After Voyaguers National Park, we drove south through Minnesota and east into Wisconsin. Our friend Rachel, who grew up in Madison, recommended Friends of the Apostles National Lakeshore as a must see place in Wisconsin. We had a wonderful bath in Lake Superior at the lakeshore. Don’t worry, our soap is biodegradable.
We then had a horrendous day the next day driving through Wisconsin. It stormed all night with thunder so loud and lightning so frequent that we barely slept. The next day, we drove through intermittent rain until we stopped for lunch at a small town named Kendall, Wisconsin. We made a short detour to reach the town since it is the childhood home of our Internal Medicine residency program director. After finding her dad’s dairy farm and promptly sending her photos of him mowing the field, we headed onward. We found a roadside shop along the way to buy some famous Wisconsin cheese!
The afternoon took a turn for the worse. The rain picked up and we ended up on a very long detour out of the way. Once we finally got back on course, we crossed a bridge over the Mississippi River into Iowa. We had just pulled off the bridge when ominous clouds turned a greenish hue and the wind picked up throwing branches across the road. It looked like tornado weather so we quickly turned around and headed back into Wisconsin. As we tried to drive to Madison, the storms worsened with flash flooding and fallen trees in the road. Thankfully Whit was driving because I had an actual panic attack where I couldn’t feel my hands or face. I was crying in the passenger seat as she tried to navigate the crazy weather. Later that night, many hours behind schedule, we finally crawled into Madison.
The next day, we drove through the tip of Illinois crossing Chicago and into Indiana. We stopped at Indiana Dunes National Park, which I must say was a total disappointment. The park boasts 15 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline, but the dunes are mostly tree covered therefore not really obvious dunes at all. Because of more rain, the views weren’t great and the beach wasn’t enjoyable. It was not what we were expecting.
We could see the Chicago skyline across the lake.
