June 28th - Day 16
Today, we once again said goodbye to more family and continued on our journey. However, before saying goodbye to Rich, Pam, Hannah, and Evan, we were able to squeeze in one more adventure.
We started the day in the Minneapolis area, crossed the entire state of Wisconsin and ended the day camping alongside Lake Michigan at Illinois Beach State Park, just north of Chicago. This is the first night of the great lakes stretch of our journey where we plan to camp on three different great lakes (Michigan, Erie, and Ontario). Lake Superior and Lake Huron were too far out of the way to be included on this trip.
A few highlights/mishaps of the day:
For the last couple of nights we were not sleeping in the RV and thus did not plug it into outside power. When we went to pack it up this morning, Becca realized that the fridge was no longer cold (some food was lost but not too much). Apparently, I had forgot to either 1) plug the RV into outside power, or 2) push the button on the fridge so that it runs on propone vs electricity. After 16 days, you would have thought we would have figured all of this out, but apparently not. Day 17 will be a fresh start.
Shortly after leaving Minneapolis, we made our way to Willow River State Park in Wisconsin with Rich, Pam, Hannah, and Evan. This included a short hike down to the river/waterfall that tempted most to get in. Elias even had the courage to climb through the middle of the falls with his cousin. The rest of us just waded into the water, only getting our feet wet.
As mentioned above, we ended the day on Lake Michigan. When we got to the camp site, the kids walked down to the lake with Becca to take it in. Given the size of the lake, more than one child thought they were looking out at the ocean.
