A Ride down Memory Lane

Here is John, self explanatory to those of you who know John well and yes, he his holding is nose!

Here is Lakeland Hospital where the girls were both born. Both births were uneventful. Courtney was born after I had just finished watching ma Ingalls give birth to Grace. Her birth was so easy, I figured mine would be a breeze, too and it was. With Alissa there was no Doctor in that entire hospital so a nurse delivered her. Again uneventful!

The Cup and Pedal restaurant.

Here are some of the beautiful wildflowers we saw along the trail

Here I am all ready to begin the bike trail

This is our first home. It was actually a glorified double wide trailer but we loved it. It seems to have gotten a bit overgrown but with some love and attention it could be nice again. Both our girls came home to this house.

Today John and I took a ride down Memory Lane in and around Elkhorn, a town that holds many firsts for us:

• It was the first time we lived away from one of our hometowns as a married couple


• It was where we met some of our very first and best friends as a married couple


• It was where we bought our first home


• It was where our first and second child were born


• It was the first town we fell in love with as a married couple


• It was the first time we piled in a pick up truck and cut down a $5.00 Christmas tree


• It was where our girls swam in their very first swim class


• It was the first time we had ever discovered all the treasures of Walworth County


• It was where John got his first job and where I first found the beauty of being a stay at home mom

And these are just the tip of the ice burg for us. Elkhorn was such a magical place for us. I still remember the first time we drove to Elkhorn to find a place to live. Neither of us had ever been there before and we were filled with anticipation. We fell in love with it from that day on. We found a great apartment, there was a Value Village, a Lutheran church, a Ben Franklin, a library, what more did we need? And of course, the birth of our daughters was just the icing on the cake for us. I absolutely loved spending time with my girls and the other stay at home moms and their kids. Once a week we would all gather at one of our houses for games, chit chat, beverages, and chocolate. The kids would play and trash the house. We always left the hostess's house with enough time for her to straighten up before her husband got home. What fun memories! I don't ever wish to go back to a different time in my life but if given the chance to go back for short stint I would without a doubt go back to late 1979 when I was pregnant with Alissa and early 1980 right after she was born.

Getting back to our bike ride down Memory Lane. We rode 18 miles on the White River Bike Trail. It is a beautiful trail runs through fields of wildflowers, pine trees, and corn. We had lunch at our favorite spot on the trail, a restaurant in a restored depot in Springfield, WI called the Cup and Pedal. The last time we had been there was three years ago on a trail ride and as things go in a small town like Springfield nothing had changed right down to the same retired couple who runs the place. The chicken salad is so yummy and John recommends the turkey with cranberry mayo on oat bread.

After getting off the trail we took off for our tour of Elkhorn. We like to ride past all our old haunts and reminisce. Some things have changed of course, like our old grocery store Ted and Fred's United Foods is gone and our old swimming pool is now a state of the art aquatic center, but many things are just as we remember them. A ride down Memory Lane is always good for the soul.

After ten more miles around Elkhorn, we loaded up the bikes and took one more journey down the Lane. We went to Lake Geneva to see how the rich people were spending their day. We spent lots of good times in LG when we lived in Elkhorn. It was like taking a vacation without leaving our own backyard. That city has not changed at all, it is still filled with Illinois tourists who call it up north. At least they are still spending their money up here in our state. One nice addition is there is a new 26 mile walking path that goes around the entire lake. It runs right along the lake through many private properties so you can really get a good view of the magnicent homes on the lake. Of course, after 28 miles on a bike we couldn't walk too far on the path, but we did get a good taste of the scenery and plan to go back in the fall sometime with fresh legs so we can walk farther-maybe the whole 26 miles!

Note to Tizzy: Someday Grandpa and I will take you to Elkhorn and give you the ten cent tour. Just one more thing we look forward to sharing with you.