Day 15 (July 3rd) – Tomahawk, Wisconsin to Minneapolis, Minnesota

When we set out to plan this trip, we were going to stay two whole days in Tomahawk, but my dad wanted to go to a Museum in Minneapolis, so we decided to stay only one hole day since the 4th of July is on Saturday. My dad set out about 12 to 15 years ago to create the family tree. He has since then made stops at different Museums, Genealogical Societies, and cemeteries to reconstruct the family tree. On this trip he wanted to stop at a research museum in Minneapolis. This is his third attempt at going to this museum. The first time that he tried to visit it he was unable to find the place. A bad snow storm prevented him from visiting it last year. And this year, it was closed for the holiday. After we made plans to stay in Minneapolis, he called to find out the hours of the research institution of the museum, and promptly found out that it was closed on Friday. Three strikes and you’re out, but he is going to try a fourth time on some future trip. You can do that when you are retired, because I wouldn't call Minneapolis a must visit city. I doubt it is in the top 200 cities to visit.

The trip today was going to be short and sweet. We left Tomahawk just after 8 AM. There wasn't much to see between Tomahawk and Minneapolis, unless you want to visit any number of cheese factories. They love their cheese curds up here. They seem to be right up there with bratwursts. We arrived at the campground around 12:30 PM.

After unhooking the trailers and a quick bite to eat for lunch, it was time to see some sights. This meant going to the Mall of America. We have traveled 4300 miles just to go to a mall. Miles wanted to go to see the Mall of America, because Robert Irvine once was there. Who is Robert Irvine? Well, Lisa's second favorite channel is the Food Network. If there were only two TV channels available and they were HGTV and the Food Network, she would be completely happy. She would be equally happy if there wasn't ESPN, which I like to watch. On the Food Network, is a show called Dinner Impossible where Robert Irvine must make a dinner for a certain number of people for an event within 8 hours or something like that. Lisa and Miles enjoy watching this show. Robert Irvine had to cook up a meal for the 15th anniversary celebration for the Mall of America. This episode aired last May, which is why Miles wanted to go there when he learned we were going to Minneapolis. As for the rest of us, we could have skipped this and still considered the trip a success.

We arrived at the mall, which is huge. Parking wasn't bad since they have to large garages on opposite sides. The mall has just about every mall store you can think of. It also has some that you might find in the outlet centers, such as a Bose store. The place has lots of restaurants and the usual fast food places. The mall was also just packed with people. Think of how packed your local mall is during the Christmas Season, and this is how busy this mall is.

Lisa found a gourmet chef store that she and my mom decided to look around in. While they looked around the gourmet chef store, Mile, my dad and I ventured off to the Lego store, since Miles wanted to buy some Legos. He wants to build the Sears Tower, oops, the Willis Tower, with Legos. After we got some Legos and met up with Lisa, my mom and Samantha, we headed over to check out the America Girl store at the mall. Samantha wanted to go looking through this store. I only wished there was an ESPN or golf store to look through. Who every came up with the idea for American Girl and the marketing for it is just amazing. The dolls cost hundreds of dollars and the accessories and clothes cost additional coin. This was my first time in an American Girl store, and had to start to laugh when I saw the Salon in the store. You can have your dolls hair and makeup done for you. I would think that doing a dolls hair would be easy, but people pay to have their dolls hair done right in the store. I was told there is a hospital in the stores, which makes since if the doll needs repair. If you are going to pay over $100 for a doll and the arm comes off, you would want to get it fixed. This particular store doesn't have the hospital, but I am told that the one in Los Angeles does have the hospital. Anyway, Samantha was happy looking around at the many dolls and accessories. She owns one of the dolls that she bought with her own money. She has various accessories as well that she has bought with her money or was given as gifts. This time around she didn't buy anything.

After looking around the mall, we really didn't look that much. It is a mall after all. We let the kids ride a couple of rides at the Nickelodeon Universe Theme Park in the mall. Nickelodeon is one of their favorite channels, and would be happy if HGTV, Food Network and ESPN didn't exist at all. The Nickelodeon Universe is in the middle of the mall. They both decided to ride different roller coasters, of course, just to make us wait around longer. The Theme Park is a lot like a local carnival. You purchase a number of tickets and the rides cost a various number tickets to ride. The only difference is that you get a single ticket with a barcode and a computer keeps track of the number of tickets that you use. So we had only a single ticket for the two of them and couldn't have Lisa go with one and I go with the other. The only saving grace is that they both wanted to ride the bumper cars for their second ride, which made things easier. Oh, if things were only that easy and they are not, the bumper cars line was long and they only had eight cars, so waiting for this ride alone was about the same length of time as waiting for both roller coasters.

