Andy's memories of home !

It has been nearly 2 months since we left Key West, Florida and we are finally at Andy's cousins home, Sue and Bud in Cedar Falls, Iowa,  Today, Andy's brother and sister, as well as her parents are flying in for the family reunion. No, I didn't forget you Ernie !   It's going to be crazy around here for a few days.  THE WINE AND THE FOOD WILL BE FLOWING. I guess there are worse things in life !

Looking back at our adventure, we have traveled over 10,000 miles and covered 42 states.  What a journey it has been and we still aren't done !  We have met some wonderful people and seen some amazing sights.

Last weekend  we stopped, in the Chicago area, and visited one of those wonderful couples, Keith and Bert. It was only for a few hours each day but we will be back in about a week to spend more time with them. Sorry guys I just have to do this....

This is what I found when I get there !

I wonder who these people are !

Just look at that dapper mustache

This what we had to go through to get there to visit them !

Really..it's late may !

We haven't seen these type of temp's for over two years !

After leaving Illinois we headed north to Wisconsin and the Minnesota Boarder. We were planing on staying at a campground right on the Mississippi River in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

When we arrived at the RV Resort...something was wrong !  Where are the RV's ?  Where are the people ? The office is closed !  What the hell !

The river is flooded and so are the RV Resorts and Parks. Most, if not all, of the RV Parks are on the river. So we decided to stay in the campgrounds parking lot.

Sir, could I have spot 301...yea right !

Must have happened before..Electric is way up high

Here we are in the parking lot...had to rough it for the night.  NOT !  If you notice, my jacks are down...the slides are out...I even have my Satellite out for television.  So Andy cooked us a very nice meal...took a shower..and watch TV that night.  In the morning we had our coffee and off we were !  Hell, we should do this more often and save a few bucks !  lol

So here we are in the Parking lot.

Little Miss Andy is from Illinois. Her parents moved to Southern California when she was just 11 years old, Dang honey...that was a very long time ago...hell your old !  lol

She has been waiting a long time to visit the town she grew up in and to check out the house her dad and mom built. She was very excited when we got there.

Illinois

I allotted her the honor of putting the sticker on!

The rest of the blog I will bow out !  I think Andy should and she wanted to... take it from here !

Hi there, Andy here.  As Preston said I've waited 45 years to come back and see my home town.  I have a lot of incredible memories of my child hood here, in fact it was idyllic. The only down side was that this is something my sister Tammy and I had wanted to do together for a very long time, but you have to take opportunities when they present themselves!

I'm back!!!

Tammy and I used to walk from the house to town. At that time there was a population of 1500

View of Oswego from the new bridge they've built across the Fox River

I was so surprised at how little Main Street had changed.  A little sprucing up of course has happened but the barber shop, restaurant, old fire station, library where all exactly how I remembered them.

Main St

Old bridge, over the river, they kept it as a walking bridge.  

The river was to high to see Turtle Rock :(

Where I went to school through 5th grade

Spent a lot of time here

Decided to go into the diner for breakfast...wow slap of deja vu when I walked through the door! The waitress said nothing has changed in 70 years, lol

Great food 

After breakfast, we walked across the old bridge, now a walking bridge, to check out my old neighbor hood.  Tammy's and my best friend lived across the highway from us.  Everyone knew where that was because:

Only house I've ever seen with a grass roof!!!

The house:  My mom and dad built it themselves, with some help from friends, in I believe 1954??  I had heard previously that the house had been vacated a number of years and then put up for auction.  Didn't really know what we would find.

Looks exactly the same as I remembered.  Just a bit over grown now

The trees we used to climb are quite a bit larger now.

We could tell that no one was living there, so since I felt at home, we just went right on around to the back yard.

Me snooping!!

Outside kitchen, dad was way ahead of his time on this thought

If you look real close,  it's the old bridge!  We used that bridge to cross the ditch on the way to the school bus stop.

Except for that one new bay window, all of the others were to high for me to peek through, so Preston had an amazing idea....let's try the door, lol..  Breezeway...unlocked....back door....unlocked.   OMG, we are in!!!  I had so many detailed memories of this house, lets see what we will find???

All these cut outs are new, the area to the left used to be the dining room..hey where is the telephone alcove??  They covered it up???  WTH??

See the door to the right of the front door??  Tammy and I used it to hide in there to scare dad when he would come home from work. He would  hang up his coat...LOL we got him every time !

Old doorbell...ahhh

Built ins at the end of the hall

Tammy and my bedroom

Heading straight to...you know sis !

Nope they aren't there any longer..he he..

So many of the original features are still there.  We honestly believe that literally someone was in there doing the remodel and walked out and hasn't been back in a very long time.

Time to move on to the basement

Dad's workshop with the cellar door to the back yard

Some walls and flooring added.  Mom had an extra oven down here, a ping pong table, old upright piano and floor to ceiling book shelves that used to be in this area

Our old playroom

They've upgraded the bathroom some, but the same tile

They were in the middle of turning the basement into a completely separate apartment so it had changed a bit.  Amazing how the house seemed so much smaller than I remembered it.

As I was leaving, the breezeway, all of the original doors are in there.

It was such an incredible moment in my life to be able to go back and see the house and the area where I was a kid.  I was so excited, but later that night, I was so sad.  The house my parents put their blood, sweat and tears into has just been abandoned.  I want to buy it and have a family come live in it.  I would love for someone else to have the same amazing childhood memories that I have.