Chicago IL 8/24/2012 - 8/27/12

 We didn't know for sure if we wanted to take the Journey down toward Chicago and stay at our nephew's house or not.  But after looking at the map, we decided to go for it.  We plugged in the GPS to avoid all toll roads and took off!

 

The GPS took us right there.  Mike and Aimee have a really cute home.  It sits on a corner and they have a double lot.  Aimee grows lots of flowers and they have some fun grow-box gardens. 

 

We fit just right in their driveway and our door opened up onto their nice lawn.  It was just perfect!  We had them over for dinner the first night and Mike cooked us German pancakes the next morning.  They were great!  The only thing bad was that I didn't think about taking a picture of them.  He will have to make them again, take a picture, and send it to me! 

After breakfast, we hopped on the train and headed for downtown Chicago.  They live about 40 miles from there.  It was great riding the train and not having to worry about traffic.  You feel like you are walking in a tunnel downtown because of all of the tall buildings.  This picture even has the tracks for the El train, so it looks even more enclosed. 

All of the skyscrapers were amazing.  I can't remember the names of all of them, but Mike and Aimee were great tour guides.

 

This is the front of the Sears Tower (it actually has a different name, but everyone knows it by the Sears Tower).  It used to have the claim to fame as being the tallest building in the US, but I am not sure it still does.  It has a really fast elevator that takes you up over a hundred floors to almost the top of the building (it takes over a minute to get to the top) where they have clear enclosures you can walk out onto and take pictures.  Mike and Aimee have been up there before, and Terry was not about to go (the big scardy-cat), so we didn't go up

 

I am thinking that this was in front of the World Trade Building, but I am not sure.  The statues are cool, anyway.  Mike, Aimee, and Terry are standing in front.

The Chicago River runs right down through downtown Chicago.  They have river tours, which, this picture is one, and they have river taxies.  Some of the apartment buildings right on the River actually have boat garages under them for people to park their private boats in.  The Chicago  River eventually runs into Lake Michigan 

There are a lot of people who ride bikes in downtown Chicago (I wouldn't ever be one of them!) and they chain them up to the bike racks.  This individual only put the chain through the frame of the bike.  Apparently, it is smarter to put the chain through the tires, also.  As I was taking this picture, a man passing by said, "Hey, don't take a picture of that--this is Chicago!"  I am not sure what he meant by that, but it was pretty funny.

Only people living in Chicago can appreciate this kind of art--just big pieces of metal put together.  We Idahoans just don't get it!  Mike and Aimee are walking by it.

These Segway tours seem to be popular in the area.  I don't think I would do it, though, because apparently, it you break it, you pay for it.  Anyway, I heard that my Brother Mike and his wife Janet found that out when they tried it!  There are quite a few people who ride their own Segways around.  It does look like a fun way to get around the streets of Chicago.

We were down by Lake Michigan and this was a skyscape of Chicago.  I just couldn't quit taking pictures of all of the tall buildings!

They do have very different art in Chicago.  I cant' remember the real name of this fascinating structure, but it is called the "Bean" by most everyone, mostly because it looks like a big jelly bean.  If you look hard in this reflection, you can see us taking a picture of ourselves, with Mike and Aimee on the right of us.

 

 On this side of the Bean you can walk underneath of it and the reflection shows the whole skyscape of Chicago.  It was fascinating!  Terry is on the right, pointing, and Mike is a little on his left, looking down at his camera.

When you go underneath, it shows your reflection.  What a fun sculpture! 

 

 

 This picture is looking up one of the streets from the area where the Bean is--more tall buildings!

 

I am thinking this was one of the newspaper buildings, but anyway, they had special cement bricks all over it--some for other states and some for other countries.  Terry and I are standing in front of the one for "Craters of the Moon--Idaho."

We walked down to the Navy Pier (which has nothing to do with the Navy, except they have a USO building on it where active and retired military people can go into and rest and get drinks and snacks--for free.)  The Navy Pier is in the location where the Worlds Fair was held years ago and now is made into a fun place where there are a few carnival rides, souvenir shops, places to eat, and live entertainment going on.  It is a peninsula that sticks out into Lake Michigan.  Terry couldn't believe he found a place that sold real Bubba Gump shrimp!  (He loves the Forrest Gump movie!)

 

This is one of the Chicago River boat taxis.

Our feet were pretty tired of walking around for about four hours, so we were very glad to take a boat taxi back to catch the train home!  I am sure that Mike and Aimee were not as tired as we were, but they were good sports and came along with us!

Some more pictures of the tall buildings along the River route.  This building in front is one of the older buildings in Chicago and is called the Clock Tower.  Aimee said the clock didn't work for a long time until enough people complained and they finally fixed it.

This is a more modern building along the riverfront.  The bottom 12 or so floors is parking and the apartments are above it.  There are thousands of people who live in apartments in downtown Chicago.  I couldn't imagine it!

 

On Sunday, after Terry and I got home from Church, it started raining.  Mike and Aimee had planned a great lunch of BLTs, and grilled vegetables from their garden.  Aimee is trying to keep herself and the barbecue dry while she is grilling the veggies!

Mike is pretty handy in the kitchen, cooking up the bacon.  It was a great meal!

This is Lucy.  Aimee has had her since she was a puppy, almost 11 years ago.  She gets a little upset during rainstorms. 

Mike is into woodworking.  He has made some really fun things.  He made this trivet for us with our names on it.  We really like it.  In fact, Terry was so impressed with the things Mike has done that he is considering getting a scroll saw and starting a "woody hobby!"

 

We had such a great time with Mike and Aimee.  Aimee shared some of her projects with me.  She knits and crochets--makes hats, socks, bags, blankets, and lots of other things--quilts, bakes, gardens, and they both bicycle a lot.  So, we had lots of things to visit, talk about and share.  Thanks, again, Mike and Aimee, for a fun weekend! 

Westward Ho, Glenbeulah WI 8/20/2012 - 8/24/2012

 As we left Minnesota and drove through Wisconsin to get to our next Campground, there was still a lot of corn.  But, in Wisconsin, being that it is the "cheese" state, there is a lot of silage corn because there are a lot of dairies.  Most of the dairies we saw were just small neighborhood dairies--not the really big productions we were expecting.  Wisconsin is also nice and green, with a few more rolling hills and trees, especially at you get closer to the lakes.

The park we stayed in, Westward Ho is an ROD park to us, and we had a hard time getting in.  We had our reservations made to stay a week and then they called and said they didn't have room for us over the weekend.  That is why we got to stay at Hidden Bluffs for 11 days.  Well, we talked them into letting us stay the following weekend, but they said we would have to move sites, possibly to an open field (lawn) on Friday. 

We agreed and got a good spot, once again overlooking a lot of activities in the park, although there wasn't much going on during the week and very few people in the park.

Terry was busy taking it easy and watching all of the activity.  This park has over 200 seasonal people.  Some stay the whole time, but a lot just come on the weekends.  It really isn't much of an RV park and most of the RV spots are very short, no sewer, and very un-level.  It is a NASCAR park, and besides a western theme, everything is about NASCAR.  One of the national NASCAR races is held in this area.

All of the seasonal sites have their site numbers on a NASCAR background.

 

Here, the restrooms are advertised with NASCAR logo.  There are pictures like this one of Carl Edwards hanging all around the buildings.

There is a bar on site (a first in any of our parks) where there is a huge screen that they show the NASCAR races on each week.

Even the playground keeps the NASCAR theme.

There is an outdoor theater to keep the kids busy while their parents are in the bar watching the NASCAR races!

The park has a "petting zoo" where there are goats and sheep.  We were parked close to them and every time someone walks by them, they think they should be fed something and they are very noisy.  Terry keeps saying that some day he wants to move to Sweet ID and raise goats and rabbits.  But, he had no interest in these goats!

The area we were staying in is right between Lake Winnebago and Lake Michigan.  One day we went to Sheboygan, which is right on Lake Michigan.  We went to a farmers market and then walked around the Harbor Centre Marina.  The lake is so big that you think you are on the ocean, but the smell of the ocean is not there. 

It has some beautiful beaches and there were quite a few people out swimming, even though it was only about noon.

We walked out to the end of the harbor where there is a lighthouse.

It seemed a little strange to have a lighthouse and no ocean.

 Terry walked around the side of the lighthouse, but I chickened out and wouldn't go with him.  I don't have as good of balance in my old age, and the water looked pretty cold.

 

Well, I am finally on "real time" on the BLOG--we are leaving Westward Ho RV Park today to go to my nephew's, Mike's, house.  We decided that we wouldn't stay the weekend here for all of the NASCAR tailgate parties, and Mike and Aimee have agreed to  let us stay in their driveway.  They are taking us on a tour of Chicago tomorrow!   Sounds like fun to me, so long as they are driving.  Actually, I think we are going by train--even more fun!

Hidden Bluffs, Spring Grove MN 8/9/2012 -8/20/2012

We left Rapid City SD and drove across the state to stay in a Walmart parking lot in Sioux City.  Along the way, there was a lot of agriculture, but it seemed to be all grass hay, and pretty dry.  They even harvested the hay along the sides of the road in the right-of-ways.  Most all of it was in big rolls--not bales.  The land was all pretty flat after we got out of the Black Hills.  At Walmart, after we came back from walking down the street to eat dinner, there was an RV parked behind us from Clearwater County in Idaho!  There were some decals on the towed car and the motorhome stating that the owner was a member of the Idaho Sheriff's Association.  I kept hoping that we would see them out and about to visit with them.  At one time, I was familiar with quite a few of the County Sheriffs in Idaho.  But, we never saw them.

