Home II

Two long days of driving to get to MD from Chicago, IL and we finally made it! We decided we did not want to stop anywhere between there and here and I hoped to arrive with plenty of time before the weekend to winterize the RV and pack for our vacation.  The further East we got the roads became narrower, bumpier and steeper and the drivers drove faster and swerved in and out of the lanes. It was terrifying.  

I learned that there are RV hookups on the Ohio Turnpike where you camp at the service plaza much like at a campground. It was very convenient to get up in the morning, walk over to Panera for breakfast, and get on our way all without having to get on or off the Turnpike. What I didn’t expect were the exorbitant tolls! I forgot we were considered a truck and thus paid out the nose for using the toll roads. Lesson learned.

As we neared our destination in MD the roads literally got so small that I thought we would drive off the road. We pushed ourselves to our darkness limit and arrived at the campground just as it became dark. Phew! We could only get as close as about 45 minutes from our family but I’ll be happy to drive my car around this area rather than the big bus. As much fun as we are having in our tiny home, I’m looking forward to a little R&R from the driving tour.

The Windy City

We arrived in Chicago area at the beginning of November and again stayed at a casino campground. This time we were in Joliet, IL because that this was the closest location I could find to the city at about an hour out of downtown. Because of the late date they only offered us electric hook-ups and compensated us by charging only $12 a night! That was a deal we could not pass up. Our navigation system took us on a roundabout way through two lane country roads when I could have stayed on highway 90/94 the entire way. I hate it when I know a better route than it does and don’t take it because I think it should know best. I usually end up yelling at the darn thing at times like this, but that never helps. We figured out we had it programmed to avoid toll roads which is why we were on the back roads. That’s now fixed so it won’t do that to me anymore. Driving two lane highways for three hours was exhausting where they were both narrow and bumpy weaving in and out of the farm land of IL. So, once we arrived at the casino campground I was ready for a nap!

On our first full day in the area I took myself into the city for an architecture walking tour. It came highly recommended and I knew it was something that Adam could not easily accomplish, so I didn’t mind going myself. Since I arrived early I sauntered around Millennium Park, the park near the Museum of Art featuring contemporary sculptures and a new outdoor auditorium. They have this object that natives refer to as “the bean” instead of by its given name “Cloud Gate” because it looks like a giant silver Tiffany bean. It didn’t make sense to me why they would put it there in the first place until I read that it is supposed to reflect you and the entire city skyline in it. I became fond of it when I saw the way it curved the images. My architectural walking tour was a study of culture and commerce in historic downtown and identified the buildings best described by the Chicago Architecture style, Beaux Arts style and a few others. We wandered the lake front street of Lake Shore Drive, went in and out of hotels, and even toured what’s now Macy’s (and used to be the Marshall Fields department store). I felt a bit conspicuous standing in woman’s coats discussing the ceiling of that store, but I guess they do that all the time. When it ended at 430pm I high-tailed out of there thinking I would miss most of the rush hour traffic. Apparently in Chicago there is no escaping it. I think it is rush hour all day long! It took me almost 1 ½ hours to get back to the RV. But, the drive was well worth it.



Cloud Gate



I had planned to return to the city the next day with Adam and the dog for a day at the art museum, but we noticed that Sequoia had been licking his toe. Unfortunately we discovered he had an abscess and required a trip to the local vet. What did that dog get into? We think it might have been a thorn that had just worked its way out, but he required some antibiotics and a doggy ace bandage to keep him from bothering it while it healed. Our art tour was delayed by one day. The next day we all loaded into the car, bandages and all, and headed for the museum. On my previous outing to the city I discovered an underground parking garage near the museum, but soon found out that I scraped the ceiling and signs with the bubble on my car, so this time we elected to look for street parking. It was a nice surprise to find out that people with handicapped placards are allowed to park in any metered spot in the streets of Chicago for free and for as long as necessary! Score! That’s one more freebie in our pocket for being disabled. Hey, we have to look on the bright side of life. The National Parks Pass is our favorite benefit so far though.

We unloaded the electric wheelchair, the bandaged dog and all our rain gear prepared to wander the windy city. It was quite a site. I think Sequoia got the most looks with his bandaged foot and plastic bag protector to keep it dry while walking through puddles in the street. He didn’t seem to mind the looks or the bag though. He paid more attention to the motorized thing next to him and tried to avoid getting run over by it. We wandered for a few hours in the museum taking new routes to me by way of the various elevators. They should have a separate map for people with wheels. I know elevators are shown on the existing maps, but they were not very descriptive about where it was necessary to avoid stairs. I felt like I was constantly asking the guards for directions because I had come across stair obstacles. I must have looked very confused because a woman from the visitor’s desk who was just passing through the gallery where I stood staring at my map actually stopped to offer me directions. I think she knew that I was trying to figure out the best path for Adam and his chair.

