Fall Vacation: Day 11

This was the final day of our trip.  We were pretty tired by now.  We worked our way home slowly, making a couple stops at places that sounded interesting.  One of them was worth posting about.

This historical landmark dates back to 1844.  John Jackson built a cabin on this location in 1845.  He was one of the first American Settlers North of the Columbia River.  I wish I would have swung the camera around and taken pictures behind me because here you are standing on this historical site, looking at a homestead dating back  over 160 years.  But all around it was a suburban neighborhood with people going about their 21st century lives.  It kind of felt like when you stepped onto the grassy yard of the cabin you passed into a different time.  It was hard to imagine this being the only thing here.  Everything else around it was prairie when John and Matilda raised their family here.

We were going to go on a short hike through the Mima Mounds at this point.  It is a large area of curiously bumpy ground.  Acres and acres of little hills.  Geologists don't all agree on how they were formed but they are fun to walk through.  Unfortunately the weather was too rainy.  We were getting worn down anyway so we decided to just go home and see our animals and get settled in.

Thank you God for allowing us to take this trip as a family.  Thank you for this amazing world you made for us to explore and for providing the resources this year for us to explore it. 

And thanks friends and family who emailed or commented to let me know you were following along.  We enjoyed journaling the adventure so we can look back at it and remember what we learned and saw.  But it makes it even more special that we could share it with some others.