Thelma and Louise Part THREE AKA "Buttercup and Daisy"

Our "Semi" Daily pose with each other. Daisy with freaky hair and Buttercup is looking to blend in with flowers! We were off on our adventure from Independence Iowa!

We saw many beautiful barn quilts and many beautiful Iowa farms. I think Iowa is a real all American state.

I even enjoy the very flat parts(well that's actually about all there is).

I actually have no idea how to even pronounce this towns name but looking it up on Google I discovered it's called Methland! Wow, I would never had guessed that at all. It all looks so lovely to me.

This is our destination!!!!! I don't know why anyone leaves this country, we haven't even scratched the surface and when you look up each little town they all have something unique about them!

This was our destination for the day! Well it was our "tour" spot for the day. Burr Oak Iowa was the only place that Laura lived which she never wrote about in her Little House books. They lived here after they left Walnut Grove with a sick baby and many debts. They moved to
Uncle Peter's house in 1876 in Gillford Township MN. While they were there baby Freddie died.

They had promised to go to Burr Oak Iowa to help some people run a hotel in an attempt to get out of debt, so they buried their baby and in deep sorrow they arrived in Burr Oak.

Pa and Ma thought the Hotel was a rough place for little girls to live so they actually lived in 3 different places in the less then two year stay there. But the "Masters Hotel" is the only building that Laura lived in as a child that is still standing and is still in the same place. It would not even be considered a very large house now so it's hard to imagine as a working hotel!

This is the side of the hotel that shows the outside entrance to upstairs.

This was the Hotel before it had been restored!

And this is how beautiful it looks today. We were very pleasantly impressed with both the inside and out.

Their last baby Grace Pearl was born in Burr Oak Iowa. In one of the books I read Laura said that as Mary went blind that it was Grace's beautiful blue eyes that was the last thing she saw.

Laura loved her teacher Mr. Reed, who was a permanent resident of the Hotel. He was a great elocutionist and he taught her well and was much needed it as her life progressed.

This was a display about Spring Valley Minnesota where Almanzo's parents had a beautiful farm. I REALLY wanted to visit there but Buttercup was in a hurry!

This was a display about Almanzo as a child. It's in Malone NY. Buttercup wouldn't go there either cuz she only wanted to be gone 3 weeks.. Something about small children at home or some nonsense :)

When we first got to the Gift shop and entrance the lovely lady "Barb" told us a bus load of kids were coming for an end of the year field trip! So didn't we want to go on our own tour????? uuhhhhhhhh YEAH.....In fact 2 bus loads of kids arrived before we left but they were well behaved. It was still really nice to get our own tour!

This was behind the Hotel. I don't know about you, but I think Buttercup looks very suspicious!

I, of course was just the lovely Auntie posing in front of the bank. It has a notorious history too! Bank Robbers and stuff!

Laura wrote about playing in the old cemetery around the white stones. She and a friend use to go after the cow and bring it home that way. There was also a crazy lady and her crazy son that lived near that would scare them and they would run by her house!

Some of the beautiful white stones in the cemetery she played in. Buttercup had a "Letterbox" to find in the cemetery but, of course, she had the wrong one :) I knew those were not pine trees!

We had a lovely day exploring Burr Oak and we didn't really see it all but it was onward and upward!

Oh yes the Land of Lakes and BUGS.. Gross bugs by the zillions. but we were only passing thru at that point

The wild flowers were just beyond beautiful in late spring in Minnesota, with lots of rivers, streams and lakes and very green from all the rain.

And here is my beautiful Buttercup in her beautiful flowered top matching the beautiful flowers! I love her so much!

AT LAST WE SAW WHAT WE'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR!!!!!!!

And this is was where we were headed!

And who would guess on a Thursday night in Pepin Wisconsin you could not find a room to sleep in!!!!!!! A FISHING TOURNAMENT! Excuse me! We were coming to see where Laura was born!

So back to Minnesota we went and yes you read that right it's where "Grumpy Old Men" was filmed. Not sure why :)

We have a big beautiful country!

But they have really creepy things on the river in Wabasha! A very Catholic state! Which isn't creepy, but this stone or wood or whatever he was priest was creepy! I didn't want to sit on the bench behind him :)

We had a lovely dinner at Slippery's. The lady at the motel we were at had a hard time figuring things out but we did find this great place to eat fish! and a beautiful view!

And this was our final resting place at the Coffee Mill Inn. The lady was hysterical but I don't think she understood how funny she was. When you tell someone your address is Emmett Stone Lane and she starts it off with an "M" you know your in trouble. I think we ended up filing it out! We stayed in better places but worse too! Pretty sure its usually filled with fisherman! BUT they were all in Pepin~