Cedar Point Amusement Park, Cedar Point, Ohio

Erika up on stage with the witches, who asked her what she wished for. Erika's answer? "A horse" (of course!)






We stayed the past 2 nights at Cedar Point Theme Park near Sandusky, Ohio. Cedar Point is built on a peninsula that juts out into Lake Erie. Mark & I were curious about the history, and learned that it is the 2nd oldest theme park in the U.S. dating back to 1892.

We bypassed several water & theme parks in the Wisconsin Dells area because we already had Cedar Point on our radar. Kyle was the one who planned the stop. Apparently, my brother Mark, aka Uncle Bob, had told Kyle if he wanted to go on a lot of rollercoasters, Cedar Point was the park to hit.

Personally, I don't enjoy amusement parks too much as I have outgrown rollercoasters (the last one I went on was about 6 years ago at Knotts Berry Farm with the family, my parents and Uncle Bob). However, I was pleasantly surprised at Cedar Point. First of all, it was huge! They had some amazing roller coaster which Mark & Kyle enjoyed. Plus they had several Camp Snoopy areas that appealed to Erika and Kenna. Overall, it was kind of a difficult park for Blake because he was too tall for the little kid rides and he doesn't really like the thrill rides.

The really fun part for me was the whole park was decorated for Halloween. They had all sorts of skeletons in various states of activity - some were painting, some were playing video games. One of my favorites was an old-fashioned popcorn cart with a skeleton selling eyeballs, spiders and other assorted ghoulish things. I think it was the best Halloween-decorated place I have ever seen.

We stayed 2 nights at the RV park in Cedar Point, even though we only went to the park on Saturday. I was able to walk the girls back to the RV when the girls got tired at the end of the day while Mark and the boys visited all the haunted houses that opened up at dark.

We are currently driving across I-90 in Pennsylvania, near Erie, headed towards Buffalo, New York.

We have moved out of Chicagoland, and are now in the Eastern Time Zone, in South Bend, Indiana - home of the College Football Hall of Fame & University of Notre Dame!

Today is a good day. We are finally full-time back in our little home-on-wheels. The weather appears to be officially fall, so we spent the morning swapping out shorts for pants, and tank tops for long-sleeved shirts. Our clothing bins in the back wardrobe seem to be working out well. The clothes that we swapped out will go back in the "basement" until we hit warmer weather, probably next spring.

Last night, we got all caught up on our week's worth of laundry by using the campground laundromat. We continued laundry in the RV this morning, washing sheets & towels. It feels really great to have a full-service connection again - it's been a while.

We are still trying to find our rhythm in this trip, and today's experience really brought to light the need to slow down a little bit. I think it will really help the girls a lot as we have seen a sharp uptick in the tantrums since we have started our journey. Unfortunately, the next week looks like it will be a pretty busy travel week. We'll leave here tomorrow, and head to Cedar Point, Ohio for a long-promised amusement park stop, then on to Buffalo, NY for a customer meet & greet and a quick peek at Niagara Falls. Mark has a Wednesday morning meeting in Albany, NY, followed by a usergroup conference in Hartford, CT on Friday. However, once we get to Connecticut, we don't have any immediate stops planned, so I hope we can do a little better at planning our time.

Legoland Discovery Center, Chicago



We had a little worry this weekend. Back in late July/early August when the kids were visiting my folks, Erika woke up screaming because her leg hurt. She's complained of her legs hurting off & on for probably 6 months now, but the complaints come & go.

However, on Friday she started complaining during the day that her leg hurt, and on Saturday I noticed that her entire posture changed. Sunday she had a good, solid limp. I don't know how it is, but my kids always get sick or injured either after hours or most usually on the weekend. So by the time the doctor offices around here opened this morning, I had googled all the likely causes of leg/hip pain and concluded that it was either benign growing-type pains, or something ultra-serious like a tumor or septic infection. After 4 x-rays, the dr. was able to conclude that the bone structure looked completely normal, so most likely cause was a strained muscle.