The day ended with us going to a Costco to pick up some provisions. I knew where one was since I have had to come to Eden Prairie, which is a town outside of Minneapolis. I don’t come to Eden Prairie because I think it’s a great town. I go there for work. There is a vendor that my company uses in this town. I avoid going during the winter. Only a crazy man would go during winter.

We drove a total of 283 miles to day. We have driven a total of 4302 miles for the entire trip. We purchased $58 dollars worth of gas today.

Day 14 (July 2nd) – Tomahawk, Wisconsin

I would say today was a very good day as we spent the day with my Aunt and Uncle at their cabin on Lake Nokomis. My only wish is that it was sunny and warm. What we got was cool and cloudy, but we still had fun.

The kids played with my Cousin Tom’s kids. He has two teenagers and 3 smaller ones. Samantha was entertaining the two little girls. Either that or they just attached themselves to her. Miles and the youngest son played together all day. The picked wild blue berries and feed the chipmunks that aren’t afraid of anyone. Samantha found a frog and caught it for everyone to see. She did release the frog after everyone got a good look at him or her.

For lunch, my Uncle cooked up some hot dogs and bratwursts. You see bratwursts are big in these parts. If you have a barbecue, you better have some bratwursts on the grill. I think it’s a law or a cardinal rule. You could make the case the brats, which is used here to refer to bratwursts, are eaten more than hotdogs and hamburgers. And if you have brats, you must have sauerkraut to go on the brats. When I was younger, my mom used to make sauerkraut all the time, so much so that I actually hate it. My tastes buds just revolted and refused to eat anymore sauerkraut. So what do I do, I have a brat with sauerkraut on it. Remember that I told you that Samantha eats just about a few things. Well, Lisa and I to our distaste have been eating foods that we don’t like to set an example for her. Not for Miles who will eat and/or try anything at least once. So I ate the sauerkraut, and to my surprise it wasn’t as bad as I remembered it. My Aunt says she adds something to it. Well, it was pretty good. I’m still not going to eat it unless I really have too. Samantha doesn’t eat brats and I mentioned earlier that she gave up hotdogs out of the blue. So the lunch that we had was totally dreadful for her. Even the side dishes were not on her list of things she will eat. Lisa and I didn’t give her any options, which made her grumpy. She is used to people catering to her culinary palate. She reluctantly ate a hot dog. It was either that or go hungry. Dinner wasn’t much better. It was a repeat of lunch. There wasn’t anything that she really eats. The only saving grace for her was that you eat stroganoff with noodles, so she ate plan noodles. If you are asking yourself, what about putting butter on the noodles, she won’t eat noodles that way. Overall, this day was the culinary torture for Samantha.

After lunch, my Uncle wanted to take us on a boat ride around the lake. We rode in the boat as he pointed out different things and homes along the way. We saw a couple of Loons in the water. One had a baby riding on the back of its parent. We also saw three or four eagles flying overhead. They were looking for dinner. During the three-hour tour, the sun would come out and tease us. When it was out, it was nice, but it was only for a minute before it went back into hiding and it got cool again. My mom who can be cold in 80 degree weather was wrapped up in a blanket. She was telling us that it was absolutely fridge out. I was expecting her to turn blue and get frost bite. You may think that I am exaggerating, but she was definitely acting that way. My Uncle let Miles and Samantha pilot the boat a couple of times. They really enjoyed this. As Miles was settling into the pilot’s seat for the first time, Lisa and I both stated that he shouldn’t touch the throttle. The first time that Miles got to pilot a boat he almost threw his Aunt out of the boat. Lisa’s brother and sister-in-law had the kids for a night, and were going to take them fishing the next day. When they were done fishing, Lisa’s brother decided to let the kids pilot the boat. Miles went first. His Aunt was standing at the back of the boat. Miles hit the throttle full speed and his Aunt almost went flying out the back of the boat. She was able to grasp a chair in time before she went overboard. We don’t need to say such things to Samantha.

