- During the drive to Wisconsin, Addie rants and raves about having to find a good sausage wholesaler once they arrive.
- Hope looks at all the boxes she's piled into the back seat of Addie's car. She has 11 scrapbooks filled with memories of all the places she's lived.
- She's saving them for the day her dad, a man she's never met, shows up on her doorstep.
- They stop for the night in Indiana and Hope wonders what kind of kids she'll find in Mulhoney, Wisconsin, and whether or not she'll fit in.
- She dreams up a personal ad for finding friends who aren't picky eaters.
- As they pass the sign reading WISCONSIN— AMERICA'S DAIRYLAND, Hope feels a familiar anger rising to the surface. It happens every time she moves to a new place.
- But instead of yelling and screaming at Addie the way she did when she was a kid, Hope studies the menu for the Welcome Stairways diner, where both of them will be working.
- They've been hired to help the owner, G.T. Stoop, manage the place. G.T. has leukemia.
- They pass the Mulhoney Motor Inn where a banner hangs over the second floor railing. It reads REELECT OUR MAYOR—ELI MILLSTONE—THE ONLY MAN FOR MULHONEY.