After having been in this hotel for the past 9 days, I sure am glad that we decided to bring a bin of legos with us. I don't know how thrilled the housekeeping staff is because the kids have the legos spread all over the floor, but in fairness, they are using them a ton & it is so nice to have an activity that all 4 kids can participate in.

We went to Legoland Discovery on Saturday for Blake's birthday. It was a really over-priced expedition, but they had a lot of variety of lego building activities for the kids, so we ended up spending about 4 hours there. Kyle & Blake competed in Aliens & Robots, and Kyle's chinese-waiter robot with chopsticks hands won! Kenna & Mark built a lego structure that grew to 10 feet tall (they were larger legos made out of the same material as Croc shoes). The kids also built a couple of lego cars and raced them down the raceway. All in all, it wasn't the best value, but it was a good Blake-birthday activity.

We have had a lot of good food here. We've tried 2 well-known "Chicago deepdish pizza" places, Gino's East & Giordorni's. We ate at a great chinese restaurant, called Big Bowl, that prides itself in local, fresh meat & veggies. And we've eaten at a few other diners around here. Surprisingly, the hotel itself has really good food as they make most of it here. Rumor has it that most of the staff at the hotel have been here 10+ years; the chef has been here for 28 years! Given the nature of the industry and the modern era, that really surprised me. My favorite restaurant so far is Portillo's. They advertise their Chicago hotdogs. Even Mark like them, which is saying something since he often gets ill from sausage & hotdogs. But it was their Italian Beef Sandwich that really caught my attention. My mom didn't make them often, but I was surprised to bite into one and immediately remember Mom's Italian Beef Sandwiches. Knowing that she lived here for several years, it doesn't surprise me that it came into her recipe book.

Still, as much as I enjoy eating out and love not having to do dishes, I am so glad to have the RV back to dine in. While the RV was at the shop, we learned that the propane refrigerator on the RV requires a little bit of battery power to keep running. It appears that a light was left on for the 3 days that the RV sat on the lot when we dropped it off for repairs (our fault, not theirs) So the kids & I went to Costco yesterday & reloaded the fridge. Today we got to enjoy omelets, ham & cheese croissants, and raviolis & garlic bread. Don't tell the kids I said so, but I think even they were relieved to be back on dish duty as they were complaining that they had no way to earn any money while we were in the hotel!

Chicagoland

Navy Pier, Chicago


Oprah's interview - She's the dot of red under the bright lights above the motorhome (like I said, lousy zoom :-)


It's been a little while since I've posted. We are still in the Chicago area. We spent the week of Sept 7 - 12 in downtown Chicago. It wasn't as fun of a visit as I had hoped, mainly because the city seemed to overwhelm the sensibilities of both Kenna & Erika.

However, we did go to the Field Museum, twice to the Museum of Science & Industry (the second time so Mark & the boys could see the Harry Potter exhibit which had stuff from the HP movies). We also went to Navy Pier, which was pretty quiet since it was after Labor Day & biked along Lakeshore Drive on the bikepath that runs along Lake Michigan.

The one unplanned surprise was we saw Oprah Winfrey as she was preparing for the opening of her tv show. They had blocked off all of Michigan Avenue for a free public concert, and had 3 blocks of standing room blocked off for people to attend. They were allowing people into the blocked off area from noon to 5. I wanted to see the chaos of the event, and so the kids & I walked along the sidewalk on Michigan Avenue around 11:45 - 12:30. The kids were thrilled that Vitamin Water was giving away free bottles, and Blake suggested we go past the booth several times, but sadly I wouldn't go along with that plan.

Just past the Vitamin Water display and before we got to where we spotted Oprah, Erika had the mother of all tantrums. They had music piped into the street to entertain the people waiting for the show to begin, and as soon as Erika heard the music, she insisted on getting out of her stroller to dance. After dancing for 20 minutes, I tried to persuade her to get back into the stroller, and apparently, that was a completely unreasonable expectation in Erika's realm.

