Some friends invited us to join them in Galina, Illinois for Labor Day weekend. Galina is in the three corners area (the corners of Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin) and is nothing like the parts of Illinois we regularly see. It is hilly and quite fun, I've heard, during the winter. (There are signs everywhere that proclaim "snowmobile crossing.") The first night we hit downtown Galina with a crowd of about a billion hungry people. As we walked down Main, looking for a place to eat, we were confronted with restaurant after restaurant with waiting times of well over 1 hour. Finally we found a fun little burger joint that had space, was roomy, had decent food, and kept the boys entertained.
On Labor Day, we went hiking in the Mines of Spain in Debuque, Iowa. The boys loved climbing down to the ground level. There was one moment of stress when S-- and the F-- pronounced that they needed to poop. (This was of course on the lowest level, the furthest from the outhouse.) My dear husband came to the rescue and taught the boys about wiping with leaves.
We recovered, cleaned off with hand sanitizer, and were sufficiently away from it when we were passed by a family on the return trip. (Such relief that no one was squatting in the trees.)
When we had crossed a train track, we were at the Great Mississippi. The older boys had a ball throwing rocks, pebbles, and small boulders into the water. We separated them a good distance to make sure that no one hit anyone else (though we still had our close calls).