Before we ate lunch, Lisa mentioned that I like to play golf. My cousin Tom, who also likes to play golf, got all excited. At first he was talking out going out and hit some balls on an airstrip down the road. He then decided why hit balls when you can actually go play. He was able to get a 4:30 PM tee time at the local course, so he and I went off to play some golf. As we left, he told everyone we were going to play nine holes. The course wasn’t bad. It was very forgiving, but the greens were slow and almost miniature golfish. We really weren’t playing all that well. It may have been the beers or the rental clubs, but we stunk up the place. As we finished nine holes, he turns to me and says, “What you think? You want to play another nine?” I told him that I am game, but I am sure to hear about it from Lisa. I then told him that I just blame him, since he is the one who drove to the course. We took off to play the front nine. This was a good idea, since we started to play really well. I ended up paring three of the last four holes. We kept going back and forth on whose wife would call first. I won. Lisa called as we were finishing up and asked if we got lost.

After dinner, we went to a place known around Tomahawk as the Windmill. I would guess they call it that since the place has a windmill out front. The Windmill sells ice cream, and we are told it is very busy most nights with lines out the door. When we got there, the line was winding around inside but not quite out the door. The ice cream is really good and they give you a very generous helping for very little coin. We were all happy with our choices and the deal.

After ice cream we headed back to my Aunt and Uncles for a little more discussion and pictures before we said good-bye. We were leaving very early in the morning and wouldn’t see them so we just said good-bye now.

We drove a total of 0 miles to day. I didn’t drive to the golf course, so I am not going to count it. We have driven a total of 4019 miles for the entire trip. We purchased $0 worth of gas today.

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.

All caught up

I finally have caught up with all the posts. Lisa's Aunt Lil and my Aunt Jerry don't have Internet access, which has made it really difficult to post an entry each night. I finally had the time to get all caught up today. We actually didn't do a lot today as opposed to most days so far. We all commented on how nice it was to have dinner at a normal hour and have a chance to unwind before going to bed. I should be able to regularly post each night going forward, or I hope to. The only problem may be when we go up to visit my Uncle in Wisconsin tomorrow. He does not own a computer, so it may be rough.

Over the last couple of days I have posted about 6 days of happenings, so make sure you get yourself all caught up.

Day 12 (June 29th) – Chicago, Illinois

Today we went to downtown Chicago. We wanted to avoid traffic as much as possible, so this meant that we would only have a few hours to see some sights.

We made into downtown without incident which was a nice surprise. We decided to head down towards Millennium Park and Navy Pier. As we got there, they were holding a Taste of Chicago Event in the park. I thought this was a great thing, since we could go there and eat. The problem was that it made parking difficult and the traffic getting around the park very difficult. We did find some parking and headed out. Now, I wanted to get some eats at the Taste of Chicago, and I was the only one. Everyone seemed to ignore me, or wasn’t ready to eat. We walked to the shore of Lake Michigan and towards Navy Pier. When we got to the pier, everyone got hungry. I was not amused by this. We could have had better eats and at a lower cost at the Taste of Chicago. After eating, we walked the pier which is a lot like the Santa Monica Pier.

The next stop was the Sears Tower. The name has now been changed to the Willis Tower. I wonder if this is going to stick. Everyone in the United States knows the building as the Sears Tower. I guess if you purchase naming rights you can change the name, but that doesn’t mean the name will change for everyone else. To get to the Sears Tower, we decided to take the water taxi, which went from the Navy Pier to the Sears Tower via the Chicago River. This was the favorite part of the day for Lisa. She enjoyed the view of the buildings and skyline that you get from the river.

We went up to the observation deck on the Sears Tower, scratch that Willis Tower. Before you get to ride the evaluator up to the top, you have to watch a little film about the tower. We went into the theater and sat down on one of the bench seats. The theater isn’t really all that big and doesn’t look like a theater. I made a joke about hearing how fast this elevator moves. Samantha thought I was serious and said this is a really big elevator. I told her that it was a joke. The real elevator takes you to the top in a minute. The tower is 1,450 tall. You ears pop as you go up. The view at the top wasn’t all that great. The weather all day long has been cloudy and on the way over to the tower it was drizzling.