Finally, I managed to get her back into the stroller, although she wouldn't allow me to buckle her seatbelt. We passed the main stage, which was just before where the Fox River (I think?) runs into Lake Michigan. As we crossed the bridge, I noticed a open-top red double decker bus parked on the side of the road with all sorts of audio/visual equipment. I looked up and saw the bright stage lights focused on Oprah giving what I assumed was her interview or opening for the performance. I tried to get my camera out of my purse while simultaneously trying to get Erika back into the stroller (again!) when a security guy verbally pushed me along and prevented a close up of Oprah. However, we stopped at the end of the bridge and looked on as we still had a clear shot of Oprah. I would have some really good pictures if the telephoto lens worked well on my camera, but I dropped my camera 2 weeks into our trip, and my pictures have gone from really fabulous to so-so. I had to point Oprah out to Kenna as apparently Kenna had never really seen her before.

From Saturday until now, we have been at Pheasant Run Resort, about an hour west of Chicago, attending 2 back-to-back conferences. The second one just ended today. We managed to celebrate Kyle's birthday yesterday and will celebrate Blake's tomorrow. Tomorrow night Mark flies to Fargo for another business conference and will return back to Chicago Tuesday night. The kids & I will stay at the Resort until Wednesday. Since we were scheduled in Chicago for so long, we opted to take the RV into the shop and get several items taken care of under warranty. We finally got it back today after being without it nearly 2 weeks, only to have the automatic step break when Mark stepped on it tonight, and the back-up camera tv screen not open up. The screen is particularly important because it allows us to see our blind spots when changing lanes and the rear when backing up, so it looks like our home-on-wheels may have to go back into the shop on Monday (I'm crossing my fingers that it doesn't have to).

We will be leaving Wednesday to head towards our next 2 appointments: Albany, NY on Wed, Sept 30th and somewhere in Connecticut on Friday, October 2nd.

Labor Day - Chicago

Erika hanging out like a monkey!


Kenna completed a puzzle at the Two Rivers Wisconsin libary.

We are in Chicago this week! We spent last week in Wisconsin. After Eau Claire, we spent 2 nights outside of Green Bay, Wisconsin. We were in an RV park attached to a motel, that was situated right across from Lake Michigan. Unfortunately, there was a 4 lane state highway that ran between us and the lake, so it wasn’t as pleasant as I would have liked. The RV park was pretty lacking overall, but because it was attached to a motel with an indoor pool, the kids made the most of it by spending lots of time in the pool.

Friday, while Mark was at a client meeting and we had to be out of the RV park, we relocated the RV to the town park and library. The library must have been fairly new. It had a lovely reading-readiness area with puzzles and other activities for kids Erika’s age. They even had a teen video game time that Kyle & Blake attended; they were the only ones to show up so they got exclusive use of the Nintendo Wii. All in all, we had a very enjoyable time hanging out in the library with so much reading material at our disposal.

We moved onto the Wisconsin border so we could go to the Jelly Belly factory in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin. Fortunately, there was an Outlet Mall nearby that allowed RV parking, so we just stayed the night there. And of course, in the morning we enjoyed some shopping. Unfortunately, the Jelly Belly factory tour wasn't nearly as good as the one in Californina, because it's only a distribution center, and not a manufacturing plant. Still, it wasn't all bad because we each got a sample package of Jelly Bellys.

We were booked into a KOA campground northwest of Chicago, but after staying Saturday night, realized that it was too far from Chicago for us to really enjoy the city. With no other RV parks closer to Chicago, we chose to stay at an inexpensive hotel near Chicago O’Hare airport that allowed us to park the RV. We got drove along Lake Michigan towards the Museum of Science & Industry and enjoyed the Science museum for the afternoon. We have really gotten a lot of value out of our Pacific Science Center membership as this is the 3rd science museum we’ve gotten in using our Pacific Science Center pass. In all honesty, the museum was very overwhelming because it was packed. They have a special Harry Potter exhibit where they show a lot of the props used in the movies. It runs just a few more weeks, which they said was partially responsible for the crowd, but I’m sure the holiday weekend played part of it. We decided that we would have to come back to see it all again, and see the Harry Potter display then. It costs $15 per kid to see it and $18/adult, so I think perhaps the girls and I will pass.

