Barely made it up in time for the complimentary breakfast. Malauna thought it ended at 9:00am when we woke up at 9:10ish. But upon looking it up, it was 9:30am. Whew. Had to turn on the TV to wake Roderic up--at 9:20am. Yet they let us use their waffle makers, and they had 2 of them! And plenty of sausage and the rest of it.
Had our swimming laundry from our late-night swim hung on a make-shift clothesline hung across the room overnight. Put our already-used hotel bath towels along the floor under them to catch the dripping. (Made me wonder: how do other families handle swimming suits after using hotel pools? Especially when a lot of them say they have to be drip dried.)
Had to wash all of the sand off of Roderic and Hyrum, even though we didn't actually go to the beach. Hyrum kept diving down into the sand...saying that it felt soft like fur. Except where the sun was shining on it...then it was "ouch, ouch, ouch". It was particularly fine sand.
Even though it took up a lot of time, it was neat to be on some side roads (some in disrepair), and see all of the marshes and vegetation and such. At some points it felt like we were lost, and or back in time a few decades or more. It was a beautiful area.
As we were leaving Indiana Dunes, we saw a billboard for "The I Love Toy Trains Store", straight ahead! Roderic has watched all of their DVDs, having checked them out from the Boise Library. For a while, a couple of years ago, they were the only thing he would watch. Sabrina actively tried to oppose stopping. How can you drive past a place of such importance! Roderic was in heaven, and would have had us spend $10,000 or more there, and rent a U-haul to bring them back, if only. But his expectations aren't outlandish like that, and we were able to avoid any tantrums, merely by letting him purchase a toy Police Car with a siren (which is Malauna's bane). Their train set was cool. Ryan would have bought the BSA 100 years commemorative Lionel train set, except we can't fit it in luggage, and we're trying to conserve cash.
We practically went through all of Michigan this afternoon. It was surprisingly boring. I often hear people complain that Idaho or Utah or Wyoming scenery is boring or dreary, because of a scarcity of trees. Well after two days of not being able to see much of anything owing to beautiful trees lining the roads--I've seen enough of that. I'd like to see more factories and such. And I'm missing mountains. But I'm overstating. It's not that bad--it is BEAUTIFUL. We do enjoy the landscapes, and there are so many quintessential American farms everywhere...those are awesome. But if the whole nation looked like those stretches, that'd be boring. (We didn't take any pictures, it seems.)
Finally got on the road at 11:00am or so. This is a continuing struggle...we're on our schedule as far as where we want to be in the country at the end of each day...but we're always getting there late and getting to bed late. Same goes for tonight. But we decided to quickly get the narrative of our blog up to tonight, anyway...lest we not ever get it done.
We drove through pieces of 4 states today!: Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan.
Drove right on through Chicago...knowing it was going to be a long day of driving to make it to Lake Huron. As we were approaching the city from afar, but with the cityscape profile in a bluish haze, Roderic asked whether it was a real city. He then remarked that the Lego City computer games all have that same sort of profile behind them, but that they're not real buildings there. (Of course, by that he meant that they're not "real" virtual Lego buildings...just a backdrop--a profile. It is fascinating to see him applying concepts like that to what he's really observing in the real world, though.) It looked much better in real life, but here's a picture:
We stopped for lunch at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. It took us 45 minutes to find a place we could park that would be acceptable. I guess we didn't know exactly what to expect--mostly it is just a typical American beach. Except that there were very few and scattered parking areas. We ended up by Mt. Baldy...which the Park Rangers have restricted access to a small corridor of--so much that it doesn't seem like a natural feature at all. But it gave a good view of Lake Michigan. And the kids really enjoyed the outing and the climb. Malauna sat back in the car and prepared the lunch, then took a nap, as her heel is still quite painful (from when she injured it jumping into the Rec Center swimming pool at home, splashing at her boys).
We drove through pieces of 4 states today!: Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan.
Drove right on through Chicago...knowing it was going to be a long day of driving to make it to Lake Huron. As we were approaching the city from afar, but with the cityscape profile in a bluish haze, Roderic asked whether it was a real city. He then remarked that the Lego City computer games all have that same sort of profile behind them, but that they're not real buildings there. (Of course, by that he meant that they're not "real" virtual Lego buildings...just a backdrop--a profile. It is fascinating to see him applying concepts like that to what he's really observing in the real world, though.) It looked much better in real life, but here's a picture:
We stopped for lunch at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. It took us 45 minutes to find a place we could park that would be acceptable. I guess we didn't know exactly what to expect--mostly it is just a typical American beach. Except that there were very few and scattered parking areas. We ended up by Mt. Baldy...which the Park Rangers have restricted access to a small corridor of--so much that it doesn't seem like a natural feature at all. But it gave a good view of Lake Michigan. And the kids really enjoyed the outing and the climb. Malauna sat back in the car and prepared the lunch, then took a nap, as her heel is still quite painful (from when she injured it jumping into the Rec Center swimming pool at home, splashing at her boys).
Had to wash all of the sand off of Roderic and Hyrum, even though we didn't actually go to the beach. Hyrum kept diving down into the sand...saying that it felt soft like fur. Except where the sun was shining on it...then it was "ouch, ouch, ouch". It was particularly fine sand.
Even though it took up a lot of time, it was neat to be on some side roads (some in disrepair), and see all of the marshes and vegetation and such. At some points it felt like we were lost, and or back in time a few decades or more. It was a beautiful area.
As we were leaving Indiana Dunes, we saw a billboard for "The I Love Toy Trains Store", straight ahead! Roderic has watched all of their DVDs, having checked them out from the Boise Library. For a while, a couple of years ago, they were the only thing he would watch. Sabrina actively tried to oppose stopping. How can you drive past a place of such importance! Roderic was in heaven, and would have had us spend $10,000 or more there, and rent a U-haul to bring them back, if only. But his expectations aren't outlandish like that, and we were able to avoid any tantrums, merely by letting him purchase a toy Police Car with a siren (which is Malauna's bane). Their train set was cool. Ryan would have bought the BSA 100 years commemorative Lionel train set, except we can't fit it in luggage, and we're trying to conserve cash.
We may have been served by the now-high-school graduated kid-narrator from the movies himself! But we didn't ask him. Ryan was too dense; Malauna doesn't ask people questions. (He was on the phone trying to get his ACT scores sent off somewhere or something.)
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