Some post-trip musings

As I slowly catch up on sleep, some of the misplaced details from our trip are coming back to me. For example, if you fill up your tank in Minnesota, they try to tempt you with gas, bait, leeches, tackle and worms. If you fill up in Wisconsin, it's all about the cheese, and if you need a place to stay over, you can choose accomodations such as Camp Whosyurdaddy, or you can drive through the towns of Dairyland, Cozy Corner and Swiss. With temptations like these, who needs to travel out of the country? Especially when you get to use a composting toilet like we did at Mr. Sykes' house. (Somehow I couldn't bring myself to take a photo of it, though.) I will say that even though you don't flush the thing, there was no stink like you get from an outhouse. Everything he's added on to his house, he's used recycled materials. Very cool stuff.

In Indianapolis, we drove past the new football stadium and it is gargantuan in size. It makes the RCA dome look puny and I would venture a guess that if you went to a Colts game there and got the nosebleed seats, you'd come down with a raging case of vertigo in addition to that nosebleed.

Home stretch, and it's a lonnnng stretch!

Left Indianapolis and headed to Louisville in hopes of seeing our great-Aunt Ann. When we got there, she was sleeping (as are many 90-something-year olds), so we went to grab lunch and come back. When we got back, she was still or again sleeping, soundly, so Maria left her a letter saying we had been there. By now, it was almost 3pm, so we were going to be hauling a$$ to get home. All the nights of bad behavior from various kids (not always the same one, they all took turns) had convinced me that no matter what, the next beds we slept in would be our own.

I have to say, I wanted to weep with joy when I saw the Welcome to North Carolina sign, however I contented myself with a fist pump and a cheer. Of course, the heavy rain that I got to drive through when I got back into NC wasn't so cheerworthy, especially east of Greensboro when I could barely see the dotted lines marking the lanes from the rain and fog. By the time I dropped off Maria and the girls, it was 12:30 am and we got all the way home a little after 1 am.

All in all, it was a successful trip, in spite of all the bad behavior, pukefest, potty stops, and gobs of driving time in the car. We saw Diana get married to Ken, drove in 8 different states, put almost 2400 miles on the car and managed to squeeze in some fun. I don't think I'll get the itch for a road trip for a while now, though. I am happy to be back home, with Chris, my own bed, food I'm used to eating and hoping to catch up on sleep the rest of the way this week.

The priciest gas we found was in Louisville, KY, not in Chicago, at $4.29 a gallon, and the cheapest was in VA at $3.89 a gallon. IN, NC and MN were just under 4 bucks, while IL, WI, WV, KY, and VA were over 4.

On our way home for sure now

Our side trips had us stopping for the night way before Rockford, IL, our original plan. Since Maria and I were not feeling too adventurous with 5 kids in tow, we opted not to check out the accomodations at Camp Whosyurdaddy off WI Hwy 53 and kept driving. We ended up an hour east of Eau Claire in Black Creek or something. There was a giant orange moose outside the hotel. We then made it as far as Indianapolis, staying in a hotel downtown with a primo view of the July 4th fireworks on the 8th floor. At that hour, it was really great to be able to just stay in the room and look out the window.

Side trips, part 2

After we left Duluth, we ventured down WI 35 to Turtle Lake, where Maria's friend Faye's dad and little brother live on 110 acres with dogs, cats and horses. (Maria figured since we were up there, she'd repay him 71 cents she owed him.) :-) Mr. Sykes was so warm and gracious to us, feeding us some homecooked chow, giving us each a large bottle of maple syrup that he tapped and made himself, and later, taking us about 9 miles from his house so the kids could swim in Pipe Lake. Wonderful man. He even offered to have us stay over, but we opted to drive on. Mr. Sykes also has the coolest house I've ever been in. It's like an adult's playhouse and I don't know how to describe it and do it any justice. He keeps adding on to the house however his imagination guides him. It was a great stop and a lot of fun.

More fun side trips

Our way home involved a stop in downtown Duluth to have breakfast with a brother of Maria's friend Faye. We ate at a little place called Amazing Grace Cafe. Decent food there. We then walked around a bit, Mark showing us the lake and the aerial lift bridge. We actually got to see it in action, as it raised up to let a couple tour boats pass under it. Pretty cool to watch. We got a gorgeous day to be there and this part of Duluth by the water and all the hills and such reminded me a little bit of San Sebastian, Spain. (Weird association, I know.) I know the winters are probably not ideal, but Duluth is a really pretty town, especially at this time of year.

Fun in Minnesota

The weather in Deer River, MN, was beautiful. Sunny, 70's, lightly breezy. Matthew over the 2 days we were there, caught 6 northerns right off the dock. AJ took the kids out in the boat and the girls caught one as well. There were also fish that got away, of course. :-) Chris' dad took Maria, Kristen, Dale and Dinah out in the boat the second day for a ride, too. We also did smores by a campfire, and the kids got to ride the 4 wheeler around the property, as well.

Taking the long way around

While on the way from Louisville to Chicago for the wedding, I got an insanely impulsive idea in my head, especially when you consider we only packed clothes for getting to Chicago and home. It pretty much went like this: "hmmm...only another 9 or so hours past Chicago and we could be in northern Minnesota visiting Chris' parents at their fishing resort!" Maria, being the happy nomad that she is, thought I was not nuts and why not? She did not try to talk me out of it at all. We just had to get the hubbies on board with it, especially since we were not taking them with us. That ended up being easier than we'd anticipated so we were now returning home to North Carolina by way of Minnesota. :-) Wacky, I know.

