowoc Maritime Museum.

This picture below is a view I carefully worked to capture.  It is the SS Badger coming into dock, viewed through a periscope inside the Maritime Museum:

When we arrived in Michigan, we had to relive a place my husband and I visited on our honeymoon, 21 years ago.  It was our third time up these dunes, and the kids' second.  We had been working out at every hotel's workout room along the way for the three previous weeks in training and anticipation of this climb.  We were very grateful God allowed us to go to the top.

On the beaches of Wisconsin and Michigan, we observed the differences between seagulls and ducks:

And, I discovered this gem on a dune in Holland, MI while being left behind as I struggled up the soft sandy dunes that my children and husband conquered.

We just never get enough of our favorite states, so we made more than the typical amount of stops along the way before leaving the state of Michigan.  One of them was to an organic farm, called Big Head Farms, where we picked blueberries.  These were some of the tastiest blueberries I have ever eaten.  I guess we'll just have to go back to get some more:

Driving through Illinois is never our favorite part of the journey, but one thing about the state is we always seem to catch an awesome sunset when passing through: