Home, Sweet Home

Final report of the trip's last 30 hours:

In the mid-afternoon, we drove from DeSmet down to I-90 East.  We stopped at the Minnesota Welcome Center for a pit stop.  After a few more hours, we enjoyed dinner at the Farmer's Daughters Kitchen in Blue Earth and had a very good meal.  We were overseen by a picture of a goat on the wall.

As we approached Wisconsin, we saw a good price for gas at an exit ramp and took it.  Little did we know that the eastbound re-entry ramp was under construction, and the detour sent us ten miles back on I-90 West to turn around.  I think we lost whatever we saved in gas.  We certainly did in time.

Getting into Wisconsin, we crossed the Mississippi River.  It was getting dark by this time, and we still had many miles to travel to reach our hotel in the Wisconsin Dells.  A rainstorm that had been threatening us all day finally let loose, so this ended up being a challenging part of the drive.  We arrived late, but safe, at our destination for the night.

The next morning, we got up, had our last hotel breakfast (yay!), and drove toward Madison and ultimately Chicago.  Driving around Chicago was every bit as fun as I remembered and expected it to be again.  Still, it was a relief to get around the city and know that home was drawing ever closer.

We stopped at a rather rough truck stop just inside Indiana for a late lunch.  Very meh.  The weather was still unfavorable, but we pushed on.  By the late afternoon, the skies were clearing and we were entering Ohio!  

Debbie then took over and did a bit of the driving, and ended up leading us to supper at one of our favorite college places: Pisanello's in Bowling Green!

On we went, and arrived in Alliance before dark, around 9 pm on Friday, June 5th.  Blessedly, all was well at home.  (Shout out of thanks to Ben Favazzo who had mowed our grass twice while we were away!)

Over the previous 17 days, we had traveled 5,551 miles in our CR-V.  We had visited 14 states.  We had eaten eleven free hotel breakfasts.  We were exhausted.  But so glad we had went.  And, of course, so glad to be home again...

Until next time...