Information Echo

This post will probably only be of interest to family and friends, for the record.
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After departing Wisconsin Dells we took the following day to trek to Gurnee Illinois, home of a Six Flags theme park that I had visited many years ago and we wanted to visit again with the whole family.

We arrived in the early evening and once again decided to boondock near the theme park itself, not so much because of the money saving aspect, but simply because there was no campgrounds remotely close to where we wanted to be early the next morning - near the park. Quote to the contrary, with our holding tanks nearing capacity and our fresh water supply nearly exhausted, we would have welcomed a campground, but weren’t going to inconvenience ourselves for the privledge as we were not yet desperate.

Our choice of overnight location ended up being great, until the lawn care company arrived at 6AM and started cutting the expansive grassy area immediately in front of our parking spot. At one point I could smell the exhaust of the lawn tractors and weed eaters as they passed our spot. They seemed to take no issue with us being there, but at the same point in time they weren’t exactly trying to be quiet, and really, I don’t blame them - they had a job to do.

As a result of the early wake-up we got breakfast out of the way and packed up. We made a quick stop at a gas station to fuel up the generator. With the blessings of the staff we also commandeered the garden hose and took on some fresh water as we had exhausted our water tanks after my morning shower.

The park ended up being great despite a heavy thunderstorm that passed through in the evening. After it passed we stayed until the park closed at midnight.

Upon closing I wanted to make the short drive through Chicago during the night hours instead of fighting rush hour traffic the following morning. I was extremely tired, but we pressed on, and made it. We crashed for a well deserved good nights sleep.

The second last day took us most of the way across Michigan where we stopped at a large campground for a single night. This allowed us to relax for an evening after many busy days, and also allowed us to (finally) empty our now brimming-at-the-seams holding tanks.

The morning of day 29 took us to the science center in Detroit, and then across the border via the Detroit/Windsor tunnel. We pressed on to London Ontario where we once again boondocked due to the hour we eventually stopped at.

Awaking on our last day it was bittersweet. We had been on the road for a month, we had seen so much, yet only a few hours from now it was all over except for the aftermath of unpacking and resuming our normal lives.

For the kids, I think that the last several hours was the longest day of the trip despite only covering a short distance. Of course, the anticipation of finally being home and getting to see their friends was bearing upon them, and I can’t say I wasn’t going to be glad to get home myself despite all the fun we had.

Arriving at the house we found everything exactly as we had left it a month before. We unpacked the trailer in record time and I went and parked it.

Returning home was nice, but I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat. :-)

(Pics, followup and such to follow…)

We departed the Mount Rushmore area on Monday shortly before lunch. The poor weather from the night before had washed out any chance of one last campfire before a long stretch on the road, and also left us packing up in a particularly muddy campsite.

The next few days would take us 1400 Kilometers (~900 miles) east, eventually reaching Gurnee Illinois (Just north of Chicago) where we planned to spend a day at the Six Flags theme park there. We had absolutely no schedule or itinerary for these 3 days, agreeing simply to go wherever the wind took us and take in any interesting sights or attractions along the way. With a fairly leisurely schedule requiring slighly less then only 500 Kilometers per day of driving we should have lots of time to stop as we saw fit.

The days blended together. With the beautiful mountain scenery that we had spent the last few weeks enjoying now behind us, the transition back to the flat-lands was a bit of a let-down. This particular stretch of the I90 is rather nondescript and with the exception of a few tourist attractions we stopped at (the, in our opinion, much over-hyped “Wall Drug” being one of them) it was a fairly unmemorable ride.

One notable exception was a lunch stop in the picturesque city of Fairmont Minnesota where we enjoyed a relaxing few hours taking a dip in the lake after eating. Our Garmin GPS really proved worth it’s weight in gold when it came to leading us to great little areas like the park we were at, and then back to the interstate again afterwards.

On the third day we did spent a day in Wisconsin Dells (in Wisconsin, obviously) which is monikered “The Water Park Capital of the World”. After a few days on the road this was a good opportunity to wind down. We chose one of the smaller water parks which was fairly quiet compared to the larger most-popular ones, and this led to a day without lineups and frustration.

