Samantha on the Prairie

Did you wait until the last minute to buy school supplies? Me too. Here's a list of handy things to grab for your little ones as they get ready for the first day of school. 1. Animal Pals Pencil Case My daughter has dozens of pencils, markers, and crayons and loves to bring a few along in the car. Whether your children need one for school, or if they're on the go and want to color in the car or plane, have them bring their drawing and coloring tools along in one of these super cute pencil cases. I love the yellow zebra one, available on Amazon at  Cool Pencil Case - Animal Pals Pencil Case- Zebra . It's currently only $4.49 with free shipping. 2. Elmer's Washable No-Run School Glue Chances are gel glue is on the school supply list. Our school requested gel glue, but it's actually hard to find in my town. So, I order  Elmer's Washable No-Run School Glue, 5 oz Bottle, Clear (E305)  from Amazon. The clear glue doesn't leave those white globs w

Days 7 & 8:   Des Moines, IA to Minnesota After a long week, Des Moines was low key. On a very hot day, we spent the afternoon at a municipal pool and visited the Saylorville Dam. Saylorville Dam Penny helped set the picnic table for dinner Our second night camping at Saylorville was considerably louder. A neighboring family was quite apologetic about their baby's first time camping, though I never heard her cry. Others were much louder, including a party somewhere else in the campground that was loud enough to hear late in the evening. My husband was strongly considering packing up and driving home at 10pm, but P wanted to stay the night and so we did. I'm so glad we stayed because not long after leaving on Saturday morning, we realized we were super close to  Reiman Gardens  at Iowa State in Ames. We'd been last summer when visiting SCAD friends in town from Savannah and decided it was worth another visit. But, first we munched on a delicious buffet brea

Great Platte River Road Archway Day 5:   Cheyenne, WY to Kearney, NE The trip to Fort Kearney was uneventful. It's a long drive and scenery changes little. There are more trees and the Platte River runs along I-80 for more than half the distance between these cities. As it was early summer and quite stormy lately, the river was already above flood level and a flood warning loomed over our heads. We arrived at Fort Kearny State Historical Park (no "e" for the fort) close to dinnertime, found our site surrounded by trees among a large acreage of camping spots. Few people were camping, mostly in RVs. There's not much to say about Day 5. We explored downtown Kearney and found little to do. Shops were long out-of-business and we couldn't find a place to eat. There wasn't a soul in sight at dinnertime midweek, so we drove away from downtown and found an Old Chicago. Exploring Kearney, NE Fort Kearny was ridiculously overrun with mosquitos. It was so