We have had all types of weather on this trip. We have gone through thunderstorms in New Mexico and Texas, sweltering heat in Missouri and Illinois, great weather in Ohio, high winds in Indiana and Chicago, cold and drizzly in Chicago, cold and gloomy in Wisconsin and now rainy in Minnesota. I only hope snow and hail, which both are unlikely, will stay away. Last night, it started to rain a little and as we were hooking up the trailers it started to poor. Anyone who has camped and packed up in the rain can tell you that it is the worst. Camping in the rain is no fun and can turn people off to camping. When I was a kid we actually camped in the snow, and even when there was a snow storm. I have no plans to ever do that again. As I stated, we were planning to go from Tomahawk, Wisconsin to Sioux Falls, South Dakota today. My dad didn’t want to go that far originally, so we changed it to Jackson, Minnesota. But as I explained before, we changed are plans so that my dad could take a look at a book in a museum that was closed. This meant that we are only traveling about 180 miles today, which is a short two and half-hour ride. We got to Jackson, Minnesota without any trouble. Most people are at home celebrating the 4th of July, so there weren’t many cars on the road. We got to Jackson at 12:30 PM, and at least it has stopped raining so we could unhook the trailers.
The day is wet and gloom. There have been a few sprinkles this afternoon and a light breeze, so it has put a damper on any 4th of July celebrations. The kids were able to go into the pool, but Samantha could only stay in it for a short period, since the water was cold and the outside temperature isn’t much warmer.
We did go into town, because we need some milk, and Lisa wanted some salad for dinner. On our way back, we decided to check out “Historic Fort Belmont.” This is their words, not mine. The museum was closed, but I was able to take a couple of pictures of the one building fort. It wasn’t used by the military from what I can gather, but by traders. In the late evening, the clouds parted and the sun came out, so this meant that we would be able to see fireworks. The unfortunate thing was that the town of
Jackson doesn’t have a fireworks display. They do have a race track that decided to do fireworks after the races were done. I’m not into car racing and really didn’t want to wait until the races where done. This meant that I need to find an alternative. The campground office said that Spirit Lake has a display and was about 20 miles away. I found out that the display was going to start at 10:07 PM. I’m not sure why 10:07 and not 10:00 or 10:15. I do know that it starts that late because that is when dusk is. 
On the way to Spirit Lake, we saw a movie drive-in. I can’t tell you the last time that I saw a drive-in. They were playing the new Transformers movie. The movie started at 10:00 and not 10:07. I saw the “Kum & Go” convenience store and gas station prior to this, but didn’t take a picture of the sign. There is a chain of these stores. The Wisconsin scuba diving billboard was funny, but this is the funniest business name that I have seen so far. The fireworks display was on Lake
Okoboji, Iowa. A certain native of Iowa, SL, told me before the trip that I should stop in the Spirit Lake area. They said it was really nice. We weren’t there that long, but from what we saw, they were right. Iowa wasn’t a state that we intended to visit either, but fate has a funny way of making things happen. Before the main event, many people had their own fireworks and they were letting them off like crazy. These aren’t the safe and sane ones either. Some had shells whilet others had purchased a large amount of fireworks. The main display 
over the lake was really well done, and the number of boats on the lake lit the lake up. The worst part of this little detour was the bugs. They would kamikaze you. Overall, we were in Iowa for only two hours. I hope everyone had a great fourth of July, and got to see plenty of fireworks.
We drove a total of 227 miles to day. We have driven a total of 4529 miles for the entire trip. We didn’t purchase any gas today.
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