MP: Scenes from the last day

Chicago!

 Managed the El, the bus and the trolley

 Future trader(s)?

 Navy Pier and Lake _ichigan

 Cooling off after a lot of walking

A fitting end

We arrived home at about 4 minutes to midnight! 3 weeks exactly.

Kids: glimpse of the truck life

MP: where it all started

If Captain hadn't come to Chicago to pick me up from a summer internship 19 years ago, and taken me to meet his brother in Evanston at the fish market restaurant. ..

...then to the blues club for a little music...

...then to the lake -ichigan shore, where he asked me to be his wife...

...then we wouldn't have these 5 kids to take on a road trip, ending on memory lane. The kids enjoyed the story and the evening.  A perfect way to come full circle.

 Delicious seafood and gumbo. I got amazing tuna tacos.

 We didn't go down to the blues club but enjoyed Latin jazz in downtown evanston.

The twins are always willing to join in the dance.

Captain's Log: Trip Day 22. We have now traveled over 5750 miles. We are in Chicago today and will be home tonight.

C: Restaurant Review. The Tea Steakhouse in Tea, MN. I ordered a NY strip and it was excellent. They have a very strict aging process. Do not drink the Tea in Tea though (battery acid). SJ will describe the tea below. My favorite restaurant was a Deli on the mountain behind Monterrey, CA

SJ: The Tea in Tea: was like iced coffee with no sugar ,it din't even taste like coffee, it was bad.

FF: I had an AMAZING steak sandwich. I had it well done, and it was perfect!  

LMN: I ordered a small T-bone steak and in reality it was quite large. I ordered it medium well but it came medium. It was still very good.

Exclusive: Inside the cabin

This is what SJ does when she is bored: the alphabet made from pretzels

 This what Hummingbird looks like when she gets the front seat; at least for a few seconds before she moves again

Sometimes MP gives up the front seat and gets to cuddle with the middle/middle passenger.  Only on flat stretches.

Strangely,  the captain has not taken MP up on offers to drive very much. This would be perfectly fine except for the rubber-necking-induced-swerves.

This technically taken from inside the truck, so it counts: GPS just had to touch the cactus at the McDonald's parking lot.

MP: Let's see south dakota

Some of the kids went to downtown Deadwood with the dads to see the evening shootout,  but other than that we didn't get much time there. We left early Wed morning and headed east.

Scenes from the Badlands:

Cattle, grass, prairie dogs, cattle, hills, grass, green everywhere,  then - Wheat! Corn! Now we all can nap. ;)

No, of course not! We stopped at the corn palace in Mitchell.  They are doing a major renovation,  so a lot of the building was blocked off, but we still got to see the walls and shop a little. Very neat history!

We planned a steakhouse stop somewhere but it didn't work out in CO or WY. So in the very east corner of SD we stopped at the Tea Steak House in Tea. Will let the captain and others give thoughts on this dining experience.  We stayed in Worthington,  MN which is pretty much all we have to say about MN. (Dad: they've gotten lots of rain and the corn there and in sd is pretty short;  LOTS of rain).

MP: ladies and gentlemen, fasten your seatbelts

One day, 3 states.  Tuesday morning we were packed and gone from our mountain house by 7 am. We knew we had to get moving, because we had an important meeting.

After loving northern colorado and the high rolling hills framed by the rockies, we traveled through Wyoming (above). Wide open spaces! Beautiful green grasses! Incredible forever blue sky! Why shouldn't we move there?!? Hmmm...strange that nearly every mile of the interstate was lined with snow fence. Like, serious snow fence. And when we stopped for a gas station break, the door into the store had a big sign saying "due to wind, please hold door when entering". Ahem.

Once we crossed the border into south dakota (beautiful forests and green mountains...lakes every 20 miles...I did not know) we started playing the cell phone signal game as we made final plan to meet our dear friends who are starting their own road trip. Little did we know that they were calling/ texting from a hike they won't forget.  Amazingly,  we did find each other at horsetheif lake (above) near mt Rushmore and then headed to the famous mountain.

We ended up in Deadwood at the koa together.  Friends, road trips, camping,  mountains, summer, and of course, fire. What more could you want?!?