Magic, Munchies, Moo, and Mishaps

We stopped in Battlecreek, Michigan to see the Cereal History Exhibit, but unfortunately it was no longer available.  I had even called ahead.  It is so frustrating when people don't update their phones and web pages! 

Our next stop was in Marshall.  We toured the American Museum of Magic.  It was predominantly playbills of the great magicians, but there were some interesting things to see. From Blackstone, Sr., was the chest he used to make his assistants appear and disappear.  There were props from other magicians like the boxes and saws used to "saw a lady in half", a guillotine, some famous magic wands and a few more items.  I was hoping to see how some of these things worked, but alas, even museums never tell!

waiting to be sawed in half!

We left Michigan and headed into Indiana.  We went into the Amish area of Topeka.  We saw more horse drawn carriages here than we had seen in Pennsylvania.  We stopped at a Popcorn Shoppe and tasted some tiny white popcorn and bought some, as well as some red and blue kinds, and a jar of homemade apple butter.  Yum!

From there we went to Fair Oaks Dairy Adventure.  We took the tour bus first and saw cows in one barn who were 7 months or more pregnant, then on to another barn where we saw regular milking cows, then on to the milking barn.  That was really interesting to watch.  The cows get herded into the barn, but go into and exit the milking circle on their own.  We learned that the farm produces their own electricity from the manure of the cows, and the tour bus took us by the area where they do that.  After the tour we went to the barn where the babies are born.  We just missed a delivery, but saw the newborn stand for the first time.  So cute to watch!  Then we went to the visitor's center and looked at everything they had, and left with some fresh cheese.

the milking rotation...see the cows getting on and off

the mom and new baby who just stood up

We drove on through miles and miles of huge corn fields that stretched as far as we could see.......

....to Wolf Park in Battle Ground.  We enjoyed this place, even though it was a really hot day to be outside.  We looked at the foxes sleeping peacefully, then headed to the grandstand to see a talk about the handling of the wolves.  The wolves are kept in a huge enclosure and allowed to roam free and be wild, but they are human imprinted and socialize with their handlers.  They were beautiful to look at, and the 3 cubs were fun to watch.

here they are enjoying some ice blocks with a treat in the middle

Our next adventure was at Hodges Canoe Trips.  We decided to take the short trip being inexperienced.  We were taken to the starting point, about 4 miles up the Tippecanoe river.  Due to the drought, we were told that there would be about 3 places where we would have to get out and pull the canoe through the rocks.  Okay, we could handle that, we were ready.  We got in the canoe and started on our way.  We were a bit shaky, and went in circles a couple of times, but we were doing pretty good. We were enjoying the peaceful scenery of the river, and were excited to see herons fishing. We did have to get out and drag the canoe, and I fell on the slippery rocks, but we climbed back in and continued on.  We were doing okay until we neared Goose Poop Island about 1/3 of the way down the river.  I was in the front navigating, and I chose to go through the right channel around the island, (mistake).  About half-way past the island we hit bottom again.  We got out and dragged the canoe, then Rebekah got back in.  When I tried to climb in, I somehow managed to tip the whole canoe over falling on the rocks again and dunking Bekah, while losing a paddle and cushion down the river.  We righted the canoe, but it was too full of water.  I tried to empty it, but managed only to make it worse.  So we headed to the island to try to empty it out, but I only managed to sink the canoe.  Now it was too heavy for us to move.  We got out on the island and called for help to the houses on the other side of the left channel.  Finally, a man saw or heard me and came over to help.  He just emptied the canoe, told us we caught a fish in it, and dragged it up onto the island.  A lady in another house noticed and called to him to bring the canoe to her house and she would take us back since we didn't want to continue on with only one paddle.  So we rode back to the starting point the rest of the way in a van.  And that's how we tipped a canoe on the Tippecanoe!

other canoe adventurers on the river