We woke to grey skies and drizzle. Since we change time zones just a few miles west of South Bend and gained an hour, we didn’t have to leave too early. We pulled out at 10:30 and hopped on I-80 to Chicago. Traffic was light until Gary, IN (the armpit of the Midwest). Traffic was atrocious all the way to the border. We did stop at a wayside/truck stop to check our door. We heard a big bang as we started driving and had to stop to look at it to see if something had hit it. It was nothing, but when we were pulling out of the truck stop, we spotted this bank of Tesla charging stations. There were a lot of them!
At the border, there is a huge quarry–I mean HUGE. The Thornton Quarry is one of the largest aggregate quarries in the world. It is 1.5 miles long, 0.5 mile wide, and 450 feet deep. The Gallagher Asphalt Corp. has been operating on the grounds of the quarry since 1928.
We crossed the border into Illinois.
In Illinois, we took the I-294 tollway. When the tollway split from I-80, most trucks and traffic stayed on I-80. That improved things a lot. There were fewer trucks and less traffic. We crossed over the Cal-Sag shipping channel. That was the waterway that we traveled south in by boat in 2008 to get our boat to Florida.
Traffic continued to get heavy as we made our way around Chicago.
We made the Wisconsin border around 12:45 CST.
We hate driving around Chicago. It is Illi-noying! It’s always under construction, lots of traffic, and craziness. We pulled into the Wisconsin State Fair RV Park around 1:30.
We were given site #B-1, right on the end. There isn’t much grass around, but we are right near the “dog walk” area. We may be able to a move to a grassy spot tomorrow if an opening occurs.
We set up and Auggie got a walk to stretch his legs. We are here for a week to visit family and friends. I was born in Milwaukee and raised in Greenfield, a suburb of Milwaukee, so I have a sister and her family that lives here. I have aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends that still live in the area. Our daughter and her family also live in a suburb of Milwaukee, so it will be a busy week trying to see everyone! We will enjoy the cooler weather, but we hope to see a little sunshine while we are here.