After an amazing three hour time at the museum (we can’t remember the last time we were able to stay out that long without Adam practically disintegrating) we decided to search for the best Chicago style pizza. Our book told us that Gino’s East was the place to go, so we headed that way. No one told me that they put their sauce on top of their cheese! I was aware it was going to be deep dish, but the order of the ingredients was a bigger shock than the crust. I’m still partial to Beau Jo’s pizza in Idaho Springs, CO. Sorry Chi-town famous pizza.

On our day off from sightseeing, we all got our hair done including Sequoia. I treated myself to a manicure and laundry drop-off service (where someone else does your laundry and folds it for you), and ran around picking up prescriptions and RV parts (these seem to be common errands these days). Since our campground had no water we had to hunt for one in the area that would allow us to fill our tanks and dump. We discovered that our black tank (the sewage) would not empty without hooking water up to our sewer rinse and thus was full. It was kind of like having a clogged toilet. Once we travelled to another campground that allowed us to rinse and dump at the same time, the clog cleared. It was gross and my least favorite part of RV’ing so far!

We plan to finish off our delightful Chicago stay with a trip to the Adler planetarium and possibly the aquarium. We are on the last leg of our Midwest journey and are ready to take in some Eastern US culture very soon. I’m glad we had this chance to stop here though. It’s been an adjustment reassimilating into city life after spending so much of these past few months in rural parts of the country. I hate to say it, but the people of IL came across to me as rude and not so nice on more than one occasion. I might have expected to be treated this way as an out of state guest in NYC, but I never expected to feel this way here. The people I have encountered do not smile and use a tone of voice that makes me feel like I am inconveniencing them by asking questions. In my customer service years I hope I never treated people like the way I’ve been treated. Is the economy that bad that people have lost the warmth in their hearts and have resorted to treat others so cold? I long for the niceness of small town USA and hope this is not representative of how most large cities treat their guests. I guess for the time being, if I don’t like the area, I’ll just turn on my engine and move!

Wisconsin Dells

Though I spent one summer at camp in WI I’d never spent any time sightseeing there. Driving to Chicago from Minneapolis took us through the heart of cheese country. I now see why they are the dairy land. It’s full of lush farmland. With Welsh ancestry, they must have imported the art of farming and making cheese.

We stayed in the Wisconsin Dells area which is known for their great water parks. Each hotel there is like a water wonderland. What an amazing place to take kids! We took our night’s rest at the Ho-Chunk casino parking lot. Free camping! From there I drove the car to Spring Green which was the family farm area of Frank Lloyd Wright and the setting for one of the recent bestselling novels Loving Frank. I took an architectural tour of the home which followed the descriptions in the book. It was a neat concept for a tour, but in retrospect I should have simply taken the house tour that would have gone into more detail about the home and FLLW’s thought process rather than the one that described how the home looked at the time his mistress lived there (regardless of the fact that it looks nothing like it did then today because it had since burned down twice). But, it was fascinating nonetheless. A woman who grew up in the town and had been known to run into FLLW from time to time read excerpts from the book. That was more interesting to me than her dynamic reading.

That same day, after an hour drive each way to Spring Green and once back at the camper, I convinced Adam to come with me to see the Circus World museum. Barnum and Bailey’s home farm is located in Baraboo, WI which is the same town as our resting stop. They used this area as their winter residence until they could afford to move it to Florida. That makes much more sense to me. Why would they winter in a harsh climate like WI? Free lodging, I guess. Reviews on the museum said to take kids during the summer when they have performances and being that it was the last day of their season there were none. But, since we are just big kids and could get over the disappointment of no performances we ventured there anyway and were not disappointed in the least. It was fascinating! I know that in the day and age when this circus was in its prime they did not treat the animals with the utmost respect, but I love the circus anyway. The fantastical, seemingly magical lifestyle of a travelling circus mesmerizes me. This museum has the largest display of circus wagons anywhere in the country. And to think they are over 100 years old and still work! My favorite part of the exhibit was the display on clowns and the description of the different types of clown faces. I had no idea it was such an art form. I wish we had more time to spend there, but we had arrived just one hour before their closing and really needed three and one-half. The front desk lady said she had been known to lock people inside the museum, so we ran through it just in enough time to get out alive.

We could not leave WI without visiting a cheese factory. So, the next morning we awoke as early as we could to drive to the Carr factory nearby. Apparently the best time to see the cheese making process is early in the morning, but we were not quite early enough. I had read the process takes from about 8-1130am, but in reality they began unloading the milk from local farmers at 130am and the entire process was done the day we arrived by about 10am. So, we missed the actual cheese making, but watched an informative video. The factory we saw has been making cheese using the same families’ dairy cows for almost a century. As they put it, “their cows have names.” I guess they use small farmers who have so few cows that they can name them. Our favorite cheese we tasted there was called Melange which was a mixture of sheep, cow and goat’s milk. Yum. I also learned that a good cheddar is supposed to give you a twinge of a sour feel when you eat it just in the back of your jaw. You learn something new every day. We walked out having purchased a 10 year aged cheddar for its geschdalt. It was a treat.

Wisconsin and its cheese did not disappoint, but if I lived here I would be as round as the rest of the people I saw in the area. I think they need to start growing some vegetables and varying their diets!