days 3 and 4: chicago, driving, amie’s birthday.

All six of us slept for 10 hours on Thursday night!

We awoke Friday more feeling a hundred percent better and ready for another day in the Windy City. After eating a quick — and unusual — breakfast in the hotel room of bell peppers, salami, and string cheese, we checked out, loaded up the van, left it in the parking garage, and walked a mile to meet David’s aunt, Cathy, on the Riverwalk.

 

 

The Chicago Riverwalk was one of our favorite parts of the city; breezy, quieter, and peaceful right along the water. If we’d had more time, I’d have loved to get dinner in one of the sidewalk cafes or breweries. But I settled for a cup of coffee, which was still pretty great.

There are three activities that most people recommended we do while in Chicago: visit the Art Institute, go to a Cubs game, and take an architecture river cruise. I would have loved to go to the Art Institute. David’s been and said it’s incredible, but I was trying to choose an activity the kids would all enjoy too. Let’s just say that the Art Institute is not it. We decided to go for the architecture cruise.

 

 

 

We chose the shorter 45-minute cruise over the 90-minute. It was the perfect length of time for the younger kids, and the rest of us enjoyed seeing downtown from the river and learning lots of interesting facts about the city’s history and architecture.

 

 

 

We all enjoyed the Riverwalk so much, that we decided to walk along it more after our tour and enjoy the sights and the ducks.

Since Amie’s actual birthday fell on a driving day, we did our celebrating the days before and after. So at lunchtime we headed for burgers and milkshakes at the Shake Shack.

 

 

 

 

We picked up our van from the hotel parking garage and drove to the Field Museum for our last stop of the day.

Chicago has so many museums that it was hard to pick one, but the Field Museum of Natural History came consistently recommended.

 

 

The building is truly magnificent. Those are live plants suspended from the soaring ceiling.

We spent two and a half hours wandering the museum. Our favorite exhibits were the birds, mammals, and SUE the T. Rex (who, interestingly enough, was unearthed in South Dakota, where we are now). It’s one thing to learn about wildlife in our nature encyclopedias or on Planet Earth, but another to see up close, taxidermied animals and recreations of their habitats, and get a feel for their size.

There was far more to see than we had time (or energy!) for in one afternoon, and yet we learned that the museum houses so many species for research, that only about 1% of their collections are on display.

 

 

 

 

And that wrapped up the Chicago portion of our trip. We said good-bye to Cathy, who’s spending a few more days with Ronda and Bob, grabbed a coffee for the road, and proceeded to sit in traffic for an hour on our way out of the city!

We were torn about leaving — there was so much more we could’ve done, but we were also excited to see what adventure was next.

 

 

 

Driving to South Dakota, Amie’s birthday

We got a couple hours of driving in Friday evening, then found a hotel in a tiny town in Wisconsin.

Saturday, July 10th, was Amie’s birthday! We hit the road early and she opened a couple small gifts in the van.

 

 

 

For her birthday, Amie asked for a bearded dragon, so we gave her a stuffed animal version until we get home from the trip. She was thrilled!

I can’t believe our girl is 12 years old. She is such a joy to us.

 

 

It took us about 9 hours to reach a town in South Dakota that was an hour or so from the entrance to Badlands National Park.

I’d like to mention here that on our first road trip, we visited Laura Ingalls Wilder’s home in Mansfield, Missouri. Well, yesterday, we drove through three of the states she lived in with her family as a girl: Wisconsin, Minnesota, and South Dakota. There are memorial sites in each of these states, but none were close to our route, so Amie and I had to content ourselves with looking out the van window at the landscape and trying to imagine the Ingalls family battling the elements and eking out a living there.

What have we been doing during our hours in the van?

The kids have lots of activity books thanks to my parents and Pat. They packed some toys, and Amie brought knitting, watercolor, and drawing supplies. She is our official list-maker and is keeping a running list of the state license plates we see, as well as one for wildlife.

David and I are listening to an excellent podcast called The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill, about a church in Seattle. And the kids and I are enjoying a great audiobook from the library, Enola Holmes: The Case of the Missing Marquess.

 

 

We crossed the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers yesterday, and watched the landscape change from lush farmland to rolling prairie.

When it came time to book our hotel for the night, I searched reviews online and began to get nervous. There’s just not a whole lot in South Dakota near the entrance to Badlands where we wanted to start the day. I called a motel at 3:00 pm and asked for a room with two queen beds. The woman who answered the phone said she had one room left for the night — with three queens — and we said, “Okay, we’ll take it!”

We were very relieved to have a place to stay and I told myself that I’d have a good attitude no matter what shape our motel room was in.

Well, we were thankful to open the door to a very spacious room complete with a loveseat and tiny table. Yes the motel was old, but it was clean, which was all we cared about!

It was our fourth different hotel room in four nights, and we were exhausted. It’s so hard to check in to a new place at the end of a long day, unload the van, sort through clothes, and get six people into the shower before bed. Plus, Gabe and Noah are amazing travelers, but no one wants to be in a small hotel room for any length of time with them. They are like two Labrador puppies.

So when we discovered this spacious room, and the outdoor heated pool, we were all thrilled. Moreover, because our van was parked right outside the room, we could come and go as much as we needed for the things we forgot!

I made us all microwave lentils and brown rice bowls, then David took the kids to the pool while I showered, reorganized the suitcases for the next three days, and started a blog post. Having 45 minutes all to myself felt divine.

It was the perfect end to Day 4!