Waite's Window: Day four (Chicago to Cleveland)

Saturday, August 29, 2015

Day four (Chicago to Cleveland)

Friday July 31, 2015

Today was a long day. It wasn’t supposed to be as long but there were several delays. The morning started out okay. We finished a Gillian’s Island episode that we had started the night before. We left Illinois and entered Indiana. We stopped at Lake Michigan and got out. We walked through a wonderful sandy beach to the shore. At the beach and put our feet in the water. Dallin got the wettest, he was completely soaked. We didn’t stay at the beach long – about 15 minutes. Then we brushed the sand off of everyone the best we could and got back on the road.

We ate lunch in the car after leaving the lake. Mom made sandwiches and cheese tortillas. Then the younger kids watched Barbie Rapunzel. I read my book through pretty much the whole movie. After Indiana there was Pure Michigan. All the welcome to Michigan signs said that, Pure Michigan. I think it was because Michigan City was just on the other side of the border in Indiana. Michigan is offended by this. Once you cross the border, you are in Pure Michigan.

Somewhere in there was had to take a detour. The signs said Emergency Detour, but we never found out the cause of the detour. The signs took us out by some fields and through some trees before we got back on the main road. We were listening to Fablehaven while we went on the little detour adventure.

Our main stop in Michigan was in Detroit. We stopped at the Temple and got out. It is one of the smaller Temples. We walked around the grounds and took a group picture in front of it. Joshua and Lydia are running a little wild by now because they are so tired of being in the car. MaryAnne also had to switch seats with Emma after we stopped for dinner.

We were a little lost trying to get out of Detroit. There were all these really nice houses, and I mean really nice. They were practically mansions. However, there were a lot of the roads under construction and it seemed like half of them were closed. We went down at least three roads where we had to turn around because it was closed at the other end. We finally got out of Detroit and back on the road and stopped for dinner not long after. We got Hot-and-Ready Pizzas from Little Caesar’s. After dinner we watched Monsters, Inc.

I think today had the most states so far. We started in Illinois and went through Indiana and Michigan, then ended in Ohio. In Ohio we stopped at Lake Erie for just a few minutes. Not everyone got out, I didn’t. It was getting dark and we just pulled over to the side of the road. We are still listening to Fablehaven; we are getting close to the end.

After the Lake we got in a massive traffic jam. All the lanes were just crawling forward. Annoyingly the cars going the other direction were just cruising along, no trouble at all. It was completely dark and all we could see was a long line of red taillights stretching out ahead of us. We moved at a snail’s pace for about 30 minutes. After about 20 minutes we passed a car stalled in the road and we thought that was a problem, but things remained the same. Then for no reason at all, or at least that we could see, cars started speeding up and things got back to normal.

We are spending the night in Cleveland. Our hotel is right in the middle of downtown Cleveland. Mom made reservations for 3 rooms, but for some reason the hotel didn’t have a record of all of them so we just got 2. We had two beds in each room and a very friendly guy brought 3 cots for us to use. MaryAnne is sleeping on the one in our room. We didn’t get into the hotel until after 11 o’clock, but we still turned on the TV. The Princess Bride was on and we watched that while we were getting ready for bed. We saw from the Rhyming Scene to just before Fezik fights the Man in Black. Now we have turned it off and we’re going to bed.

MILES: 500

HOURS: 13