However, I screwed up and saved the new version of these first few paragraphs here... not a big change, but still.
On the way from Madison to Rochester, Minnesota, we took a detour to Viroqua, the small Wisconsin town that my dad's side of the family is from. I had been to Viroqua 3 times before: my family took a road trip that culminated there one summer; I flew there to visit my grandmother by myself for a week when I was 14, and I flew there in 2000 for her funeral.
Kiddo fell asleep in the car. I usually try to keep her from sleeping in the car, because it can mess up her sleep schedule, but she was up too late in Madison. This later proved to be the only car nap of the trip. About 10 miles away from Viroqua we passed a little town called Kickapoo. I did a double take at an intersection... I recognized a restaurant from eating there almost 17 years before.
We pulled into town and went to the cemetery first. I wanted to see my grandmother's grave. I drove around a bit on my own while kiddo was napping, and I found my great great great great grandfather's grave first. I got out and took a picture. The stopping and getting out woke up the kiddo, and so I just called my parents and got advice on finding the (more immediate) family plot. So I visited that for the first time since my grandmother's funeral.
The aforementioned great great great great grandfather and his family came to America and settled in Wisconsin. I think several of his sons became rich... one of them stayed in Viroqua and had a large house built for himself in the late 19th century. It passed through the family for awhile, but eventually it became a bed and breakfast. We went to visit it... snapped a few pictures, then went inside. It's pretty cool in there. We looked around a tiny bit on the ground floor, but didn't see anybody, so we went back outside. The front door is amazingly loud (in a bad way), and I guess the owner heard us on the way out. On our way down the stairs she poked her head out and asked if she could help us. So we introduced ourselves and went back in for a few minutes.
She wanted to know all about the family tree, and she talked about wanting to have pictures of great great great grandfather and his family on the wall. She offered to put us up for free that night... I hesitated but said no because we already had a couchsurfing host lined up, plus it would mean a 6 hour drive to Sioux Falls instead of spacing the drive out across days. But I told her I will take her up on it someday, years from now or whatever.
My parents have been doing the genealogy thing recently, so I gave their number to her. The green love seat and matching chair (basically the old-looking furniture I have that desperately needs to be re-upholstered) is from that house. We've been talking about getting rid of the chair, so I wonder if I can somehow get it to her.
Then we played in a park also named for the great great great grandfather, who donated the land to the city.
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