Almost Gone

So we are finally leaving tomorrow, right? I mean, that IS The Plan. But we are both so exhausted that maybe we'll only be driving two hours, and then stopping to sleep for a couple of days. It's probably the most sensible thing to do.

However, that is NOT The Plan. The Plan is that we are going to Wisconsin. "Wiss-GONE-sin"??? someone asked me. It is amazing how many of our northeastern friends are wondering how we came up with THAT. Well, it's simple. We need the sticker for our states map . And the Wisconsin Dells is one of the major family vacation destinations in the country.... funny how none of our friends seem to have been there, and some of them haven't even heard of the Dells at all.

OK, so I'm rambling... I'm really tired and still have stuff to do to be ready in the morning. But this is The Plan: leave tomorrow morning and drive for the next two days. Head Mo toward the west, and turn right at Chicago. (Although the one thing absolutely everyone agrees is that no one should EVER drive an RV anywhere NEAR Chicago... so we will do our best to swing wide around it.) Anyway, make a right at Chicago, and drive north a little bit longer, and there we'll be.... at the Wisconsin Dells, the Waterpark Capital of the World.

However we don't plan to go to any waterparks (although we could change our minds, I suppose.) Instead our plans include a tamer boatride through the Dells, Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin Preservation, the eclectic House on the Rock, Circus World Museum, the International Crane Foundation, and a few other things. I do have to say, however, that judging by the vacation guide we received from the Wisconsin Dells Visitor Bureau, we could easily spend a LOT more time in the area than the three days on my itinerary. And of course, if the weather heats up again, one of those waterparks might be just the thing!

From there we will be heading west again through Minnesota and on to North Dakota, with our ultimate destination the ND Badlands. We stopped there for a very brief time in 1980 when we camped across the country for about 6 weeks, and I remember it struck me as truly wonderful. So we will try to get there on this trip, and then head south to the SD Badlands (which we saw in 2007, and we wanted to come back again) and then home through Nebraska and Iowa. If we really pull it off (this is a LOT of driving for 2 weeks!), we'll "collect" four more stickers for our map, and have a wonderful trip.

Alternate option: if the weather is too stinky hot in the midwest, head up into northern Minnesota and Wisconsin and come home through Michigan's Upper Peninsula (see the 2008 blogs.) Another alternate option: Find a nice state park someplace and sleep for a week.