Bloggin' America

So, leaving Illinois and “Sweet Home Chicago” began the start of our sour trip east. Since Dad has been adamant about traveling to every single state he said we HAD to go to the sorry state of Indiana. Glenda seemed to be way too excited about going to this excuse for a midwest state. Keep going...

I was about ready to head to bed when George jumped up out of his chair and said, “We are going to The Second City and catching their late show! It is our destiny.” I was completely thrown off by that proclamation, considering George is the least funny person I know and said he wanted to go to a comedy show. It was already 9:30 at night and Ray was slowly fading away into Dream Land, so Glenda offered to stay in the hotel room since Ray wasn’t old enough to go to the show anyway. Keep going...

We hurriedly opened the door to our hotel room, threw our stuff inside, shut the door, and headed back to the elevator. Mom looked concerned, and Ray was screaming Glenda’s name down the hotel corridor. He pressed the down arrow on the elevator about a million times. Click click click click. The elevator came up to our level finally and the doors opened. A group of people came out of the elevator and Mom rushed us in before the doors closed on us. “Oh hey guys,” shouted a familiar voice. GLENDA! “I was asking about restaurants around here and all of a sudden you guys were gone.” Keep going...

It felt nice to get inside from the cold for a while. The lobby of the tower was actually smaller than you would think for such an impressive piece of engineering. There was a replica Willis Tower in the lobby next to the obligatory gift shop that kind of made me wish that I could just climb that little one now. Just the prospect of being so high in the sky was starting to make my knees feel like Jell-o. This was the moment. Keep going...

After leaving Milwaukee and heading down I-94, my heart started pumping a little faster — mostly from the squeaking noise from the Falcon (which I thought was a serial killer attached to the bottom of the Falcon), but also because we were finally headed to Chicago. The Windy City. The Second City. Chi-Town. OK, you get the picture. It was just a two-hour drive from Milwaukee to Chicago, but it felt like an eternity. Almost every town or city on I-94 had the word “oak” in it or some variation of a tree. I was tired of seeing trees; I wanted some concrete! Since we had left Milwaukee in the evening, I ended up falling asleep just outside Chicago as I desperately searched for any sign of the Willis Tower in the night sky. Keep going...

Everything on the road in Wisconsin has an interesting name: Waupun, Oshkosh, Sheboygan, Waukesha… and Milwaukee. Glenda told us they were all Native American names that had just stuck. And it’s Muh-walk-ie as they pronounce it here. Keep going...

We’ve been on the road the past few days with the RV’s Internet sputtering. So I’ll play catch-up: Keep going...

Driving south in Wisconsin, we ran into a Visitor’s Center (everything in the Midwest has an apostrophe and an S!) along the road for a bathroom break and came out with a whole handful of brochures. So many states have these prepped and ready for a family, and the parking spaces in front seem to be big enough for RVs. The brochures: the House on the Rock, Madison’s Henry Vilas Zoo, the Circus World Museum in Baraboo… Ray clapped at that one. George decided Baraboo was easy enough. Keep going...

The bottom fell out of the temperature as we crossed the border to Wisconsin, and the RV heating was not cutting it. In fact, the heating was blinking in and out. It was 20 degrees outside, according to the thermometer in the window and steadily dropping to that in the RV. Keep going...

This Thanksgiving Day was our most adventurous yet. We began by taking a trip to Lutsen Mountains to go skiing on one of their four mountains. The ski lodge and park, bordering Lake Superior, is about four hours north of Minneapolis. Although not originally a part of our Minnesota plans, we figured there was no better way to embrace the snowy landscape. Keep going...