Friday, May 27, 2011 on our way to Chicago

This morning we are heading to Chicago, IL. We have a new passenger on board, Peppi, an 11 year old box turtle that belongs to Brett. She is really cute. Not knowing our route or time table in advance, we are making our reservations on the road. We’ve never had any trouble finding a place, but we didn’t think about this being Memorial weekend! So far our only scare was not finding something around Chicago. After a few calls, we had our reservation.

We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant in Sturgis, Michigan. Every trip has to have a little mis-hap, and today was ours. Coming out of the gas station after lunch, Rich mis-judged the curb a bit and literally tour out the cement curb with our tial pipe! The pipe was wedged behind our wheel and we dragged it all the way off the road and into a parking lot, all the way scraping the pavement VERY loudly! A man saw what happened, pulled over, and offered to help. He had a reciprocating saw in his car and he offered to cut the exhaust pipe off at the tail pipe which was only slightly bent. The parking lot we were in was for Walmart. Another man pulled up to our RV while the guys were fixing it. He was going to run into the store and asked if we were going to be here a while, could we watch his car and trailer that was packed with stuff. So we said yes, and Lindsey and I took the opportunity to do some grocery shopping. After only about ½ hour, we were fixed up and ready to hit the road.

Our route took us in and out of Indiana a few times. The people at the campground gave us special directions to the campground outside of Chicago so we could avoid going through town as the GPS would have taken us. Well, somehow we missed the exit and ended up in some major traffic!! We had plenty of time to check in, so we just enjoyed the hustle and bustle of the city during commute and soaked in the skyline.

Lindsey found a BBQ restaurant right next to our campground. Brett and Lindsey had Sarsaparilla with their dinner, and they thought it was pretty good. Tomorrow we plan on going into Chicago to see some of the sights before moving on into Wisconsin.