Olivet

Olivet is a small town near Pomona Lake. (According to its Facebook page, there are about 64 residents.)

We saw a couple of storage facilities where folks were keeping their boats in the off-season, an old church with an outhouse, a community center, and a fire station. It was a pretty countrified town, and a few of the yards were packed with the skeletons of old cars and machines.

Perhaps my favorite part of the town was an amazing deer blind mounted atop a truck that had been painted olive green. It was a true testament to ingenuity and resourcefulness.

We did get out to see the train pass by, but that was about all we could find to do here. Also, Myrick did a great job of taking our picture in front of the outhouse behind the church!

Lyndon

Lyndon is a small town just south of the Pomona Lake Project. We saw many homes there -- some old, some new. Matt loved that the water tower had a tiger's paw instead of an "O."

The town has a clear agricultural heritage; it is surrounded by wheat fields and cow pastures, and many yards have chickens in them. The houses were neatly painted and the yards were well-kept.

Downtown Lyndon is charming and well-populated with businesses, a county courthouse, and a city hall.

The kids and I took advantage of the unseasonably warm January afternoon to play in the park while Mom checked out a boutique and a consignment sale down the street.

The park is clean and well-maintained, though the dirt driveway was a bit muddy because of recently melted snow. At the edge of the park, there's a territorial-era house (the Wells P. Bailey House). When Myrick heard that Laura and Mary Ingalls probably lived in a home like this one, he insisted on running around it and howling like a wolf to terrorize its occupants. I can only hope they were not home, or they surely would have been frightened out of their wits.

Baby Madelynne and I took to the dead brown turf on a little hillside -- I to enjoy the sun and she to master the art of grass-crawling.

It was as perfect a January day as one could hope for. The sun's insistent warmth was tempered by the chill of the earth under my elbow, as well as a light breeze. It smelled of damp prairie earth and dead grass. In the bare trees, chickadees, sparrows, and cardinals sang sweet celebratory songs about spring's imminent return.

Other than having to occasionally fend off a six-month-old's attempts to eat my notebook, I hadn't a care. But then Myrick needed the restroom, so I got up and resumed my role as responsible parent.