We opted to boondock for this entire section of the trip - no campgrounds, no hookups - just us, the RV, the generator when we needed power, and the road ahead.

Our luck with the weather had started to wear thin - we received the brunt end of a storm through the night that was loud enough to scare my daughter into waking up in the middle of the night assured of the fact that she needed to sleep with us, instead of in her own bed.

The storm passed, but the crowded bed arrangement lasted for the rest of the night, leading to a less then ideal nights sleep.

Regardless, when the morning arrived it was once again bright and sunny, so we’ll take it.

Todays sole goal was to visit Mount Rushmore. There was some question if we should go through the day, or if we should wait until the evening hours and perhaps catch the supposedly great laser and fireworks show at the nearby Crazy Horse memorial. If we waited for the evening hours we planned to enjoy some of the wide-variety of entertainment at the campground through the day, or vice versa.

Unsure if we actually wanted to visit Crazy Horse (the cost was surprisingly steep compared to the extremely reasonable $10 Mount Rushmore charged) we decided to go to Mount Rushmore right after breakfast. This would turn out to be a wise decision later in the day.

Mount Rushmore itself was amazing. Clearly they have spent a lot of time and effort improving it in recent years and it shows - the grounds, buildings, walking trails, and everything else about the memorial was top-notch. Without actually seeing it for yourself there’s not much that can be said for the experience, but for anyone who is in the area, don’t pass it by.

We spent a surprising amount of time at Mount Rushmore and it was well after lunch when we finally departed. We decided to visit one other attraction that was a short distance away but wanted to stop for lunch first. Unfortunately we discovered that the dining options in Keystone South Dakota were limited at best, especially if you wanted something to eat on the run. With little other option we eventually settled on grabbing fast-food from Dairy Queen. The food was OK (for Dairy Queen) but clearly there was a huge tourist-town price gouge going on as it cost us nearly $40 for 2 kids meals, 2 adult meals, and a few extras.

The other attraction we visited was called Cosmos - a unique attraction based solely on optical illusion. It was difficult to explain exactly what it was all about, but once again, if your in the area, it’s worth the $8 admission.

The afternoon was wearing, and with the kids wanting to get back to the campground to go swimming we decided to head back. Dinner ensued and the kids did get a swim in, but then the weather started to take a turn for the worse, eventually deteriorating to heavy rain and hail shortly before sunset.

Our good weather stretch was officially over, and our decision earlier in the day to go visit Mount Rushmore in the daytime hours (instead of the evening) was now turning out to be a very wise one.

We slept in, but as the sunlight bathed the mountains and cleared out the deer, cars once again ventured up and down the roads and the traffic noise eventually work us up through our open windows. We did the usual morning routine, snapped a few pictures (the scenery was actually quite nice from the outlook) and the hit the road.

Enroute again we stopped in the city of Sheridan for some quick shopping. I once again made a few more phone calls to local repair facilities in an effort to find someone to attend to our still ailing truck, but being the Saturday of the fourth of July weekend it quickly became clear that everybody was closed tight.

Anxious to get to the Mount Rushmore area we simply pressed on - the truck was running better now that we had descended from the high altitude, seemingly having an easier time making boost again with the now denser air. It was far from perfect, but it was performing much better now, so my fear that we actually had fairly serious engine problems started to fade away as it seemed that the problem might be nothing more then a partially blocked catalytic converter. We could deal with that later - the roads ahead were easy in comparison to what we just surmounted.

We made good time and arrived at the KOA Campground we chose to stay at in the early afternoon. We discovered upon arrival that this was actually the second largest KOA Campground in the entire KOA system, and despite being borderline stupidly expensive (Really, $75 a night for a campsite?) it did offer a great deal in the way of entertainment, from several pools, a small water park, hot tubs, water slides, and a large variety of activities.

We checked in for two nights and crashed for the rest of the day while the kids played. We would save the tour of Mount Rushmore itself for tomorrow.