SOUTH DAKOTA...STATE #27

Good evening, everyone...

We were welcomed into South Dakota by a transparent sunset greeting us under the South Dakota marker. We are excited to be in the land of the faces. We spent the day driving through Iowa and Minnesota on our way to Sioux Falls. As we were leaving Iowa, we took a side trip to the Little Brown Church in the Vale, a place that we kept seeing on the map. For such a small place, it was swarming with activity.

As we were making the rounds taking photos, some people in formal attire were hovering in the back waiting for a wedding party to arrive. As we were leaving the building, we saw a gaggle of motocycles pull up across the street. My first thought was that they were attending the wedding, but come to find out, they were stopping for a photo op. I got to play photographer for them and handed out some our project cards.

Yesterday, we went to Burr Oak, Iowa to see the Laura Ingalls Wilder Park and Museum. It is the only place where she actually lived that is still standing. I read all of her books and was an a huge fan of the tv series, many of my little girl fantasies spurred on by those episodes. I found the site in our Explore America book about four days ago and begged the girls to go see it. They were in agreement and so we made our way from St. Paul, Minnesota to the farm lands of Iowa.

We passed a few Amish buggies on the way and tried to get some pictures, but were only able to get a picture of a parked buggy at the lumber store.

We had not had an on-camera interview since Michigan, so that morning I was praying that God would slap us up side the head with someone that He really wanted us to speak to. As we were in the gift shop of the museum, a gregariously spry gentlemen of the young age of 90 started talking to me about his family, his hometown, and anything else that came to mind. When I gave him one of our cards and told him what we were doing in town, all the people, including the shop attendants, paused to listen.

I asked my new friend if he would be interested in giving us an interview and he said, "Sure, let's go." We wandered out of the once bank, now gift shop and started setting up our gear out front. Mr. Roy Ask and I sat on the park bench in front of some lovely flowers with a white wooden church in the background, and we began the interview. I didn't even have to ask any questions. Mr. Ask started giving us his fascinating life story, the highlights, of course, before we even got the camera rolling. He told us about his ten children, his wife Persus of 64 years that he lost last year to a stroke, and how he came to be a Christ follower when an evangelist came to the little Baptist Church that he attended. The only reason he went to that church was because he played chaffeur weekly to a little widow woman. He later served as a Sunday School teacher for fifty years. Mr. Ask told us about how he could still have faith in God after losing two of his children and his wife. He said that he believed that it was their time and God's will for each to leave when they did, and he said that he knew where they were and that there would be a sweet reunion someday. He had great marriage advice for Laura, our bride-to-be. He said to never go to bed angry and always give them a little kiss right before you went to bed.

After sometime, he grew tired of talking and wanted to know if we were through. I asked him what his favorite hymn was. He said "In the Garden" and he started quoting the words. I watched tears roll out of the eye that I was sitting next to and helped him pull up the few words that escaped him. We ended with a big hug and exchanged contact information. I am so glad that we went to Burr Oak. Thanks God for letting me not only live out a childhood dream, but most especially for slapping me gently upside the head with the unforgettable Mr. Roy Ask.

Sweet dreams,
Princess Angela

Wisconsin to Minnesota

We are in State #25, Minnesota, the midway point.


We landed in St. Paul last night. We checked into our fabulous room downtown and made our way over to Saint Paul's Cathedral.

We caught a couple of shots and then we went sightseeing. Today we are going to go back to the Cathedral and see the inside and are hoping to capture some interviews. There are so many beautiful churches here. We are also going to go by the capital and see what we find there. The Mississippi River wraps around St. Paul, so we will have to go take some shots of the mighty Mississippi.

Before Minnesota, we spent a night in Green Bay, Wisconsin and met some Masons who were conventioning there. As we were leaving town, we found the only Starbucks in the city, and Donna Renee met up with as Laura says, her "tribe". They all recounted stories of their first days as baristas as the new girl made our drinks. We bid them farewell and made our way down Hwy 29W.


I mentioned that we had not had any Wisconsin cheese, and low and behold, within five minutes of that statement, a big triangle in the sky announced CHEESE to the right.

