Thank goodness for road trips

This week we went to Minnesota.  We actually started last Saturday and spent 2 days at Royals games (they won 1 and lost 1).  We left after Sunday's game and drove north.  We stopped for the night in Albert Lea, Minnesota, a mere 17 miles from the world famous SPAM Museum.  We decided to pass on the SPAM and proceeded on to Minneapolis early the next morning.

I am one of those people who can read in a moving vehicle with no problem.  One of my friends who is also a librarian, loaned me four books that she thought I would enjoy.   I am an odd sort when it comes to books.  When I was in elementary school I read almost every biography in the city library for the summer reading program.  I don't really enjoy reading things that don't have at least one foot firmly planted in history or fact.  The books she loaned me are about the lives of four different women, Martha Washington, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Jane Austen, and Nannerl Mozart.

I decided to begin with Martha Washington.  Having been to Mt. Vernon and being married to a social studies teacher I probably have more information about George Washington than many normal folk.  The book, however, was all from Martha's perspective.   What a great read!!!  The author even explains at the end what is fact and what she took liberties with for the sake of story telling. 

It tells about how Martha dealt with many deaths in her family and how she was forced to run her plantation after her first husband Daniel died.  Running their small operation was good practice for later years when she would need to take over the operations at Mount Vernon while George was leading the troops.  I also found it very interesting that most winters she would go to the camp to live with George.  She would visit with the troops and gathered the officers wives also at camp to sew and mend clothes for the officers.  By the end of the war she was held in highest regard, almost as high as her husband for her efforts during the war. 

On the ride home, I read the book about Elizabeth Barrett Browning.  I was not sure what this book was going to be like, not having the background on her that I did with Martha Washington.  When I say I read this on the way home, I really did!!  It was a very easy read.  What an interesting life she had.  Not only did she fight illness most of her life, she too had to overcome devastating deaths in her family.   Reading the epilogue at the end was very interesting because most of the circumstances regarding her relationship with Robert Browning seem to scripted to be true.  Most of the details regarding how they met, their courtship, and eventual marriage are absolutely true!!!  Even though she is best known for her love sonnets, she never intended for that collection to be published.  She was a prolific poet and was even considered for the position of Poet Laureate of England but was passed over for Lord Tennyson. 

I am trying to save the last two books for wheat harvest or our trip to New Orleans later this summer.  Thank goodness for road trips!