 

Almost as soon as we crossed the border into Wisconsin, we started seeing fields and fields of corn, and also another crop that we couldn't identify.  I looked up Wisconsin on the Internet and it said that more corn, sugar beets, and sweet peas are grown in Wisconsin than any other state.  Well, the other crop was not sugar beets, so we thought maybe they were peas.  We later found out that they were soy beans.  Also, everyone mows the weeds/grass between their fields, along the side of the road, around their barns--everywhere.  It was so pretty. Every home seemed to have their grass mowed clear down to the road and around their whole property right up next to their crops, the woods, or whatever is behind or next to them. I guess they had been having a drought, but it started raining a couple of weeks before, and everything was sooo green.

 

The park we went to, Hidden Bluffs, is about 10 miles from the little town of Harmony, and about 8 miles from Spring Grove, where there was a small grocery store.  It was a beautiful park--so green with grass.  Again, everyone said that just a couple of weeks ago the grass was almost brown, but it had rained enough to get green.  It rained a couple of times the 11 days we were there, but most of it was at night.

 

We got a really nice spot--right in front of the road everyone came in on.  It worked out well because they allowed us to set up a Scentsy Open House twice while we were there, and it was a perfect spot for that.  We sold over $600 worth of Scentsy!  They used Scentsy warmers in their offices, so even the park bought some!

Out our front window we could see the great little miniature golf course they had, and also the swimming pool.  It was pretty quiet during the week, but on the weekends it filled up with lots of families and kids.  Part of the time we were there, we were parked right next to a retired couple from Caldwell ID!  We couldn't believe it.  In fact, they live in Sand Hollow, which is almost closer to Emmett than Caldwell.  We met some really nice people there.  One couple brought us over a piece of lemon meringue pie one night.  Another gave us tomatoes, cucumbers, and green beans from their garden.  We were invited over to share a campfire one night by some other neighbors!  Most people only stayed three or four nights and then left.  Because we were there for 11 nights, we had a lot of different neighbors!

The park had some really nice hiking trails--again, they were mowed most of the way and looked like a lawn.

I had to take a little rest.  My broken leg from last summer doesn't like walking on un-even ground very well.  I do better if I bring my walking stick, but I left it in the Journey this time.

The woods are different from Idaho woods.  There were several different kinds of mushrooms/toadstools.  None of them looked anything like I had seen in Idaho.

The flowers and berries look different, also.

We made it to the top of the trail, which was only 1.7 miles long, and there was a lookout platform.

We could see the campground from there.  I had to zoom in pretty good to see it this well.

 

This sure doesn't look like an Idaho pine tree--but what a fun climbing tree it would be.  We decided there were a lot of oak trees and other hardwood trees in this forest.

 

The town of Harmony MN was about 10 miles away.  In the 1970's, some Amish families settled in the area.  Now there are about 100 families that live there.  The Amish Buggy Byway is a stretch of Highway 52 with wide shoulders for buggies.

 

I felt so bad when I took a picture of this Amish woman and she covered her face.  I felt like I had done something really rude!  We had driven up a road specifically to take a picture, and then we had to turn around and drive past her again! 

Earlier, I had taken this picture through the front window of our car, and the young woman actually waved at us.  Maybe she couldn't tell I was taking her picture.  But, after that, I didn't take any more close face pictures of them.  It has something to do with their religion that they don't like their pictures take--I found out later!

 

I did take a picture of this place where the Amish park their wagons when they come to town.  They don't use any modern conveniences.  If they move into a house with plumbing and electricity, as soon as it is paid for, they take all of the plumbing out and disconnect the electricity.  They put in a windmill for their water.  They make wonderful furniture and sew with treadle sewing machines.  Of course, they only use horses (and some bicycles) for transportation and to do their farm work.  i sometimes think I would like to go back to a more simple life like that.

 

We splurged and bought this cool Amish wooden container that spins around.  It has the date and the name of the person who made it on the bottom. I am going to use it for our silverware, napkins, salt & pepper, etc., on our table. 

 

Some people in the campground had told us about this laundromat in town that has lots of other things in it besides washers and dryers.   

The most unusual thing it had in it was over 2700 dolls and stuffed animals hanging on the walls and from the ceiling.  They were not for sale, but he had four or five rooms of  "stuff" for sale.  I think Frank and Mike from American Pickers need to go there.  We took at least an hour looking around and I bought a book, The Official Warren Commission Report on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, for $.25.  What a hoot! 

 

The first Sunday we were there, we drove 44 miles to Church.  We crossed the Mississippi River and went into Onalaska, Wisconsin, to a ward that was there.

I guess the Mississippi is really low because of the draught and they are afraid they may have to close it down from barges if it gets much lower.  That will really hurt the corn and soybean farmers.  The last Sunday we were at Hidden Bluffs, we went to Church 42 miles away to Winona, Minnesota, which is right on the Mississippi River.  The town has a population of 27,000 and only has a small branch of the Church.  There were about 50 people in attendance.  They were excited to have visitors!

Well, we will say goodbye to Minnesota and head for Wisconsin!