Heading Home and Our Trip by the Numbers (August 3 – 5, 2014)

The Place(s)

Minneapolis is 1,200 miles from home and we had to be home for something on August 7.  So after loitering our way through the upper mid-west for 4+ weeks, we began a forced march through the heartland to get home.  We traveled through MN, WI, IL, IN, OH, WV, PA, MD and VA in 3 days.

The Adventure(s)

Our friend Simeon is undertaking an internship as part of his marketing degree with Oscar Meyers/Kraft in Madison WI.  He had invited us to give him a call if we found ourselves near there on our trip.  The road took us right through Madison, and so we did.  What a cool university town/state capitol.!  Built on narrow isthmuses between 3 lakes, you are rarely away from a lovely lake view.  Simeon took us to The Terrace a huge outdoor seating area alongside Lake Mendota that is part of the UW student union.  That location in itself is a selling point for attending this university.  There we ate ice cream made on campus from cream from cows that are part of the Ag school dairy herd.  Pretty Yummy!

We spent the first night outside of Rockford IL at Blackawk Vally Campground, a lovely, spacious wooded campground along a slow moving river.  There were large mowed grassy areas for playing Frisbee with Tiki, playgrounds, shuffleboard, horseshoe pits, volleyball nets and loads of fun things to do. 

The next day, Illinois was flat and agricultural.  We wondered aloud if this would be a good area for wind farms.  As we turned around a bend we saw some off to the right, then the left, then on both sides.  We traveled through wind farms for several hours.

Around Indianapolis we entered haze.  After a month in clear, low humidity, unpolluted air, the haze was noticeable.  It is the haze of “hazy, hot and humid” and the haze of pollution in the air.  A friend described the clean air in the upper Midwest as “sparkling” and we missed the sparkle.

The roads in Indiana were teeth jarringly uneven.  Constant 5 mile construction zone followed by 10 miles without construction made the drive unpleasant.  However, we were able to get over 500 more miles under our belt during 10 ½ hours on Monday – day-2 of the trip home.  We spent the night in Ohio, in the pretty little lake resort town of Buckeye Lake.

On the way out at the beginning of the trip, we drove along the Pennsylvania Turnpike dodging traffic and navigating lanes narrowed by construction.  On the way back on day-3 of our trek, we drove through the mountains along I-70 struggling up hills in the slow traffic lane with the semis.  One route is harder on the driver, the other is harder on the vehicle.

So, here is our trip by the numbers -

3,360 - miles traveled
     35 - nights on the road
     22 - blog entries
     15 - campgrounds (2 state, 6 private, 5 municipal, 2 family members)
      9 - States visited
      2 - huge areas of wind farms
      5 - kayak trips
    90 - hottest temperature (Grand Marais MI, July 21)
    40 - coolest temperature (Grand Marais MI, July 23)

Enjoying Family in Minneapolis MN (July 28 – August 3, 2014)

The Place

This trip started with our spending time with our new family members in Cleveland, and it is winding up spending time with our daughter, Marie, and her family in Minneapolis.  Family bookends on a marvelous trip!

Minneapolis is a small city of about 390,000 people.  It is very cold in the winter, and delightful in the summer.  There is a young vibe to the city with coffee houses, and bike trails and water sports on the lakes.

The Adventures

Minneapolis has a series of lovely lakes with bicycle and walking trails around them, and beaches and marinas and places to buy ice cream alongside them.  Some of our extended family cousins keeps their sailboat at a marina on one of them.  We spent two days along Lake Harriet.  We walked, ate ice cream, and swam Tiki.  The next day we returned to take our kayaks out on the lake.  We were joined by Chris, a college friend of Marie’s, and took turns paddling out and around the lake.  Russ and Marie swam in the lake.  It was a warm, sun drenched day. 

The Dinette Makes into a Bed!

Finished the Puzzle!

A continuous highlight of the week, was the time we were able to spend with our 8 year old granddaughter, Marina.  We had so much fun cooking together, doing puzzles, reading Molly Moon, doing crafts, coloring, throwing balls for the dogs, and playing.  We even had a sleepover in Grandma and Poppa’s “camper.”

We had the motor home parked in their driveway off the alley behind their house.  The driveway was about 36 feet long and was bordered at each end with Marie and Dean’s garage and a neighbor’s garage.  We parallel parked the beast into the slot without nicking anyone’s garage.

Dean returned on Friday from his week on the road at work and was able to spend time with us over the weekend.  We celebrated Marie’s birthday with a yummy cookout on Friday evening with Chris and Mike. We sang Happy Birthday again at a pool party with the extended in-law family (Judy, Gordie, Terry, Heidi, Mike, Susan and Nolan) on Saturday.  We had such a great time and left with good memories.