Late Update for Thursday and Friday

(Note: I apologize for the excessive and unacceptable amount of typos and mistakes in the last few entries. I am so tired and by the time I write these and post them I am so ready to be done.) 

 August 1st and 2nd

I didn’t write blog entries for the 1^st and 2^nd yet because 1) I didn’t want to, and 2) not a whole hell of a lot actually happened. On the 1^st we woke early, packed up, and drove back to Lake Superior. The amount of bug bites we each had at this point was astonishing. I almost bought a shot glass that said “Minnesota’s state bird: Mosquito.” For real.

Lake Superior was incredible (Note: Brandon made me change this from “Amazing” because he agrees with Louis CK in this respect. I will regret using the word ‘amazing’ when something truly amazing happens. Like Jesus coming down and making sweet love to me all night long and leaving the new living lord in my belly. Thank you Brandon and Louis. I almost limited myself verbally to a shit life.). But I digress. Lake Superior was definitely a high light to the trip. So beautiful. We walked around for a long while. Down the pier and to the lighthouse, then down the boardwalk. Finally I turned to Brandon and said, “Well, we’ve seen quite a bit of water, a light house, and some decorative anchors. Ready?”

“Yep, I’m ready.” It sounds ungrateful, but I was itching to get on the road again.

The rest of the day was really just a lot of driving. We entered Wisconsin. I saw a sign for a “Pub, Restaurant and Janitorial supplies” and thought, ‘well, this is Wisconsin. O.K.”

We reached our KOA in Wisconsin around 9:30. We set up the tent. We drank. We chatted. We fell asleep.

The end of that day. Oh, and the 1^st was Brandon’s grandmas birthday. Happy birthday Mrs. Brandon’s Grandma.

The next day we woke later than planned, and started laundry. It turns out it was a good idea because we had to wait out a large thunder storm anyways and there was talk of it turning into a tornado. An older couple was also doing laundry and I spoke with them for about an hour or so. They were traveling from, well, all over. He was a traveling preacher with his wife and two adoptive kids. They were extremely nice and helpful, and wrote down how to get to Toronto, NY and DC without having to go on toll road.  They were a fascinating couple and I enjoyed talking with them. Plus, the woman scraped a dead, decaying frog off of our grill for us, for which we were very appreciative because we didn’t have to.

We saw Lake Michigan shortly before entering Milwaukee. We stopped at a beautiful park and had lunch. There ws a beautiful hidden path down to a beach and we dipped our toes in (the freezing) water and then walked the length of the beach. Once we got to the furthest point we realized there wasn’t a path back up all the way over there, and we didn’t want to have to walk all the back so – we’ll climb up, of course. It wasn’t so hard at first, but then it got steeper and more difficult to find footing. “This might have been one of those ideas that wasn’t good,” Brandon called down.

“You think?” I yelled back, putting all of my weight on a dead tree. We finally reached a small flat area, but there was more climb. “We’ve gone too far.” We saw a fence up ahead and it occurred to us, this could be someone’s back yard. Well, shit.

“We can’t go back. What do we do?”

“Keep going.”

Luckily, it only appeared to be someone’s backyard. We made it to the top, hopped over the fence, and drug our dirty, grimy feet through the grass all the way back to the car.

We made it to Milwaukee around 1pm and were pleasantly surprised by how beautiful and non-hick like it was. We had no idea that the amazing art museum that moves like a bird was on the Milwaukee waterfront. We spent some time there, and then walked around the city a bit. I could live here, I kept thinking. 

I so much would have rather stayed in Milwaukee than gone to Chicago. Which is where we were headed next. It didn’t take long to get to Chicago. What took forever is getting through it. Karen took us through the dodgiest part of town for us to avoid traffic. However, the traffic was just as bad, and the filthiest city outskirts I’ve ever witnessed surrounded us. It was really upsetting. It took us about two hours to get to our motel. When I said the dodgiest part of the city, I meant the second dodgiest. Welcome to South Holland, home of felons and drug addicts alike. We checked into the Regency Inn off the highway. Lets take a inventory: no towels, nothing was clean, the TV didn’t work, there as hair and broken glass in the bed, and – the best part – there was shit in the toilet. So not worth $40 a night. We stayed, though, because it was better than sleeping in the car in South Holland.  

Enjoy every minute,

Mary

Capt Mary

Lake Michigan. These are a bit out of order.

Lake Superior bridge

Duluth

What's important to Wisconsin

Bug bite