Baked Spaghetti

I had a blog post all written but decided against posting the heavy stuff until you know me a little bit better.

Today we are going to talk about tourism folks. Our family is going on vacation next week. Are we going to Disney World, you ask? Nope. We are going to explore our own backyard! Not literally, but close enough.

We had the good fortune to spend an entire year living in Maine. Maine, who advertises their status as "Vacationland" on their license plates. We truly had a year vacation out there when my husband had an opportunity to work at a hospital right on the coast of Maine.

We learned so many things in our year of "vacation" out in Maine. Some important, like when the power goes out so does the septic system and well. Some just interesting, like Maine and Massachusetts are the only states to celebrate Patriots Day. We made some wonderful, lifelong friends who had life experiences far different than anything 2 Midwesterners like us could have ever had, and we went to Dunkin' Donuts. A lot.

Some of the questions our New Englander friends would ask were "What's Iowa like? Is it all corn?" "Have you ever been to the Mall of America?" "How close can you get to Mt. Rushmore?" "Do people in WI eat a lot of cheese?" These were questions we chuckled about then recounted to our family back in the Midwest.

Meanwhile we spent every weekend exploring New England, we've been to some of the most glorious beaches on Earth. I have eaten so much lobster, in season, that I can't even bring myself to go to Red Lobster ever again. We went to New Hampshire's White Mountains, Acadia National Park. I have been to the place where the sun first hits the United States in the morning...or something like that. Wow.

When we moved back we realized how little we'd done right here at home. We hadn't gone to see Mt. Rushmore. Sure, we'd been to Iowa, but always raced to get out, and people in Wisconsin DO eat a lot of cheese. The Mall of America, well, it's just a mall.

So we vowed to change that. We decided we'd enjoy our own backyard and we'd missed our family so much back home that we've decided to take them with on some of our adventures. We're going to be tourists in the Midwest for awhile, and while I don't think we'll ever move away from Minnesota again, I do know that every time we leave home we are going to bring different attitudes along. We won't speed so fast to get through Iowa, but slow down and enjoy the view, even if it is corn.

So this week, I'll be scouring http://www.travelsd.com/. Mt. Rushmore Here We Come!

Any Midwest vacation idea? Send 'em my way.