Once we got back down to ground level, we walked over to Millennium Park and walked along Michigan Avenue. There were your usual street entertainers and lots of people walking around and enjoying themselves in the park. Since we wanted to leave before rush hour really got started, we headed to the car and headed back to the campground by 3:30 PM.

I did want to head over to the United Center and take a picture next to the Michael Jordon statue with a Kobe Bryant jersey. There is a certain someone who loves Jordon and hates Kobe. I thought it would have been funny to have the picture taken, but we ran out of time. I did see a billboard for the Michael Jordon IMAX film. I guess people still love Jordon here in Chicago.

We drove a total of 116 miles to day. We have driven a total of 3741 miles for the entire trip. We purchased $38 dollars worth of gas today.

Day 11 (June 29th) – Columbus, Ohio to Chicago, Illinois

We got up early today, and actually left for Chicago on time. We said our goodbyes to my Aunt Jerry, who thought we were going to leave later in the day. It was a sad good-bye as we drove down the road. We hope that she makes it out to Los Angeles soon. She said that she would like to travel and see everyone in Los Angeles, so I am hoping to see her soon. The weather in Columbus was great. The temperature all weekend was in the low 80s with about 40% of humidity, which was a welcomed relief after the hot and humid weather that greeted us in southern Illinois.

I had mentioned to my dad that if we left Columbus on time that I would like to stop and see the Air Force Museum, which is outside Dayton, Ohio. Since we did leave on time and made great time to Dayton, we decided to stop. Lisa and my mom were not exactly jumping up and down by this little detour, but Miles was all for it. The price was right, since there was no admission fee.

The museum has five areas, which are early flight and World War I, World War II, Cold War era, modern era and space. It was all very impressive, but I found the early flight, World War I and World War II planes the most interesting. My dad and I could have spent the entire day in the museum, and my mom had to keep telling my dad to catch up to the rest of us. If you remember, my dad and I like to read all the information and details about the exhibits. Today, I was reading less than usual, since I knew our time was limited. We did want to get to Chicago by the end of the day. My dad, however, was reading just about everything. He did give up after my mom told him to hurry up after about the sixth or seventh time. We did end up spending two hours at the museum and did see almost everything. We didn’t get to read everything, but we did walk through most of the galleries.

The rest of the trip to Chicago was pretty much uneventful. At one point, Miles let loose some gas, and Samantha, who in the last year has decided that any gas is disgusting, gave out her usual response of “eeewww.” It doesn’t matter what type of gas or even if you politely excuse yourself. It is always “eeewww.” This time Miles didn’t agree with her as he stated that it wasn’t just “eeeewww,” that it was “totally eeewww.”

As we got to Chicago, it was prime time rush hour, which made our drive to the campground that much harder. It’s bad enough that the freeway system in Chicago is poorly designed, but they always seem to be working on the roads to make them that much worse. Maybe it is their way to deter people from moving there. It was making Lisa crazy, which isn’t hard. She hates traffic and she especially hates it in places that she has no idea of where she is going. I believe that my dad and I mentioned that Chicago traffic is bad, but she wasn’t prepared for how bad it can be, which added to her displeasure. At one point, she mentioned she didn’t want to go into town tomorrow because the traffic is bad. I told her that we are going to go downtown. We did make it to the campground without a whole lot of trouble. At least, we didn’t run into any physic experiments.

As for the weather, let me say what a difference a week makes. I know that we are about 300 miles north of where we were last week, but the weather in Chicago is very cold by comparisons. The wind was blowing pretty hard and the temperature was about 70. I guess that I shouldn’t be surprised by this. It is Chicago, and it is called the Windy City.

We drove a total of 451 miles to day. We have driven a total of 3625 miles for the entire trip. We spent 78 dollars on gas today.

Day 10 (June 28th) – Columbus, Ohio

This is our last full day in Columbus. We have several things and people that we want to see today, so it’s going to be a busy one. Last night, we decided that we would rest in the morning and go to church at 11 AM. This was a welcomed decision, as it gave us all a chance to sleep late and not have to rush. The day before Lisa had bought some bacon that beckoned to her from a deli case when we were in Amish Country. It was thick country style bacon that was peppered. She cooked it up for all to eat, and it was devoured very quickly.

