Day 1 - Drive to Wisconsin

Day 1 is in the books, and it has been pretty successful. There was some whining and crying here and there, but given how much time we spent in the motorhome I thought the kids held up great. We pulled out of our driveway at 5:30am, which was later than we had planned, but not too bad. For at least the past week we had discussed that we were going to get up at 4am and then get a few last minute things packed, then get the kids into the motorhome and leave. Allyson woke up at 4:15am and the first thing she said to me was "are we already getting ready to leave?" So apparently she had other plans. However, we still left by 5:30am.

The plan was to have all the girls sleep for the first few hours, but we left with everyone awake, and being served breakfast. Fortunately, they all fell asleep for at least a few hours on the drive. We stopped for gas and snacks in Indiana, and then made our way through Chicago. Driving the motorhome through Chicago was quite a treat. Bumper to bumper traffic right through downtown on I-90, with some construction to boot. I know this is hard to believe, but people aren't very accommodating of a motorhome driver needing to change lanes in downtown Chicago. The slow traffic did give the girls time to see the view of the city.

A little while after Chicago we stopped at a Playground Allyson found in a town called Elk Grove Village, IL. It turned out awesome! The girls got a chance to get out and run around which made the next leg of the drive much easier.

After the playground we wanted to get as far through Wisconsin as possible, and potentially make it to the campground. However, we ended up hitting a bunch of traffic going through Madison, and then again on the north side of Madison. We actually were in heavy traffic from just south of Madison, all the way to Wisconsin Dells. I never expected that.

We eventually made it to our campground which is the KOA at Wisconsin Dells. It's pretty nice. Apparently Wisconsin Dells is the Waterpark Capital of the World, so it's quite the tourist destination this time of year. We setup the motorhome, made dinner, and then checked out the park before bed.

We'll see how things go sleeping tonight. Julia has one of her insatiable coughs. It hasn't been keeping her up all through the night, but we're worried that could start soon. If it does things could be rough tomorrow. So fingers crossed she sleeps well. Tomorrow we are off for an overnight stop in South Dakota, and then the next day we hit the good stuff in southwest South Dakota.

Last, I'll end with my random thoughts and notes generated from my time behind the wheel:

• Ohio put new automatic readers for EZ Passes on the turnpike. Somewhere in western Ohio we went past one of those, but then the old outdated toll booths were about a half mile further down the road. They hadn't been removed so all traffic had to go through them. There were signs saying to keep moving, and the traffic wasn't slowing down. So, I ended up threading the needle through a toll booth doing about 35 mph in the motorhome. It was pretty exhilarating!

• I cannot overstate how clutch the playground was that Allyson found. She is awesome. She found it using an app called Playground Buddy.

• The toll situation is out of control nowadays. We have an EZPass, so at least on this part of the drive the tolls and plazas weren't an issue. But I have no idea how much we actually spent in tolls. A toll here, another there....most with no cost posted. It's ridiculous.

• I bought a steering wheel knob after thinking about it for a mere four years. It is phenomenal. For some reason I had it in my mind that they were illegal, but google's AI generated response assured me they are not, and you know you can trust AI.

• Nolan had his first ice cream today, which is an exciting day for a Mears child.
  

That's all for today. Thanks for reading.