Vacation, Day One (August 9)

Once again, our big vacation for the year was a return to my hometown area. This year we took along a friend of C's--M1.

We left at 9:00 am, and after a brief detour home (forgot the gift for Grandma and headphones for the iPod), we were on the road.

It was a pretty wet ride--alternating between drizzle and downpour, with brief spots of clear skies.

We found a place outside of Wausau that sold fireworks (and was open), so we stopped and picked some up.

On the way through Woodruff, we decided to actually stop (for the first time) and visit the World's Largest Penny.

The family, with M1 instead of me:

Me, subbed in for M1:
And the plaque, describing why they put a giant penny in Woodruff, WI:

It rained the rest of the way North (my mom was very happy for this, as it hadn't rained there for MONTHS--seriously, the trees had started turning from the drought!), but wasn't too bad when we arrived in Iron Belt.

Mom cooked a fantastic supper of tenderloin and salads. After supper, the kids found some blackberries, and when it got dark, we lit half of the fireworks.