After three months in one spot, it was so good to get on the road again. We were a little nervous about our first move after sitting still for so long – especially with it being a 6 hour drive when we really don’t like to drive for more than 4 hours per day- so we decided to break it up into two shorter days and leave on Friday. John worked a half day and logged off around noon. While he was working, I finished packing up everything in the house. We got the house hooked up to the truck and got all of our electric, water and sewer lines disconnected and hit the road about 1pm.
We booked a campsite at Dutch Treat Campground in a small town called Zeeland, Michigan (near Holland and Grand Rapids) and pulled in around 4:30. It was a really cute campground with a small pond and a playground. The site was a decently sized pull through and was fairly level so we didn’t have to unhook the house from the truck which saved a ton of time for us. We took Harley for a walk around the place and saw several campers who had decorated for Halloween! They also had a pond that Harley had to inspect. It was so cute and we decided right away that we will be back for another stay in the spring.
We put Harley back into the house and ventured into town to explore. It turns out that they were having a festival so we found parking in the free public lot and walked over. They had shut down a few streets and had stands set up with food, games and even a petting zoo. Several of the businesses were also open and had set up patio spaces along the streets. There was a cornhole tournament going on in one section and the streets were lined with art by local residents. We LOVED the axe throwing truck! They had real axe throwing for adults and also Velcro axe throwing for the kids. It was a first for both John and myself and we had a blast! They had a projected which projected different targets on the wooden wall and, of course, John got a perfect score. I managed to hit the second highest points section on each of my turns so definitely not bad for beginners.
We also enjoyed the petting zoo. They had pigs, goats, sheep, chickens, rabbits, and ducks. We finished up the evening with dinner at Texas Roadhouse (not something I ever thought I would miss but I did while we were in northern Michigan).
On Saturday morning, we ran out for breakfast in town then got on the road around 11am bound for Cedar Lake, Indiana. Aside from a crazy backroad detour thanks to a bad accident, we didn’t have any serious issues on the drive. Many of the roads were terrible, though, so we had a lot of cleanup when we pulled in to our spot at Cedar Lake Ministries. Yes, our campground is part of a church.
When we arrived, they were in the middle of a fundraiser carnival so we walked over and bought a caramel apple and enjoyed the live music they had going on. Then we ran out to grab dinner at Buona, a local chain that makes Italian Beef Sandwiches – one of John’s favorite foods and a specialty food for the Chicago area.
On Sunday, we got up and grabbed some breakfast at Cedar Lake Restaurant then visited a local flea market for a few hours. We stopped back by the house to walk Harley then drove to a nearby farm called Harvest Tyme. They were all decked out for fall with rides for the kids, food stands, a petting zoo, pumpkin patch, butterfly garden, and a corn maze! I got one of my favorite treats (a pina colada sno cone from Kona Ice) and snacked on that while we road their wagon out into the pumpkin patch. We picked a beautiful green pumpkin and an enormous orange one. They had wagons that we could use so we put the pumpkins in the wagon and hit the corn maze. The maze was cut to depict country music singer Luke Bryan and his guitar so we did what any sane, rational people would do. We found our way through to his nose and picked our own noses while standing in his. Perfectly normal.
We also visited the petting zoo and the butterfly habitat. It was so much fun! They had decorations EVERYWHERE with lots of photo ops. I even got to take my rightful place on a pumpkin throne in recognition of my status as Halloween Queen.
On Wednesday night, we visited a restaurant in Chicago called Sepia which has a Michelin Star! I am going to do an entire separate post about that but it was absolutely delicious and amazing. John and I have wanted to eat at a Michelin Star restaurant for years and years and decided to seize the opportunity here in Chicago where there were several to choose from. We got to see the beautiful Chicago skyline and smell the not-so-beautiful smell of sewage throughout the city. It was still an amazing time and I will probably write up that post and share it next week.
After crossing off an item from our Bucket List with the restaurant on Wednesday, we were feeling good. But then we had another Bucket List experience on Thursday as well – seeing the Northern Lights! We spent all summer in Michigan hoping for a chance to see them. We went out driving around a few times when we saw people posting about seeing them on Facebook but we didn’t have any luck. Of course, right after we left Michigan there were several nights in a row with a beautiful showing. We had pretty much given up for this year but then…it happened! We were laying around in the house after watching a movie and we started seeing posts on Facebook about the lights. We were convinced that we were too far south but then we saw posts coming from further south than we are so we went out to look…and there they were! To the naked eye, we could only see a lightness above the tree line off to the north and the occasional pink patch higher in the sky above us. Our cameras, however, caught so much more detail. It was as magical as I had always thought it would be and I just kept staring up and saying “wow”. I even made John kiss me under the Aurora because it felt to special and romantic to be watching the amazing show in the sky together.
As our first week wound down to a close we were exhausted but so content. Our first move after sitting still for three months went better than we expected and we were having a blast in the Chicago area. We had managed to cross off not one but TWO items from our Bucket Lists and we couldn’t wait to see what other adventures lay in store for us.
