Today was another long driving day. We are in middle
America, folks! What else should we expect?!?! We woke up in St. Cloud,
Minnesota and drove all day to get to Two Rivers, Wisconsin. Our plan is just
to drive down the coastline of Lake Michigan to see what there is to see. We
have no planned stops, but as we passed through Green Bay, Wisconsin, George
chose a stop. I always thought it was just the name of an NFL team. Apparently,
I am wrong and the team is the Packers and they are from Green Bay, the town.
As we drove, we saw a lot of fields and actually not a lot
of traffic. We were on a four lane divided highway to… somewhere. Car bingo
today was a doozy. Few road signs and no livestock made each game a half-hour
long marathon in which we contested each other’s sightings of stop signs and
birds.
We passed over a bridge and I realized we were crossing the
Mississippi! I don’t know what it is about rivers and me, but I like to put my
feet in them, not for any other reason than I can say that I did. It started
when I was a teenager, traveling with my family and we would stop at rivers as
we went and dip our toes and my dad would take a picture. I have more than few
already. On this trip, I made a point to put my feet in the Missouri (in South
Sioux City, NE) and now, the Mississippi (in Monticello, MN). I was surprised
and impressed at the rate at which the river flowed. I am used to seeing rivers
back east that tumble through cataracts and barrel on, but the Mississippi was
mighty, flat and calm. The water was the color of flat Coca-Cola and the mud
where I stood, sucked on my flip flops. I don’t think the water was dirty with
pollution, but that it was just picking up the high amount of silt along the
bottom, and stirring it into broth.
Green Bay was a neat town! There were many buildings with
great architecture, made of stone like buildings in Washington, D.C. I enjoyed
looking at the columns on some and identifying which were Doric, Corinthian and
Ionic (thank you high school Humanities class!). We saw more than a few
nightclubs, interesting restaurants and we even crossed the Fox river and one
point and I could see a tugboat and a dock for power boats. We were on our way
out the far side of the city when I asked George, “Do you want to go see the
stadium?” I need to learn to not ask these things! He responded, “Sure.” He
sounded pleased and interested, so how could I tell him I would rather go
noodling than go see this thing? Actually, I don’t think you could pay me to go
noodling because I am way to squeal-y and the hillbillies would get annoyed.
But I still was not at all interested in the stadium.
I was a good wife and did not accidentally navigate us back onto the highway and out of town, but
it did occur to me. I got us right to the stadium and into the parking lot
right in front. A few fancy statues out front of the entrance of coaches and
players, it looked nice. Imagine my joy when I discovered there was a geocache
hidden in the bushes out front! Now there really is something there for
everyone! We located the cache, signed the log, replaced it and zipped back to
the car. The parking lot had more than a few cars in it because apparently
today was some sort of fan day.
Before we left, I asked George if he wanted to get a t-shirt
rf something. He laughed and said, “I am a Redskins fan, we don’t wear Packers
gear.” Oops. Duh. I remarked that I hoped we weren’t going to start a trend of
visiting every NFL stadium in the country. I was assured that we are not, and I
will be holding George to his word!
On our way out of the Green Bay area, I asked George to let
me navigate with the iPad for a few minutes. About 10 minutes and fifteen turns
later we arrived at… Sonic! It was just in time because George said he was
having a craving for tots. I am so glad that I could save the day.
Back on the road, we found a campground for tonight in Two
Rivers, WI. Right down the street from here is a public beach on the shore of
Lake Michigan. We drove over tonight to check things out. There were actually
waves and the town has sanded an area for playing and walking. If these kids
never make it to the real ocean, this is a pretty surprising approximation,
minus the salt water, of course. We plan to head there in the morning and hunt
for sea glass. My teacher friend of mine, Nicole, does this with her family and
it sounds right up our alley, peaceful and purposeful. We shall see how it
goes.
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