Our next stop was to Fairfield, IA to visit some of M’s family.  We had some nice views along the way:

There was another sign (that I missed getting a photo of), that had a graphic of a horse & buggy.  Sure enough, we saw a few on the road:

Amish people riding in horse & buggy

When we arrived to Aunt R & Uncle J’s house, we were transported to a different way of life.  On one side of the road was their beautiful house and the other side of the road was their farm, which they currently raise cattle and grow corn & soybeans.

One of the first things that we got to do was watch Aunt R feed milk to a baby calf, Leroy. Kid C was hesitant and didn’t want to get too close.  Taylor, one of their dogs, was not shy in trying to steal some milk out of the bottle.

Feeding milk to baby calf

Leroy, the baby calf

The girls had a blast exploring the yard.

Kids collecting acorn, rocks & leaves

Later, Kid C even got to ride a John Deere tractor!

We were treated to our first home-cooked meal of our road trip, which was a welcomed break from eating out.  The girls had fun playing with Hunter, the other family dog.  They even took over his bed at one point.

After this stop, we decided head straight for Omaha, NE, skipping Iowa City as we initially planned.  It would’ve added another hour to our total driving time.  At that point, we erred on the side of less driving and were eager to get through Iowa and Nebraska quickly.  We had longer stretches of driving planned for the next few days and were crossing our fingers for good weather and agreeable children.