Mosquitos? You Betcha!

Day 2 of the CBK Road Trip was another day spent on the long, open road. We witnessed the most dramatic landscape change we have seen thus far as we crossed from Indiana, through Illinois and Wisconsin, to Minnesota.

It took us longer than we expected to leave the campsite in the morning – but since it was only our first time packing up camp, we know that we can only get quicker! Somehow we managed to repack the car and fit everything back in with room to spare. K, the most inexperienced camper, didn’t miss the chance to remind B & C that she was the one who packed the lightest!

Once the car was packed and the campsite was clean, we set off to see the dunes we had missed the night before. After the beach we had seen yesterday, we weren’t expecting much from the dunes, but once we got there they were huge! (That’s what she said.) They were about two stories high (a very rough estimate from people who are generally bad at guessing.) We climbed up one side, and ran down the other, which felt a little bit like skiing down sand… and without skis. We were all surprised at the amount of vegetation on the dunes – not only beach grasses but also trees!

Finally, we hit the road (jack), and left the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. From Indiana, we entered Illinois. For the whole trip so far, we’ve been stopping to take pictures by each state’s “welcome” sign. Illinois’ was on a raised wall along side of the road, so to get that shot, C had to crawl out of the passenger side window, while K stood through the sunroof. B sat in the driver’s seat laughing.

Driving through Wisconsin was uneventful except for some strange rock formations that we saw on the side of the road, which appeared very out of place. Once we got to the Mississippi River, we pulled off at a rest stop for a quick break. We didn’t see Huck Finn sailing down the river, but there was some beautiful scenery, so we took some more pictures (hopefully to be posted soon).

The drive in Minnesota started off with dramatic bluffs, then quickly flattened out to a long, straight road, bordered by farmlands. We passed through the “Wind Turbine Capital of Mid-Western America” – where there were fields of wind turbines on either side of the road, as far as the eye could see. We learned later that that wind farm has 685 turbines in total! (Go clean energy!)

We arrived at our campsite, Blue Mounds State Park in south western Minnesota around 8 p.m. B climbed a tree, Chef C made delicious quesadillas for dinner, and K spent the evening wishing she was Laura Ingalls Wilder. The mosquitoes are bad here, and B went on a killing spree, clearing out the 4 or 5 that had somehow gotten into our tent. Once again, we are tired from a lot of driving, but excited to see the bison herds, prairie lands, and Badlands National Park coming up next!

Mileage to date: 1,426

States visited: Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota

Yellow car count:

C – 38

B – 34

K – 32

Highs and Lows:

Group high – Best tent set-up time yet! Driving through the wind turbine farm.

Group low – Mosquitoes. (Although this does mean that C might get to use her stocked-full, prepared-for-every-emergency)

C high – Introducing “Rule 7” to B & K (Hondoin’ it)

C low – Mosquitoes.

B high – Hearing the Minnesota accent – “You betcha!”

B low – Driving around Chicago in heavy traffic

K high – Being in Laura Ingalls Wilder country

K low – Giant bug splatter on the driver’s side window when I was driving – it was gross!

Interesting observations of the day: There are TONS of fireworks vendors out here! The sky is huge, and has absolutely no clouds.