Flew into Chicago today, rented a car, and drove north as fast as we could. The first stop and the official beginning of vacation was right here on Lake Michigan.
Dude, we’re from out west where snakes have rattles, letting us know to stay away; your posing is not getting the results you desire. Smile for the camera. [The way I remember it, we actually did hear a rattle, but that must have been all in my head because after researching local snake photos, I came to the conclusion that this little fellow was a fox snake and nonvenomous – Caroline]
After our lakeside stop that allowed Caroline to dip her feet in the waters of Lake Michigan, we continued north.
Happy faces of happy people entering the state of Wisconsin. Due to this now being a last-minute trip without the typical travel planning, I only just had today’s itinerary figured out in a spreadsheet, and even that was hardly a schedule as much as it was a note for a single destination. Due to my stay in Santa Barbara in September (to help with a family emergency) and the uncertainties surrounding dates there, I hadn’t been able to return to the itinerary, so this will be a relatively spontaneous adventure following the road that takes us forward, but first, we must head for Milwaukee and take a sharp right turn west.
Jimmy’s Grotto in Waukesha was on my radar for their famous Ponza Rotta deep-fried pizza. I’d caught wind of this place on some radio show on NPR, I believe, but wherever it was, I heard about the brilliance of deep-frying a pizza; we were here right now for our first encounter. But was it worth it? No question!
The rest of the day was spent driving through Wisconsin farmland on our way to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
This is just the reason we wanted to be here in this corner of America in late September or early October…we’re joining the herd of leaf peepers.
Oh yeah.
Having arrived mid-day in Chicago, we were not going to get far, nor did we want to, as then we’d miss the countryside, so we only went as far as Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, and called it a night.