The weather called for temperatures to be in the mid 70s today. We were really looking forward to a day at the beach and the beach here in Grand Haven is beautiful. Unfortunately, the wind is howling and does not look like it will let up anytime soon.
We parked at a Walmart last night practically next to a Sprint cell tower. Although there wasn’t suppose to be a 4G network here, we had full bars of 4G with our the modem. Marlene used the opportunity to stream her soap opera and got caught up with the lastest gossip at Port Charles.
Thanks to its 5:30PM check out policy, today we are able to spend as much time as we want to at the Shipshewana Flea Market. It runs every Tuesday and Wednesday from April to the end of October and it is suppose to be the biggest in all of the midwest.
We had originally planned a route all along Lake Michigan starting from Green Bay, Wisconsin and ending in Ludington, Michigan. Since our plans are never set in stone and we hardly ever make any reservations, we made an audible and decided to head straight east along the northern Indiana border instead of heading into Michigan.
We decided to stay one more night here at Indiana Dunes. We have been so busy riding the train into Chicago for the last two days and getting back late in the evening, we thought it would be nice to spend the day just relaxing and catching up with life at the campground and maybe do some exploring of the nearby cities.
We are now in Indiana. Indiana has only about a 40 mile stretch of shoreline by Lake Michigan and much of it is designated as either a State Park or a National Park. We woke up in the Walmart in Portage, Indiana and headed into one of the two campgrounds hoping to find a spot.
This morning before we headed down towards Milwaukee, we are taking it pretty easy. We woke up at our usual west coast schedule at around 9:30, 10 o’cock. Since we have some decent wifi here at our courtesy parking, we decided to do a little Skyping with Marlene’s parents. They miss the kids and the kids miss them as well.
Every 20 or so school days, Ava has to have a meeting with her kindergarten teacher to check on her progress. Even though Marlene is doing the actual schooling, Ava has a teacher at the charter school she is enrolled in with this homeschooling program. Today is her first scheduled meeting with Teacher Stephanie and we came to a McDonald’s for lunch and to use their WiFi so she can have her meeting via Skype.
With two days left in the Twin Cities, we still have a lot to see and not very much time. As we mentioned before, we are not fans of towing the Airstream in the snow and at this part of the country, it would not be totally strange if we were to see a little snow in September. Our plan today, stock up on some local farmed goods at the Saint Paul Farmers Market and head over to Minneapolis to see what that ‘other’ city is all about.
This morning we are finally leaving the Minnesota Airstream Park. We had five great nights here and all of the people we met couldn’t have been friendlier. If we lived in Minnesota, we would be very tempted to buy a lot of our own.
Today we are once again going to stay put at our campground. Four full days of travel kind of kicked us in the you-know-what. So we are going to do our best to avoid getting in our van today. Challenge accepted!
We started off our day with a little homeschooling lesson about geodes. Back at the museum in Deadwood, we bought some geodes for the girls and they have been begging for us to crack them open ever since the gift shop lady handed us the receipt. Not at all annoying, kids. Not. At. All.
We decided to stay in Clear Lake today at the Airstream Park since we haven’t really had a slow easy day in nearly a week. Our friends who invited us here, Tim and Melanie, have driven up from their home in Minneapolis to spend the weekend here as well and we are glad to see them again.
