The Good Big Sister: Family Myths From Generation to Generation
I’ve written before about family myths (see here and here). A recent family reunion brought more some of our myths to mind. Growing up, I was the Good Big Sister – at least that’s how my parents perceived me. My siblings probably always disagreed. I was the oldest child. One brother was just 17 months younger […]
A Modern Day Trek to Oregon City: Two Museums and the Willamette Locks
Once Oregon City was a thriving town at the end of the Oregon Trail, the largest settlement in the Pacific Northwest. It was the first city in the U.S. west of the Rockies to be incorporated. Now it is overshadowed by Portland, which it once eclipsed in size and importance. On a recent trip to […]
Favorite (and Forgiving) Peach Cobbler Recipe
It is peach season in Missouri. If it is peach season, it is time for peach cobbler, one of my favorite desserts. We like to buy our peaches from Schreiman Orchards in Waverly, Missouri, but any fresh peaches will do. Canned peaches will do in a pinch. I don’t really believe in recipes, which is […]
Summer Rains and Memories
The past two days we have had rain in Kansas City. Monday felt almost autumn-like – cool, with a steady rain that lasted all day. Tuesday was warmer, steamier, but still grey and dreary. I sat writing in my journal on Tuesday, the room dark, no sunshine streaming in my face as it does most […]
Lake Superior, Grand Portage, and the Fur Trade
I don’t know that I will get to the ocean this year, but my husband and I recently returned from a vacation on the North Shore of Lake Superior in Minnesota. Lake Superior is so big it almost qualifies as an ocean. (My husband commented that it smelled better that the ocean. Frankly, I like […]
A Pox on Pests, Particularly Up Close and Personal
This has been another bad year for bugs in the Hupp household – for them, and for us. We replaced the furnace and hot water heater in our basement recently, and added more insulation in the attic. Basement and attic have been the favored dwelling places of the uninvited critters that move in with us each […]
The Summer Between High-School and College: A Giant Gap
There was a story on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition show on July 16, 2013, about “summer melt.” These are the students who say in spring when they graduate from high school that they are going to college in the fall, but they do not actually enroll when autumn comes. The “summer melt” is as […]
Absaroka Ranch, Wyoming: Sight-Seeing on Horseback and a Gift to Myself
I wrote on July 15 about the Oregon emigrants’ experience sight-seeing at Ice Slough in Wyoming. My family has vacationed in the Wind River Range not far from Ice Slough, at Absaroka Ranch. Absaroka Ranch is located outside Dubois, Wyoming, at the headwaters of the Wind River, nestled beneath the Absaroka Mountains. Various Hupp family […]
Another Sight Along the Trail: Ice Slough
I wrote last month about Ayers Natural Bridge, and its fame as a day trip for the emigrants to Oregon. Another wonder they encountered along the trail was Ice Slough, near the Sweetwater River. The Oregon Trail crossed the Sweetwater many times as the river meandered from just past Independence Rock toward South Pass. Actually, the […]
Hiking in Switzerland and Family Diversity
Fifteen years ago, in July 1998, our family took a hiking vacation in Switzerland. We arranged the trip through Distant Journeys, which sets up self-guided trips for adventuresome souls. My husband and two children qualify as adventuresome, if I do not. We flew to Geneva and took the train to Chamonix, France. The plan was […]