Continuing to try and finish up blogging about our cross-country trip...I have a lot more appreciation now for bloggers. It's a lot of work!
We made it to Mitchell, SD on the evening of August 14th
and stayed at the Kelly Inn. We booked the inn solely on the basis of having
coin laundry, so it was a nice surprise that it was more than just your
cookie-cutter lodging. The look was rustic, with carved wooden bears on the
exterior of the building and a country-style lobby complete with mounted deer
head (NOT a weird cow skull, and thus did not creep anyone out).
The Lobby
Cute bear sculptures outside
It was dinnertime when we arrived. We noticed that there was
a restaurant across the street, and asked the desk clerk about it. “Culver’s?”
she replied, “It’s very popular. Would you like a takeout menu?” Yes please! Turns
out Culver’s is a Wisconsin-based fast food restaurant, specializing in
“butterburgers” (regular burgers, as far as I could tell) and fried cheese
curds. There was a reason why it was so popular; the food was tasty and a definite
cut above McDonald’s. We liked it so much we ate at another
Culver’s location the next evening. We decided that we had to try the cheese
curds.
Dan displaying a cheese curd.
The cheese curds were OK. Kinda like mozzarella sticks but
smaller and with cheddar cheese.
We had our first and only four-state day on the 16th:
We started up in Wisconsin, went through Illinois and Indiana, and finished in
Michigan. We hadn’t stopped anywhere interesting the day before, so we decided
to try and find somewhere to explore once we got into Michigan. After perusing
the AAA Tourbook, I picked out the Warren Dunes State Park. It was on the shore
of Lake Michigan, not too far from the Indiana state line. It looked like a
nice place to do some light hiking around the dunes.
I was wrong.
The bad news was, we never found any hiking or any dunes.
The good news was, apparently Warren Dunes is THE place to go swimming in the
area, and it was a beautiful day to go swimming in Lake Michigan. The sun was
hot and the water temperature was perfect, so EVERYBODY was there.
Dan and Charlie in the water. Charlie has his hands up to his head and Dan is to the left.
Alice busy with some kind of plan involving a water bottle.
We arrived at my Dad’s house in Chelsea, MI on the evening
of the 16th, and stayed until the morning of the 19th. It
was really nice to relax in a house for the first time in over a week. We spent
the time regrouping and going out to dinner with my Dad, my sister, and my
brother and his girlfriend.
At Smokehouse 52 in Chelsea. Their BBQ is fantastic! Some of
the best I’ve had.
It was really nice to catch up and get to know my brother’s
girlfriend, who we hadn’t met before this visit. It usually takes me a while to
warm up to new people, but I instantly liked her (it helped that we had already connected on Facebook) and am looking forward to her
and my brother visiting us in SLO next year. Unfortunately my sister's fiance wasn't able to join us, but hopefully they can get out to visit us sometime too.
I also visited my Mom at the nursing home (she has advanced
Alzheimer’s). Amazingly, she seems improved over the last time I visited a
couple years ago, and seems quite happy. I’m sure it is in large part due to the fact that my Dad
visits her at least once a day, usually twice. The facility is nice too. Mom
seemed to especially enjoy the garden and koi pond in one of the courtyards.
We all really enjoyed hanging out with my Dad, who is a
gracious host and didn’t seem to mind listening to Charlie talk about Minecraft
in excruciating detail.
Dad and Dan inspecting the Triumph Stag
The kids with Grandpa
We departed on the morning of the 19th, which happened to be our 20th wedding anniversary, for the last leg of our trip. Almost there!
