Ghost Town in Iowa Field Trip # 10

After Zachary's loud screaming on the flight out to WA, I was dreading the flight from WA to IA with a layover in St. Louis. Turns out they were both extremely good and even took naps on the flight. It was actually enjoyable! And of course, it helped to know that I was on my way HOME where Super Boagie and Grandpa would "take over" and I could enjoy my 5 days of "vacation!" As it turned out, rain kept my dad out of the field and in the house so he could really spend some time with his grandsons. Zachary loved these piggy slippers at Grandpa's house.

While Holley taught us all about horses on our field trip in WA, we still needed to find a "Ghost Town" to show Mikie what one would look like. Part 2 of our field trip turned out to be one of THE BEST field trip experiences we've had yet! And it was all on accident. Here's the story: For weeks, my mom & grandma had been looking at maps of Iowa and trying to discover a ghost town where we could visit. My mom even called one of the local residents (a perfect stranger) to ask about what was left in their "ghost town." We finally decided that we would just take Mikie to a town close to Sigourney where they had an abandoned bank and gas station, but first we headed to the Pizza Ranch to eat our lunch. What a great way to start our field trip about the wild west.

The boys outside of the newly built pizza ranch.

One of the things that made this field trip so special was that we got to do it with our BOAGIE!

The inside decor was filled with examples of things we had read about in our book, like these horseshoes.

And this rope and cowboy hat.

We even found the "cup of joe" that Jack drank in our book.

Mikie has the page opened to that part of the story.

The waitress started talking to my mom and asking about the book. My mom told her all about our plan to visit the neighboring town and the waitress suggested we take a look at an abandoned catering company and the buildings surrounding it that were once used as a retreat (I think?). As my mom started telling me about it, I was getting so excited. It sounded like the perfect experience for this field trip and when we arrived you can tell that I wasn't disappointed. Look at how amazing this is:

The buildings were mostly attached just like the wild west and all abandoned! It was incredible! We saw a bank, a saloon, a hotel, a jail, and a church.

Mikie poses with the old town. The bank is the one in the middle.

In front of the saloon.

Old rickety water tower.

I think this may have been the post office. We're guessing this was a hotel.

Why is this building detached from the rest?
Because it's a jail:

The boys in front of the cell.

The church was probably the neatest building and I'm disappointed that I didn't get a picture of the outside of it.

There was a hymnal left in one of the pews.

And an old Bible and candles were left on the pulpit.

There was even an old wooden cross hanging above the wood stove.

I think my favorite discovery was the old wooden barrel because that is where Jack and Annie hid to escape the rustlers in the story. If you enlarge the picture you can see the page in the book looks just like this barrel. Of course, Mikie wouldn't climb inside of it, but Zachary did!

I changed a couple of settings on this picture and love how it turned out.

After our ghost town experience, we went to the country mill and watched Boagie work. The boys got to see a semi of corn being unloaded and enjoyed testing the moisture of the corn.

Mikie helps weigh the semi-truck.

But I think his favorite part was watching Boagie add on the adding machine.

Here's a video of one of my favorite "toys" to play with at the mill when I was younger:

One more big event while we were in Iowa was a small reunion of all but one of my high school friends. Between us, we had 10 children at my parents' house that night. Gabriele was the only one missing from this picture: