Our Little Summer Vacation

So, last summer, it was getting to the end of summer and we hadn't gone on any family vacations.  We had some points that we could use on a credit card.  So, we picked a week to go on vacation.  No one would get scheduled to work or make any plans.  We searched for airplane flights and places to go.  But, we never decided on a place to go (we thought about A LOT of places).  Finally our vacation week came, and we were still at home.

Again, this year, we hadn't gone on any family vacations (not with my dad).  So, we picked this weekend to go on a little vacation.  It wasn't going to be to fly anywhere, but a little get-away.  We thought about going up north to a water park, going down to Iowa, going to some friends' cabin... that kind of thing.  If we went on vacation, my brother Thomas wanted to go go-cart racing, my brother John would like to go do some water thing, my sister Sarah wanted to go to our friends cabin.  But, I was on crutches, with my foot all wrapped up in a boot.  I couldn't do water things, and at the cabin everyone would be in the water.  We couldn't find anywhere to go go-cart racing.  But my Dad really wanted to go somewhere, and get out-and-about.  My Mom searched and searched for a place we could go for the weekend- there weren't any hotel openings or it just wouldn't work.  It got a little stressful.  But, actually, I just wanted to stay home, and Thomas just wanted to stay home so that he could play paintball with some friends on Saturday.  Some friends of ours called and asked if they could stop by to visit us on Thursday (the ones with the cabin),  and my Grandparents wanted to come down one day this weekend.  I would much rather have people over to our house than go somewhere.  Every time we go somewhere it never turns out to be that fun.  We start getting annoyed with each other in the close quarters of the car, and stuff like that.

What we ended up doing, was going on a Sunday Brunch Cruise on the La Crosse Queen in the Mississippi River.  We got up and left early Sunday morning, to go to La Crosse, WI.  We got to the boat.  We were served our brunch.  They served fruit, cinnamon rolls, ham, turkey, eggs, sausage, potatoes, carrots, and beverages.  They had a speaker that told us the history of structures that we passed (for example a bridge, railroad tracks), and he pointed out a bald eagle.  We got to experience going through a look and dam.  It was actually pretty fun.  The forecast for the day was rain.  It rained on our way over there, but while we were on the cruise, the rain held off.  It was barely 70 degrees outside, but it was actually really nice on the boat.  We eat in the lower inside of the boat, and then once we were done eating, every one started going up stairs to be more outside.

 Our cruise ship.

This is going through the lock and dam.  The water was a bit lower than this when we first went in.

The water was almost done filling up.  When the water reached the top of the black on the wall, we would be able to go out onto the upper part of the river.

After the cruise, we were driving down the road, and there was a go-cart racing place.  What?  Go-cart Racing?  We turned around and shortly were go-cart racing.  I didn't do it because you have to use both feet, and one of mine is bad.  So, I was the photographer.

  

After go-cart racing my Dad didn't want to go home yet, even though every one else did.  He wanted to find a sporting store to find something to fix my brother's bike with.  NOOO.  It would take FOREVER and it did.  We stopped at Tractor Supply and then my Dad wanted to run into Lowes too.  Finally, we got home.  It was a good little adventure day.