Finally... the Second Half

Alrighty folks.... I've finally uploaded all the photos, and found the time to write down a brief account of the second half of the journey.  Enjoy!

Day 5 - After getting up a little later than we planned, we hit the end of the breakfast bar at the Holiday Inn Express, and then hit the road.  We realized after getting ourselves organized that we actually had a pretty long drive ahead of us in order to get to Sioux Falls that night.  It wouldn't have been a big deal to stop earlier, except that Saturday was also a big day of driving and we had lunch plans in Milwaukee that we didn't want to miss.

After a pit stop at a 'truck stop' diner for lunch, and a great photo opportunity with a dinosaur, we moved on.

We powered through the dull part of South Dakota, and stopped for way longer than we planned at Wall Drug, in Wall, South Dakota.

Wall Drug is an interesting example of roadside marketing, tourist trash, and really fun kitschy stuff that entertained Declan (and Joshua and I) for a couple of hours.
We bought homemade fudge, had a 5 cent cup of coffee, and rode a Jackelope

among other things.  

Moving right along, we drove into the night to get to Sioux Falls.  Making a reservation when we were only about an hour away, the woman at the reservation desk failed to tell us that when we were driving up to the hotel, we needed to IGNORE the sign that said the road was closed and NOT follow the detour that was provided.  30 minutes later, we figured out how to get to the other side of the river and to our hotel.  Late and tired, we packed all our gear into the hotel (somehow Declan still got his ride on the luggage cart) and crashed for a few short hours.

Day 6 - On to Milwaukee... the drive that morning was pretty quiet, with both the boys asleep for most of the dark part of the morning, and not too much to look at, but we made it to meet friend Gene and his son for lunch at Karl Ratch's in Milwaukee.

Wisconsin has some beautiful country to drive through.  After a lovely German lunch, in a totally amazing building, and a quick stop at a local Green Bay Packer store, we hopped back on the road to Chicago.

We got in just before dark, and hauled all the stuff up the three flights to Johanna's apartment.  By this point, Joshua was fighting a cold that was catching up with him, so Johanna and Declan and I hit the town.  Well, we hit the local Mexican joint for a quick dinner and came home to have a couple of glasses of wine and catch up.  I got enough of a glance of Chicago to know that I must go back and stay for longer... and soon.  It was a beautiful city and I would like to explore.  And Declan thinks that the L might be the most amazing thing ever.  All we heard anytime we were outside (Johanna's apartment is near a station, so the trains came by often), was 'MORE TRAIN!'  Like we could actually make them show up on command!

Day 7 - Some sleep and down time, and we all got ourselves ready to head to the park and then to a local Packer Bar to watch the football game.

Well, Johanna opted out of the Packer game, she said because she had things to do, but I know she really just wanted to watch the Bears instead!  My son showed me what a truly amazing sleeper he is and decided to take his afternoon nap on the bench seat of the table we were sitting at, in the middle of all the cheering and noise from the game.  He proceeded to be the life of the party once he woke up, and had more photo requests than I can count!  The cutest little Packer fan ever!  After the game, we hopped on the road and drove into the evening to land in Lexington, Kentucky for the night.  We didn't really see much of Indiana











or Kentucky until the next day.  It was so dark and the Kentucky sign was in the middle of a bridge, so we even missed the requisite State sign photo shot.  Oh well...

This was the bridge that held the KY sign... we missed it.

Day 8 - On the road by 11:00, after spending an hour on the phone trying to sort out the new AT&T internet service (which didn't end up getting turned on until a week after we got there), we drove down through Kentucky and Tennessee and finally hit the North Carolina border.

We had had grand plans of taking the scenic route through the mountains to see the leaves, but the leaves hadn't started changing yet, so we just stayed on I-40 and got on into Asheville.  We arrived, tired, but excited to be here, around 4:00 on Monday afternoon.  Thank goodness we had a place to stay, since our stuff didn't arrive until the next day!  Our new neighbors, and old family friends, provided a wonderful place to lay our head for the first few nights, until we got important things like a bed and sheets unpacked!  Declan settled right in, and explored the area all around the house for about two days straight!

Whew... finally home.  And finally caught up on the travel blog (only a month later).  More to come as life develops in Asheville!