Fluffy and the Big Boys

Hi Kids,

I just went to Stillwater -- no, not Oklahoma -- Minnesota with Miss Elaine. Stillwater was an important town in the lumber industry in the late 1800s and early 1900s. We stayed in a house that belonged to the daughter of one of the most important men in town. His name was Isaac Staples and his daughter was named Aurora.

Stillwater is on the St. Croix (pronounced "croy") River. The loggers used to float huge logs down the river to the sawmills in Stillwater and beyond.

A bridge crosses the river -- Wisconsin is on the other side. It has two towers. The section of the bridge between the towers can go up like an elevator when a big boat needs to get under it. Drivers hate it because they have to wait for the bridge to go up and down but I thought it was really cool.
I got to go in a boat on the river. It was a gondola -- a special kind of boat that is from Venice, Italy. It was pretty surprising to find one in Minnesota but it was nice, too. The lady with us is Jean Friedl. She was our hostess and showed us around Stillwater.

Here's my favorite thing -- Stillwater has a Teddy Bear Park. Miss Elaine made me pose with the big teddy statues. I didn't mind. Then she put me on the slide. I was tired of posing so I slid down all on my own. I wanted to stay and play longer but Miss Elaine said we had to go back to work. Sometimes it's tough being a traveling bear!

Love,

Fluffy

Fluffy Goes to Florida

Hi Kids -- and Mr. Wonderful, Vanilla, Teddy and Oso,

I'm so glad I have a name -- and I think it suits me. I AM fluffy (although I have to say I am a bit jealous that my brother bear got named Mr. Wonderful. After all, I'm pretty wonderful myself.) I'm getting ready to go on a trip this week -- to Minnesota. But I wanted to tell you about the trip Miss Elaine took me on right before school started.

You can see the beach in front of our hotel at the top of this post. We stayed at the hotel at Amelia Island Plantation. Amelia Island is off the east coast of Florida about as far north as you can get. The Plantation is on the south end of the island and has lots of places for people to stay -- or live. And the nice thing is, the people who built the area left so many trees. This is the oldest tree on the island. It's between 300 and 400 years old.

Miss Elaine thinks the beach at Amelia Island is wonderful -- she went out every morning to watch the sun come up over the water. I stayed in bed. I DO NOT LIKE SAND IN MY FUR!

She took me with her when she visited the nature center and I saw a turtle.

Miss Elaine took a Segway tour and she didn't take me -- she didn't have an extra hand to hold me with. Did you know that Segways were invented by a man who invented a wheel chair that could climb stairs?

One afternoon we went to Fernandina Beach, the main town on the island. Amelia Island was once a haven (that means a safe place) for pirates. We found several pirate statues and Miss Elaine made me sit on them. I would like to find some buried treasure -- but not if I have to dig in the sand.

Love,

Fluffy

Little Bear Does Little House

Hi Kids,

Have you read any of Laura Ingalls Wilder's books? They're really good. She tells the story of her life as a pioneer -- and she traveled even more than I do! Only she didn't get to fly or go in a car -- she rode in a covered wagon.

When she was very little her family moved from Wisconsin to Kansas where they built the little house on the prairie. For a long time no one was sure where they lived. A few years ago, a couple of ladies went on a search to find the exact spot. They looked in the census and found the Wilders house. Then they looked at land records and by locating their neighbors, they found a piece of land that had an old well on it. It was the well that Laura's dad dug. And that's all that was left. (The well has been repaired so nobody can fall in.)

Today there's a reproduction of the cabin on the site. And inside, it's just like Laura described in her book.

There was even a little girl there -- she was visiting, like me -- dressed like Laura. She climbed up in a wagon and held me. What a nice new friend.

Your friend,

Little Bear

I Choose Chattanooga -- Part I

Hi Kids,

We haven't met yet so I don't have a name. I don't even know if I'm a boy or a girl. I guess I'll find out in the fall when Mrs. Kysar's new class tells me. So for now Miss Elaine just calls me Little Bear or L.B. I'm smaller than Teddy and Vanilla but I'm going to have some big adventures.

My first adventure was in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Can you find it on a map? I got to see a lot of things so I'm going to tell you about my trip a little at a time.

One of the first things I did was visit Coolidge Park. You can't tell it from the picture, but the park is right down by the Tennessee River which runs through Chattanooga. The park is a great place to play -- especially in the fountains when it is hot. And it was hot when we visited. I like the water but I didn't want to get my fur wet so Miss Elaine let me sit on one of the animals that surround the main part of the fountain. Sometimes the animals squirt water, too.