Our first stop of the day was at Jake’s farm. Jake is a cousin of my dad, and he owns about a 100 acres of land. On part of this land he has a pond and a lake. The area by the lake is called Jake’s Ville. When you own something, you can call it whatever you want. The lake is spring feed so the water is real nice. He did actually build several buildings in this area. There is a Saloon, a Cathouse, log cabin, a barn, a beach area by the lake (that’s what he called, but it’s no beach by Californian standards), and a dock/dive platform on the lake. The lake is deep enough that you can dive off the platform. The highest dive is 14 feet. The dock also has a swing that you can use to swing out over the water and a small slide. The kids went crazy when they saw it all, and promptly put on their bathing suits. They both were a little timid at first, but they eventually got into the swing of things. They tried to paddle a raft across the lake to a floating trampoline in the middle. The wind was blowing kind of hard and they went speeding by it and eventually ran into the shore. After some coaxing, they both started to jump off the platforms. They first did the small one which was about 3 feet. After a few jumps off this one, they went to the 10 and 14 foot high platforms. I was surprised that Miles made the leaps. He is usually pretty cautious around water. On his last jump he what I can only describe as a butt flop. Yup, he hit the water square on his bum. He didn't care for the feeling that this dive left so he decided that he had enough. This was fine since it was time to get back on the road to see Don and Carolyn.

On the way to Don and Carolyn’s my brother calls my dad and says that we have to get to a TV right away. He sounds really excited as if something has happened. It wasn’t any big deal. He just wanted to let us know that USA was up 2 to 0 on Brazil in a soccer match. As he was calling us, I saw a sign that said Hoover Dam. I bet you thought that Hoover Dam was over in Arizona and Nevada. Well, you would be wrong. We found it in Columbus, Ohio. It’s real close to Don and Carolyn’s home. In southern Illinois, it would be in the next town over, or at least to the RV sales man.

While we were at Don and Carolyn’s my dad gave up on visiting with them to sit down and watch the soccer match. Don was watching it when we arrived, so no problem there. For those of you who don’t know, Brazil dominated the second half and beat USA 3 to 2. Carolyn had some watermelon and asked if we wanted some. I told her be ready for it to be all gone. Now, we talked about Samantha’s eating habits earlier, but I didn’t mention that she loves watermelon and cantaloupe. She always has. I bet at some point this changes. She used to eat hot dogs and chicken patty sandwiches almost every day. Now, she won’t touch them. This wasn’t a gradual thing either, it was like overnight. Carolyn said that she had two big containers full of watermelon, so we should be alright. Let’s just say that Samantha devoured both containers. She did have some help as we all had some, but by the time we left she may sure that there was no more watermelon in the house. I did warn her.

After visiting with Don and Carolyn, we went to go see a covered bridge. We were going to see one yesterday, but it got late and my mom wanted to get back to Aunt Jerry’s home. My dad had forgotten where the closest one was, but he had some general idea. Well, he couldn’t find it, so he wanted to go back to get John to help navigate, which was about a 15 minute drive back to Aunt Jerry’s home. This would have been this next county for some in southern Illinois, but as we started back I remembered that we were close to Ralph and Peach. We got directions from them and found the last covered bridge in Franklin County. This is the same one that I saw when I was a kid. You can’t drive over it anymore, but you can walk over it. There are a couple of reasons that they give for the covered bridges. One is because horses don’t like to go over water and the other is during the Civil War it gave protection to the troops. They both sound like Grade A Bologna to me.

Our last stop of the day was at my Grandmothers Grave site. Since she is buried in the family plot, Lisa was asking my dad about those buried in the plot. My Great Great Grandparents and my Great Grandparents are in the family plot.

Jolynn, who is Aunt Jerry’s daughter, came by for a visit. We sat and chat, and then Aunt Jerry wanted to play some Eucher. It’s a big card game that is played in this part of the country. It was Aunt Jerry and Jolynn against my dad and I. My dad and I won 3 games to 1. By the time we played the last game, it was already late, so it was time for bed.

We drove a total of 73 miles to day. We have driven a total of 3174 miles for the entire trip. We didn’t purchase any gas today.