We left our Airbnb in Winona on Tuesday. We stopped at Sandhill State Wildlife Area in the morning for a walk. The tiny frogs on the path were cute, but besides that, it was very hot and buggy, and we agreed that it was the worst “hike” so far. We continued driving and stopped in Madison for lunch. Since Grasslands National Park, we’ve been driving a lot (6-7 hours per day), which has been exhausting, so we tried to take a lot of breaks. Later, we stopped at a gym and then drove to Naperville near Chicago for Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. Naperville surprised us. When we arrived, it was full of people, so we thought some kind of event was happening. But instead, everybody was just outside enjoying the evening. There were lots of fancy hipster restaurants, bars, and street artists. We had definitely gotten too used to the sleepy towns in Montana, Saskatchewan, North Dakota, and Minnesota. We drove one more hour to a Walmart, where we spent the night. At the beginning of our trip, we read that Walmart parking lots were good places to park overnight. We didn’t think it would be very nice, so we avoided sleeping there. But then we thought we should at least try it for the very last night in the van (to get the full USA van life experience). There were a lot of other camper vans parked as well, and it felt safe. But we didn’t sleep very well because of all the noise and the parking lot lights.
The next morning, we visited Indiana Dunes National Park and continued driving to Ann Arbor. There we visited my great aunt, Nancy. We ate lunch together and visited an art exhibition that she organized.
In the evening, we drove to Cleveland, where we stayed in a nice downtown apartment. On Thursday, we spent the day visiting Cleveland. We especially liked Ohio City, which was full of breweries. Vinz was in beer heaven! After dinner, we went to a place with Bar and Arcade Games. We played Pac-Man, Bocce, Hookie, Skee-Ball, Pinball, and Tetris, which was amazing!
The following morning, we went back to Ohio City for breakfast and continued driving to Salamanca in the State of New York. For the last two nights of our road trip, we reserved a 4* resort hotel. We spent the evening at the pool and whirlpool and ate dinner at the all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant. The buffet was huge and had everything from Thanksgiving dinner to Mexican tacos. There were also over 20 different desserts, and we tested most of them. The desserts weren’t good, but everything else was great.
Today is the last day of our road trip. We slept in late and then visited Allegany State Park. We will probably have dinner at the buffet restaurant again this evening and go to the pool. We are sad that it’s the last day, but we are also excited for the family week in Valatie and to go back home, start new jobs, and find a new apartment. It has been an amazing adventure!!!