Another cool thing in the park is the carousel. The frame is about 100 years old but the animals are all new -- carved by a local master carver and his associates. There are 52 animals -- horses, rabbits, fish -- a carousel with a variety of animals is known as a menagerie. I'm sitting on a carving of a Tennessee Walker -- a special kind of horse with a very smooth gait (way of moving).

Miss Elaine let me ride with her. I made her hold me tight -- it was hard for her to use her camera with just one hand!

Another cool thing about Chattanooga is there is a lot of art all through town. This rhinoceros is in Coolidge Park. The artist called it "Blue Boy -- Pull Toy." It's a pretty big pull toy if you ask me!

Love,

Little Bear

I'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain

Hi Kids,

I've been to the mountains of northern Georgia -- the tail-end of the Blue Ridge Mountains which are the southern end of the Appalachian range. This area -- around Dawsonville -- is where stock car racing (NASCAR) was born. I went to the Georgia Racing Hall of Fame and they let me sit in some of the racing cars. Here I'm sitting on the wheel -- when I sat in the seat Miss Elaine couldn't see me!

This is me in front of the highest waterfall east of the Mississippi. It's higher than Niagara Falls -- but not nearly as wide. It's called Amicalola Falls. Isn't is pretty? We were standing on a bridge about two-thirds of the way down the falls. There's a nice state park here -- we spent the night at the lodge in the park.

The next night we stayed at Forrest Hills Resort. We took a wagon ride behind two beautiful Belgian horses named Thelma and Louise. We went a long way to a spot by a little stream where we had a great dinner. One of the owners -- David Kraft -- fixed me a barbecued chicken leg. Brandi Littlejohn is holding me. She and her husband work at the resort.

I made a new friend. Her name is Lea Marie Littlejohn and she's five and a half years old.

I had a really good time.

Love,

Vanilla

Vanilla Loves a Little Lamb

Hi Kids,

Wow, last week was really exciting. I got to go to a dairy farm -- but, guess what, it didn't have cows. It had sheep! Kim McGarr, her husband Lee and their two daughters Sarah and Ashley live on a farm near Comanche, Oklahoma. Can you find that on the map? It's almost as far south as Texas.

Miss Kim milks the sheep and makes cheese. She makes a kind of cheese called blue cheese because it has blue-y veins in it. The blue part is actually mold -- but a really good kind. It takes a lot of work to make cheese. First Miss Kim has to milk the sheep, then she has to heat the milk -- called Pasteurizing -- to make sure it's safe to use. It takes about three days to get it from the sheep to looking like a wheel of cheese. Then it has to "age" for about 4 months. In the picture you can see Miss Kim with a young cheese and a cheese that is almost through aging. Some of the liquid in the old cheese has evaporated so it looks smaller. When it's done, it's kind of fuzzy on the outside and all crickley looking inside. Miss Elaine says it tastes great.

The McGarrs have about 300 sheep but Miss Kim only has to milk 103 (some are boys and some aren't old enough) twice a day! That takes a long time!

I got to meet a little lamb named Paco. He minds Miss Kim when she calls him -- just like a puppy. I think he really liked me.

Love,

Vanilla

Meeting a Hero

Dear Kids,

I had a really special treat today. Miss Elaine and I went with some friends from Respect Diversity to take flowers and a birthday card to Mrs. Clara Luper. Mrs. Luper is 87 years old. And she played a very important part in Oklahoma history.

Mrs. Luper was a history teacher. She wrote a play about Martin Luther King and took some of her students to New York City to present it. The students had a great time -- they saw the sights and ate anywhere they wanted.

This was in the 1950s and in many parts of the United States, including Oklahoma, black people were not allowed to stay or eat in certain places. They weren't allowed to swim with white people in public pools. Mrs. Luper and her students knew that this wasn't right -- in America all people are supposed to be equal.

She and her students decided to go to the Katz Drugstore in downtown Oklahoma City. In those days, drug stores often had lunch counters. They sat down on the stools. They were told to leave. The students were very polite, but they didn't move. The people who worked in the store wouldn't take their orders or serve them.

Even though Mrs. Luper and her students were thrown out of many places, they kept coming back and, eventually, they won.

Do you know what a coincidence is? It's sort of when two things happen that you don't think are related -- but then they turn out to be. While we were visiting, Miss Elaine got a phone call from a man she was going to interview for a newspaper article. When she told him that she was at Mrs. Luper's, he said, "Oh, she was one of my grandfather's favorite people. He threw her out of his building. But, you know what? When he died, Mrs. Luper came to his funeral."

That's another thing that makes Mrs. Luper a hero. She disagreed with people and stood up for herself but she was never mean about it. She just felt sorry of people who acted badly toward her -- she thought they just didn't know better and, with patience, she tried to teach them a better way to behave.

I felt really honored to get to meet her. And I think she liked me, too.

Love,

Vanilla