9:15 am Grandpa called with the weather report for us. Rain is supposed to begin at 9pm and not let up until 3 pm tomorrow. Good thing we had already decided to head home. Spirit Lake is not what Jeremy or I had in mind. I thought we would be on a “beach” of some sort, not in bug-infested (speaking of which, we think “bug spray” (or candles, etc.) attract bugs more than ward them off) hill above the water. We did find the boat ramp this morning, with a rocky beach and caution against e. coli (and our kids drink any water them come near), so no swimming for us! Good thing we have pool passes, so we’ll finish up our vacation tomorrow at our own Furman Aquatic Center (if it's not rainy in Ames).
10:00 am We decided to go into Okoboji so we can say we’ve been there. Everything is very citified and reminds us of Virginia Beach, or maybe Kitty Hawk, NC… very touristy and not so campy. We saw Arnold’s Park (the oldest amusement park west of the Mississippi) and a neat museum. The we headed back to camp to finish tearing down everything !
12:15 pm We left Spirit Lake and “The Great Lakes of Iowa” region, headed for the Grotto of the Redemption and home!
2:00 pm We stopped at the Grotto of the Redemption in West Bend, Iowa. How strange. We did not really know what to expect, and thought we would roll in, take a picture and leave. However, we ended up waking two kiddos and hauling out the double stroller from the trailer. Nothing can really describe the opulence of the stone display, it was just… interesting. In one scene, there are statues of Jesus and one of Mary Magdalene meeting in the garden. Morgan (side note… Jeremy has been reading through Genesis for Family Worship) states: “Maybe that’s God telling Enoch he is going to heaven”. Too cute!
4:15 pm Home!
P.S. We heard they got 5 inches of rain up north after we left... good thing we opted not to stay that extra night!
Zonked! How sweet. We went to the Grotto with my mom and dad almost two years ago. I agree...interesting. My dad loves rocks (and redemption, for that matter), so he thought it was way cool and could have spent the whole day there. I've enjoyed reading and looking at the progression of your vacation. We're going to try a trip up to Brian's mom and dad's house before we try camping again. :)
ReplyDeleteI have loved reading about your vacations. Your family sounds so much like ours.
ReplyDeleteYou are a brave and crazy family! I haven't been to the Grotto in years but now I'm excited to go back and take Lili for the first time. Thanks for sharing!!
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