Day 2: Ann Arbor, MI – La Crosse, WI
Mileage: 525 miles
View Larger Map
Our original plan was to take a short drive to Chicago where we would spend the evening checking out Mayor Emanuel’s city. I had already contacted one of my college roommates to arrange a meet-up. However, after a phone call to my parents in California to check up on our daughter, we decided to shorten the trip a day by skipping Chicago. We missed the kid too much! It was a pity that we missed one of the great American cities. We will have visit it another time.
We got up late, having gone to bed at 4:30 a.m. in the morning, and ate the generous Chinese Qui had brought the night before.
Shortly after leaving Ann Arbor, we started making plans on where to sleep for the night. I had wanted to try camping. Tai called a KOA campground near Madison, Wisconsin. The rate was decent, and there were plenty of sites available. I guess a campsite around Madison during the week is not that hard to come by. We pulled out our iPhones and checked the reviews on Yelp. Nice reviews for this site. We were all set! Somewhere near Kalamazoo, MI, we stopped by a Walmart to buy a sleeping bag for my wife and me. Yes, somehow we forgot to pack our sleeping bag.
However, the early afternoon witnessed the first signs of rain. I re-checked the weather. The forecast of cloudy weather had now been changed into scattered thunderstorms. Hmmm. Somehow we were all uncomfortable with the idea of all four newbies setting up camp in a thunderstorm in the semi-darkness. Adventurous, yes. Necessary, no. Scratch camping. We scrambled to find a place to stay along the way to our first main destination, Badlands National Park. I calculated that we would reach La Crosse, Wisconsin around 10 p.m. The Kayak app secured us a room at the clean and comfortable Microtel in Onalaska, which is next to La Crosse, for a nice price. We set up the GPS. The BMW was set on cruise control. Past Michigan, through northern Indiana, up Illinois, to Wisconsin. We put on the miles without stopping to take a single photo. We arrived at Onalaska, WI at the Garmin-predicted time. What a boring day. I went to bed dreaming of Badlands.
Discussion
No comments yet.