Mark & I have decided that we really need to be IN the city to enjoy it. He has a jam packed week beginning Saturday with a conference he’s attending, so we took a risk in the “Magnificent Mile” area using Hotwire. Fortunately, we got the same hotel that I had been looking to book for less than half price. Right now, Mark is driving the RV out to the resort that the conference is at while I am watching the kids enjoy the pool. We’ll be heading in to the city here shortly; I am anxious to check into the hotel as I’ve never used Hotwire before and wonder if it’s too good to be true. We’re planning on hitting the Field Museum, the natural history museum, and should get into yet another museum for free using our Pacific Science Center pass!

Wisconsin

Mill City Museum, Minneapolis



We are officially in Cheese Country! We left Minneapolis Monday afternoon after Mark’s business meeting, boondocked in Eau Claire Wisconsin’s Walmart parking lot. Mark attended another business meeting Tuesday morning, and then we headed out towards Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Our first order of business before we left Eau Claire, though, was to find a propane gas dealer. We had stopped the night before at a gas station east of Minneapolis to get some propane. Even though they had the big tank, they only had the ability to fill portable tanks as they weighed the tanks before and after to determine the amount sold. Of course, our propane tank is mounted on our motorhome, so that wasn’t going to work. Fortunately, we did find a propane dealer to help us in Eau Claire. We use the propane for the refrigerator, stove, water heater & furnace, so going without is not an attractive option. I was pleased that this was our first propane fill since we have had the RV, so it seems to last pretty well.

I woke up early this morning because the house was cold. I’m sensing the season changing already. Mark noticed some of the leaves here in Wisconsin already starting to change color, and our last night in Minneapolis actually got below freezing according to the radio.

Mark asked his business associates in Eau Claire if there was any “must-sees” in the area. The only suggestion they could come up with was to be sure to stop in Colby, WI to see the Colby Cheese House, home of the largest cheese block. I was in the back trying to get Erika down for a nap when we rolled into Colby. Seems Mark blinked and rolled right on by the Colby Cheese House. I discovered there are other places besides Sandpoint where the majority of the roads are dirt, because all the side roads outside of Colby were dirt. Mark chose one road to turn around on. He ended up going around the “block” which was a 15 minute detour. The detour gave us the opportunity to see an official Land o’ Lakes dairy farmer. On our way back through town, we did see the Colby Cheese House but it looked closed.

On Saturday, before we left Minneapolis, we enjoyed touring the Mill City Museum. The kids & I had tried to go on Wednesday, but got there just an hour before closing, so they suggested coming back a different day. I’m glad we waited because Mark got to enjoy it with us. It’s a museum that tells about the history of flour making in Minneapolis. Minneapolis is where the Pillsbury Dough Boy and Betty Crocker got their start. We learned that flour dust is highly explosive, and about an ingenious man who in the process of selling an elaborate flour dust collection system, received the task of engineering the entire plant, stole ideas from flour mills in Europe. He rebuilt the flour mill by replacing the stone mills with roller mills, and thereby increased the flour production from 6,000 barrels a day to 51,000 barrels a day. There was also an entertaining 19 minute film of the history of Minneapolis, where we learned the origin of the city’s name & other interesting tidbits. Overall, it was an extremely well done museum with many different activities to engage the kids, and I would highly recommend visiting it if you are ever in Minneapolis.

[SWISH/(H^2)(E^2)R]xNOCIN/SI=?

Hi, This is Kyle typing. Right now we are in Wisconsin heading from Eau Clare to Green Bay, home of the Green Bay Packers. From now on, the titles of my posts will be a puzzle for you guys to solve. The first person to post the correct answer, is put on my Scoreboard and gets 10 points. The first person to get 100 points wins some prize that I haven't thought up yet. For this puzzle I am going to give you a hint. The hint is........ Algebra!!!!!