Chicago, Wisconsin Dells, & Spam: Day 1 of our National Parks Vacation
We're back home from our National Parks Vacation! I decided to share my travel journal with y'all so you can relive the glory of our family vacationing with me...Enjoy!
We left the house today at 5:47 this morning. A mere 47 minutes late from our planned time of setting out. I’m considering this a win.
2 weeks of fun stretches out in front of us. Or sheer chaos depending on how this will play out. Only time will tell.
Nick and I packed the car last night.
It was horrific. 2 people standing, staring at the car with sheer terror on our faces as most of our belongings were still strewn on the ground while we watched another failed attempt at the liftgate closing. Nope, too full to close.
An hour, and not going to lie, a few tears later and we were packed. The chairs to sit around the fire didn’t make it.
Guys, just for an FYI but if you start your trip and don’t have a place for your lady to sit, well, good luck to ya,
Nick promises there will be places for us to sit.
Houdini everyone…
As it is as we drive, (writing this part at 7 in the am) I have two pies sitting on my feet, and the kids can barely see one another over the mountain of pillows that sit in between them.
We arrive into Chicago at about 6 am and there was barely a blessed soul around.
Praise the Lord! It was smooth sailing. If you’re from around Chicago you know that traffic can be quite the nightmare. Not the nightmare that we’ve seen of Atlanta or L.A. traffic, but still a nightmare. Good traffic days are definitely something to be thankful for!
As promised to you, my dear, dear friends, I said I would tell you how much we spend on this trip.
I don’t have the amount for you of what we’ve brought with us. It was too hard, too confusing, and downright too time consuming to try to figure out which of our groceries purchased were for vacation and which ones for home.
For breakfast we stopped at an Oasis near Rockford and Belvedere. I made zucchini and pumpkin muffins so we had those with milk. We sat outside of the oasis at a picnic table. It was a lovely morning meal.
Then we hopped in the car and headed towards Wisconsin Dells.
We made it to Wisconsin Dells at about 9:30 central time and things were just starting to open.
When I was a kid the Dells were one of the two places we vacationed so in a lot of ways it was like going home. A lot has changed but there were still so many vintage places that brought back memories. I LOVE places like that.
We bought cheese curds for the ripe price (get it ripe, cheese!) of $4.99 which was a great snack that was enough for everyone and we still had some left.
We walked around Wisconsin Dells’ downtown for about an hour and then we got back on the road. It was a good time to stretch our legs and show the kids the Dells, who had been there but didn’t remember it.
Next stop after Wisconsin Dells was the Spam Museum!
This was a free museum and it was so much fun to go to…and we aren’t even what you would call spam fans. They did an excellent job though and we learned a lot of things.
The Spam Museum is located in the town known for Spam, Austin, Minnesota and I highly recommend you check it out.
Around 3:00 we arrived at our campsite, the Fox campground at the Myre-Big Island State Park in Minnesota.
After we set up our basecamp we went hiking on the Big Island. It was gorgeous! There was so much to admire as we were surrounded by water and so much nature.
For dinner we went back to the campsite and started making dinner. We brought a zucchini from our garden and a couple of steaks. We had planned on eating when our camp stove stopped working. Just up and stopped working.
No big deal except there we were, four starving little bears with no supper. Thankfully the visitors center was still open to go and buy some firewood and we were able to get a fire going for dinner.
There is a funny story about the fetching of the wood that I just have to tell you…
Nick and Emma went to get the wood. Nick bought the wood and then Emma saw that the front check in area had a junior ranger type program. She went to ask the lady about it and she came out of her office to talk to Emma, even though there was a little window with a slot. Nick had noticed this lady when we checked in because she couldn’t have been any younger than 85 and she was rocking the ranger duties. She came out of her office to talk to Emma and starts yelling “God Damnit, I locked my keys in the office again!” Emma was aghast at this grandma lady swearing and yelling. The whole time of this Nick is on his phone sitting in the car. He wonders what has happened to her (thank God she wasn’t stolen because Nick on his phone could mean that all eternity had gone by before he noticed something). He told me that he got out of the car to look for her and this lady is having Emma take all of the things off the desk from the little slot and then had Emma crawl through the slot to unlock the door from the inside. Emma was laughing and remarking on how she had to break into a rangers office.
Anyway, it was very eventful and funny.
We had a super yummy meal. We ended it with a Brownie Pie I made from Joanna Gaines’ cookbook. So good!
It ended up being only about 7:00 when we all were out of the bathrooms with jammies on but boy, were we exhausted! After all, we had all gotten up at about 4 that morning.
We all snuggled into bed, watched Muppets on the iPad and fell asleep.
It was a wonderful day!
Expenses
Cheese 4.99
Spam Gift Shop (we bought the kids spam and some postcards) $4.62
$7.00 State park permit
$6.00 fire wood
What I’m thankful for today:
No traffic through Chicago
Firewood was available when the camp stove quit!
America! The ability to wake up in one state and go to bed in another state 4 states away…it’s just amazing when you stop to think of it.
