Five thousand, five hundred and fifty-seven miles driven in about 5 1/2 days. It took us 2 1/2 days to get to Sand Lake. We could have done better, but that darn deer got in our way and held us up for 9 hours. So here's the details:
Saturday around 7:30pm: Van loaded up and us in our places, and off we go.
Sunday the 11th, our first and full day of driving. Girls demonstrate how to pass the time. We stopped in Bismarck for our first real break. Proof that I helped drive too. We saw lots of exits like this, "No Service". Basically you get off there and you are in the middle of nowhere. Another example of the middle of nowhere.
Only our first full day out and we had made it to the halfway mark! I should also mention we drove all those 5,557 miles without a paper map in the van. We relied solely on the GPS.
Monday early morning, sun just about to come up, driving through the upper peninsula of Michigan: We hit a deer. Destroyed radiator amongst other things. We had to wait 3 hours for a tow truck to take us to the closest "big" city which was Marquette, MI.
Monday afternoon: It took us 9 hours to get the insurance process started on the van, the Honda dealership/body shop on board with how we wanted the van fixed, rent the very last vehicle available in that town (2000 Chrysler Town n Country with over 109K miles on it already), and start heading to the Canadian border. The girls were a little worried during the ordeal so we tried to keep things upbeat.
Monday evening: With our new timeline going we realized if we drove straight to the island we would arrive in the middle of the night. So we had a few hours to burn and decided to do that at Sault Ste. Marie, the last city before we cross the border into Ontario Canada. We watched boats go through the Soo Locks. Played at a nearby playground and let Kelbi run for awhile. And watched the boats go through the canal. On the other side of the canal is Canada! We ate some pizza and did our final grocery shopping and then headed to the border. There was a 15 minute wait to get to the border patrol. I finally got to use my Passport for the first time, luckily before it expires next year. The girls had their birth certificates and Kelbi had her rabies vaccination certificate. The first thing we did when we got into Canada was.... look for a bathroom, Isabel had to go. Then we settled in for our last night of driving.
Tuesday 8:30am local time: We arrive at the boat ramp, unload our belongings onto the boat dock and wait for our friends to pick us up and take us to the island.
Once there, we were ready to start the fun. Khalila went right out in the row boat with Graham. The raft was a big hit, jumping on, jumping off and swimming around. Swimming was a main event almost every day. Other fun activities included: boating/skiing, fishing, hanging out at the beach, sailing, kayaking(aka exercising Kelbi), canoeing, playing games, eating, tie dying, sleeping, cooking, playing on the raft, and best of all lounging with friends.
Kelbi had a blast on the island. She had lots of people throwing the ball for her, she ran free the whole time we were there, swam, and even chased a mink/weasel across the causeway.
Wednesday evening was our last sunset on the island. We made it back to the van around 9:30 and started our journey back home. We still had to pick up our van that was in Marquette, MI and had plans to meet my family in Wausau, WI the next day.
Thursday morning we arrived in Marquette, MI around 11:30am, switched vehicles, stopped at the claims office, freshened up Kelbi and then we were off to Wausau. We got to the Super 8 where my mom and dad and sister and her kids were waiting for us. We swam, hung out in the room, had a nice breakfast, and the safe provided some entertainment.
While we were in Wausau we took in some local attractions. We played a little musical vehicles and headed to a downhill skiing area, which in July is about as exciting as a big grassy hill can be. But we did find a nice place to get a group shot. We then headed to Rib Falls. Turns out there, you can play at a playground, and walk to Rib River, but see the falls, no. We saw some rapids, took a quick kids' photo, (Here's Dad up in the park still) and then we headed back out of the grassy marshland. Turns out the best view of the falls is from the road. At this point, we bid farewell to everyone and they began their trip back to Indy and we started headed west again.
But before we really hit the road, Jabran saw that we were close to the 45°N, 90°W mark. The exact center of the northern hemisphere. We just couldn't pass that up without a visit. And we couldn't drive through Colby, WI without stopping at a cheese shop.
To the excitement of everyone, it was time to really hit the road moving again. The girls were happy to have their DVD players back. We had to leave those behind when we switched to the rental van. At a rest stop somewhere in North Dakota, I snapped this shot of the sunset. While driving in North Dakota, we decided to make use of our tent and sleeping bags and camp at a KOA in Bismarck. We got there at 12:45am and left by 7:00am Saturday morning. We took sleeping kids out of their car seats and into their sleeping bags. And then put them back in their car seats still sleeping. They probably have not recollection of staying in the tent.
Saturday, our last day of traveling. We stop at a rest area that had a nice viewing area of the badlands. We are pretty sure we saw a wild bison while driving on the interstate. But I didn't have my camera ready so I didn't get the photo. The views that day were amazing. We stopped in Missoula, MT for dinner at the Iron Horse Brew Pub. And we took sometime to wander around Missoula's train depot. We hit the trail again with Edmonds as our goal that night. We made it back home at 2:22am Sunday morning. Luckily no deer were injured on our return trip. We had a blast and now we know we can go and survive a very long car ride.