I squealed as we traveled over to Laney's Cheese Store. We met a lady behind the counter who grew up in Wisconsin, worked at a cheese store, but wasn't fond of cheese. She kindly offered us some samples of the different types of cheeses that they carried and introduced us to cheese curds...they squeak in your mouth!

We carried away two baby blocks of cheese, tomato-basil and jalapeno and had a midday picnic of cheese and nuts on the Eau Claire River.

What an amazing journey this has been so far! We are finding God in America and we know that we have so much more to see, hear, and discover. We will check back in with you later today after we go exploring and let you know what we find. Have a great day!
Love and Light,
Princess Angela

Sunrise...Sunset on St. Ignace

Good morning America,
It is 7:30 A.M. Eastern Standard TIme and I have been up since 5:20 to watch the sunrise.
We are in St. Ignace, Michigan and are staying on water. I couldn't let the moments slip by without trying to capture some of this beauty that we have the priviledge to view firsthand. Last night when we pulled into town, Laura wasn't feeling well, so we left her resting in the hotel and Renee and I went sunset hunting down by the lighthouse.

I have never seen a lighthouse except for pictures, so I have been so excited about this part of the journey. I kept wanting to see a lighthouse all last summer, but the closest I got to one was a lighthouse-themed bathroom in St. Louis. Not this year.
We found a tug boat, too.

The sunset was amazing.

Now for a sunrise preview...enjoy! Princess Angela

Michigan, for the first time.

So far, Michigan is a thousand greens inlaid with rivers and lakes and friendly waitresses. Tonight Michigan will be a picnic starring a sunset over a lake. It will be easy-to-breathe night air seeping through the patchwork quilt Angela's meemaw made.
Tomorrow it will be the intersection of Lakes Huron and Michigan and a hotel on the beach. And somewhere, we hope, it will be an interview with a person who's looking for God, too.

May I help you...

This is for all of you waitstaff out there...

Today we met a woman named Elizabeth at Logan's Roadhouse. She was our waitress. The conversation started when she asked us if we were photographers. We told her that we were working on a documentary, and she did a great interview of her own. When I gave her some of our cards, she said that there was a guy that works the night shift that would be really interested in this project. She said that he was a devout Christian, and the way she said it made me want to meet him. She said she would take some of the cards and give them to people at her church. I asked her which church she went to and she told us. She can't go much because of her work schedule.

When she asked us what kind of answers we were getting, I told her that many people were burned by their church experience. People were giving up on God and were deciding not to believe in Him since it seemed like the only logical conclusion. She said she was going through a similiar struggle because her church had split. The pastor had embezzled all of the church's money and it was hard to go back after that.

She said that even having other choices of faiths, she would not give up on Chirstianity because it was the happier story, but that she wanted to make sure that she believed, really believed, what she did and was not just trying to cover herself for fear of eternity. She said that she was sure that if she was just trying to cover herself that when she got up to the "pearly gates," her true motive of just trying to cover herself would be exposed and since it was not with a right heart, she would not be seen as truly knowing God and that it wouldn't count. She said that she wanted to know that it was real and she wanted it to be real. She said that she was looking and asking daily for God to reveal Himself to her. She was reading the Proverbs yesterday about how wisdom is more important than riches. She said that it was hard watching people who were really bad get anything they wanted. It made her wonder about what she was choosing. She then cringed with that 'I don't really mean that deep down just a thought passing by' kind of way. She said she was not going to fully give over until she was sure. We told her that we had been struggling the last year with understanding our lives and circumstances in light of God and our search for Him. I shared with her a story about my own search past the hypocrisy.

Laura told her that maybe the fact that we were sitting there and talking to her about this was a sign that God was revealing Himself to her. She said that she believed many people were being put in her life, like her co-worker, to remind her and to keep her on the right track.

Trevor, thanks for being a great reminder to Elizabeth and to all the other people you come into contact with on a daily basis. Elizabeth, thanks for searching for the Truth and not giving in until you know it's true. Thanks Celebration Worship Center for being on the other side of Grand Rapids from our hotel and thanks Laura for suggesting Logan's. They are all big puzzle pieces on this scavenger hunt to find God. Thanks God for helping us look.

Love and Light,
Princess Angela