Day 13 (July 1st) – Chicago, Illinois to Tomahawk, Wisconsin

This day did not start out that great. It rained on and off all night, and in an RV that means listening to it hit the roof and make a sound that sounds like someone tapping their fingernails. I would have preferred it if it rained all night. At least that way it would have been more rhythmic and put me to sleep.

Since I couldn’t sleep, I got up and got things ready for our drive to Wisconsin. I got to a point and had to wake sleeping beauty. Miles and Lisa woke up on their own. As I went to wake her, I noticed a spider dangling very close to where she was sleeping. I contemplated about using it to wake her up, but if I did that it meant that the entire camp would wake to a screeching shrill that would rip the paint off the side of a house. It also meant that I would have to go without hearing for the day. I choice to hear the rest of the day and placed the spider outside. On second thought, I wouldn’t have had to hear the kids argue in the car for a day. That may have been worth the hearing loss.

As we were making our way up the middle of Wisconsin, I saw a sign that said Scuba Diving. I had to do a double take. I wouldn’t call Wisconsin a mecca for scuba diving. I’m not sure there is anyone who would actually want to go to Wisconsin to scuba dive, except maybe some Canadians. I wish that I had gotten a picture of the billboard. It was the funniest billboard that I have seen on this trip. So the next time that you are planning your next scuba diving vacation think about Stevens Point, Wisconsin. Its just an hour south of Wausau, Wisconsin.

The kids must be getting tired of watching movies. They usually start the day fighting on who gets to pick the first movie. Today, they didn’t even turn on the DVD player the first couple of hours. When we were kids, we didn’t have the nice entertainment system. We had to make up games to pass time in the car. My favorite was Out of State. When you see a car with a license plate that is not from the state you are in, you call “Out of State”. At this point, you get to pick which person you are going to hit. This is the only time that my parents allowed us to hit one another. And when you are packed in the back of the car for hours at a time, you have some pent up anger towards your siblings. You got to hit the person a number of times. It depended on the last number are letter in the license plate. If you were lucky, you got a plate with a “Z”, which meant 26 hits.

The trip up to the Tomahawk was uneventful. There also wasn’t anything worth stopping and seeing along the way, so we made great time and reached are destination by mid afternoon. We made it to my Uncle and Aunt’s place and they were surprised to see my parents. My Uncle thought that only Lisa, the kids and I were coming to visit them. This is where things get good. My Aunt suggested to my Uncle that he call and see if we were going to make it in today. He didn’t want to call because he didn’t think it was necessary. My mom wanted my dad to call my Uncle to let him know that we were on our way. I even told him that we should probably let him know when we might arrive. He also didn’t think that it was necessary. Can you tell that they are brothers? Somewhere the message got mixed up and my Uncle wasn’t expecting my parents. I was cool because they were expecting Lisa and I. My dad and Uncle really saw no problem in the mix up, but my mom and Aunt were a little miffed by this. Lisa wasn’t at all that amused by this as well, but I didn’t care because they were expecting me. Besides the views of the lake are really nice.

We drove a total of 278 miles to day. We have driven a total of 4019 miles for the entire trip. We purchased $50 dollars worth of gas today.