Of course, when you travel with 5 kids, nothing ever goes to plan or schedule, and we discovered that those 9 or so hours of driving time became much closer to 13 with all the stopping. There are a couple of stretches of road that just feel like they go on and on. Heading west, then north on 90 to get out of Chicago and Illinois is one of them. The stretch from the Wisconsin border to Eau Claire is the other one for me. Once we got on 53 to head north, it didn't seem as bad. We opted to steer clear of the Twin Cities with traffic and the construction as they rebuild from that terrible bridge collapse, so we entered MN at Duluth. I was a tad disappointed at our welcome at this border. Every other state we went through, we got a Welcome to _____ sign to greet us. Not this time. All we got when we drove over the bridge from Superior, WI, into Duluth, was a small sign saying "entering Minnesota". Lame, lame, lame.

Another great wedding

Diana and Ken timed their I Do's perfectly. The rain held off until right after all the photos were done. The photographer had the most annoying, squeaky little voice and she drove everyone up a wall. But it looked like she took a lot of pictures, so the happy couple should have some nice ones to look back on. Us girls got to have a limo ride to the wedding, so that was really fun. I'd never been in a limo before. Diana looked positively regal, too.


Here's a few pictures taken from the reception.

Friday night with the bride to be

My sisters and I took Diana out to Lucky Strike Lanes in Lombard, IL, for a night of fun. It's a bowling place that has more of a restaurant kind of food available, and they have a dress code of sorts. That meant no Pittsburgh Steelers gear for me, although I did wear my watch. :-) Diana ordered a couple cueball drinks, that had chocolate drizzled into the glass and had vodka in it. I had a couple of those dangerous, girly drinks that you can't taste nor smell the alcohol in it. Very yummy. D drinks about as often as I do, which is seldom, so it didn't take her long to get silly. Sara outfitted her in some fun party bling and we bowled a couple games.

when ya gotta go, ya gotta go

One of the first things I learned on this trip is that when you have 7 people in a car, ages ranging from almost 2 up to adult, there are far more pee breaks to stop the car than usual. I had finally decided before we got out of Indiana, that I was not going to stop the car for me and I'd just hold it. I began to vigorously question my decision as we inched forward in the construction zone right where you get off 65 and onto 80/94 to head into Chicago. That took a little while, although not as bad as the other side of the road going out of Chicago. By the time we got up to interstate 88, I was, as I so politically incorrectly told my sister, "rockin' like Rainman." Paid the toll at the latest plaza and saw the virtual parking lot in front of me. I didn't want to pee myself and as there were no astronaut diapers in the car.....Meanwhile, Maria notices at the edge of the construction zone, a port 0 potty. She suggests to me that I hop out of the car and she'd jump over to take the wheel so I could use it. Traffic was a drifting parking lot but I couldn't decide. Finally, she talks me into it after I hemmed and hawwed about 3 minutes and out I go. Maria tells me afterward, the kids in the car were all in a tizzy, "Where'd Mom go? Why did she get out of the car? What is she doing? Are you going to leave her there?....."

I now know where all those Illinois tolls are going. It's to keep the port o potties clean and the workers happy so they'll do a good job, because that was the cleanest one I'd ever been in, and I found myself singing "sweet Jesus, thank you for this port o potty and this construction zone to make traffic stop enough to use it...amen!"

The funny part is, since I couldn't see out the back of the car, no one behind us could see Maria jump across the seat to take the wheel until I got back into the car. They just saw me leave, the car keep moving with no driver (or so it seemed) and the brake lights go on and off....and by that time, the kids were laughing about it, especially watching me run back on the other side of the cement barriers to catch up to the car. I can only imagine what entertainment this provided for the backed up traffic. I got a shot of it by looking back after getting back into the car.

National Lampoon's Vacation, Furman Style

Maria and I left on Thursday morning with our 5 kids and drove to Louisville, KY on our way to Chicago for Diana's wedding. We drove through some beautiful scenery in WV. The mountains are spectacular in WV. I recall in my sleepy state that the first mountain I saw, looked like a giant boob. Alas, since I was driving, I could not take a photo of it and made my witty observation too late for Maria to take one, either.

We get almost all the way to Louisville when Dinah decided to toss her cookies all over herself and her car seat, so we're off on the shoulder on 64 west, Maria trying to get her cleaned up and the seat as best as she could. We had plans to eat dinner at our cousin Terry's house. She's the niece of our great aunt Ann. That was a lovely time and to eat a homecooked meal while on route was wonderful. Then.....we get back to the hotel that night and just parked the car when Dale decided she wanted to get in the action of cookie tossing, so we didn't even have a chance of getting her unbuckled. Bleaaaach!!! Dinah took one look at her and bleaaaach! Nothing says love like the camraderie of sympathetic puking. The backseat was an unbelievable mess. I made my kids go inside with the room key and Maria & I were out in the parking lot at 10 pm, she's trying to get the girls cleaned off and get the seats out of the car.

The next morning was spent with me watching all the kids while Maria took the car over to Walmart to buy new car seats and some cleaning supplies to get the back seat area the best she could. The pukey seats had sat outside behind the hotel overnight and we discovered that the maintenance staff had thrown them away. Maria got this really kind maintenance guy to go into the dumpster to get them back. Now, we had to pack the car and find room for the pukey seats, which we'd bagged up in trash bags. There was no room to see out the back of the car and we left about 3 hours later than we wanted to, not trying to see Aunt Ann and get her sick accidentally.

I'll save the port o potty story for the next post. We are in Chicago and Diana is getting married in about 6 hours from now. It's gonna be fun! Photos for my posts will be added when I get home.