While We Were Gone - part 1

so we were gone, on a trip to Wisconsin

we saw family, friends, and other friends

it was a good time, but tiring. I crammed a lot of plans into a few short days. And bookended it with all-day driving for the other two days.

One of the things we did was meet some friends for a cornfield maze at Treinen Farm near Lodi, Wisconsin.

We arrived before most of the group, so the children played in a big "sandbox" of dried corn. It had a big corrugated plastic slide which apparently was really cool.

Some of the children in the corn:

Buzz in the corn:

The corn maze was 15 acres !!!! In the shape of an enchanted castle! Pretty gihugic!

The above picture was taken from the tower at the edge of the maze. You could climb up and look down on the maze. They had big flags on poles that you could carry, to look for your color nearby if you were separated from the group. We didn't take a flag. But we didn't lose anyone, fortunately.

They gave us one portion of the map, and there were places marked on the map to find another piece of the map. They also gave us an emergency map that we were not supposed to open, and you'd get a prize or something if you found all the pieces and didn't open the emergency map and found your way out. It was pretty neat. We let the children read the map and lead and they did very well! Better than I would've done. Once you were in the middle of the maze, the corn was tall and the maze walls were "thick" and you really couldn't tell - without the maps - where you were.

Here's the Grand Lunar, as seen through the corn.

The cell phone service was poor out in the cornfield boonies, but the child-signal was a strong 6-bars. I really wish this picture had come out better, but oh well. Maybe someday I'll get some artsy fartsy group portrait done like this.

Anyway, it was a nice visit, I'm glad we went. I had a lot more pix but I don't want to bog people down. Plus, I'm tired. So maybe I'll do another installment later. We'll see.

addendum, at Karen's request ~ yes, we survived! We had to backtrack a few minor times, but were never lost and never had to open the emergency map. The prizes were confusing, there were extra secret spots where you could get hole punches and if you got all the maze pieces and the punches you got some other-other prize, and we were sort of confused at the end because we survived but had no extra punches. So ... maybe we could've claimed something but didn't? I was just glad to emerge with the same number of children I started with, no more, no less.