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Jack's and Lorri's Road Trip, Page 7
From Detroit to Minnesota, to Las Vegas, to Home!
On this page:
On the road to Worthington, MN
Worthington and Lorri's Aunt Norma and family
On the road to Las Vegas
Las Vegas!
Epilogue
Bruin Lake
We left McHugh's and stopped for the night here
We had the place mostly to ourselves
After non-stop visiting and partying since we left Williamsburg, we were ready for some quiet time
And this was the perfect spot for it.
The next day we powered across Michigan, northern Indiana, through Chicago (ugh!) and into the countryside of northern Illinois.
We found this nice State Park
And then the Hickory Hill Campground
We checked in with our campground host and set up.
The next day we drove on two-lane highways from Illinois, through Wisconsin and Iowa and into Minnesota.
A lot of the drive was on the "Great River Road" which meanders along the Mississippi River
We stopped at Effigy Mounds and stretched our legs a little.
This water actually connects to the river somehow
Native Americans hung out and built mounds that are shaped like bears and other beasts
It was a nice sunny warm day
and a nice walk through the woods...
We were certainly in farm country.
We stopped here but it was closed. Darn.
A large part of our drive was on the "Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Route" or something like that.
In southeast Minnesota we stopped here for the night
This tells the story of Historic Forestville
We were there on a Tuesday.
So we walked around and took some photos of the 1800's era buildings
Here they are
Here are some more
the bridge to Forestville
Our spot.
We saw another sign for a Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum so we got off our highway and tried to find it. We could not, but we did find these amazing wood carvings of the Three Stooges in their golf attire. How lucky were we?! I think these should be in the Smithsonian Folk Art Museum!
Worthington, MN
Ahhh, nothing like a Holiday Inn Express! The height of comfort and luxury!
John, Joni, Bill, Kelly, Lorri and Norma. John and Bill are Norma's sons, Lorri's cousins. Norma is Lorri's mom's sister.
We did a lot of reminiscing about previous visits when we were all a lot younger and drank and partied and stayed out past 9:00 PM
The cousins and Auntie Norma
Another one.
The City of Worthington features a large lake named Okabena.
There is a nice walking path along the north shore
We were a week early for the 2015 version of this
The next evening Kelly's son had a baseball game but the rest of us got together in Adrian, where Norma lives, a few miles west of Worthington.
It was great to see the Carlbergs and spend some time with Lorri's family!
Worthington to Las Vegas
Leaving Minnesota, we headed west to about halfway across South Dakota, then south into Nebraska.
We stopped here at Buffalo Bill's place which is just north of North Platte.
This says it all. Hey, wasn't this the guy who almost made buffaloes extinct?
"Scout's Rest"
Hey, there's Bill!
And Mrs. Bill!
And baby Cody's room!
We rested well at Scout's Rest then headed to Colorado where we had hoped to camp at a little Forest Service campground near Vail.
As it turns out, there was a huge "GoPro Mountain Games" competition in Vail that weekend and the campgrounds were full, the town was packed, and the hotels were booked.
So we drove on for another 30 or 40 miles and stayed here instead.
Not our favorite type of camping but they did have good hot showers and electric hookups.
We were soothed to sleep by the mellow sound of truck traffic on I-70.
Speaking of I-70, it must be one of the most scenic stretches of Interstate in the Country.
Curving through gorges cut by the Eagle River, it is a civil engineering masterpiece!
There had been a lot of rain in the area so the river level was pretty high.
Even the rest stops are scenic.
If you can't blast it out of the way, just drill a big hole in it!
I think the east-bound lanes are underneath us.
One of the tunnels
When you get down into western Colorado and Utah, it looks like this.
We eventually hit rain generated by those clouds
I'm still trying to figure out "Life Elevated". Seems like it would apply more to Colorado than Utah. You know, Rocky Mountain High?
Last camping spot of the trip
It was one of the best
It was a really well-designed campground, each site being private and suitable for tent or vehicle camping
With easy access to trails and scenic views
We thought this had to be Castle Rock
Next day, off to Las Vegas!
The Virgin River Gorge in NW Arizona.
The sign says Las Vegas 66 miles. This is how Nevada looked for most of the 66 miles. The parts that didn't look like this were the parts that had billboards advertising something or other in Las Vegas.
Las Vegas
We booked a room at Treasure Island for two nights. I found the oversized vehicle parking area and took his photo. I forgot to lock the doors of the van.
The view looking down the strip from our room at TI
See our room? It's at the lower left.
We've never been to Venice but we've been to the Venetian!
Flower child
The Mirage was featuring a Beatles-themed Cirque du Soleil show. What the....?
Cocktail time!
Ah, that's better.
Looking down the strip from a pedestrian bridge with TI on the right.
View from our room at night.
The Parthenon. Or maybe Caesar's Palace.
The Eiffel Tower, sort of.
If anything will get my brother Bob to Las Vegas, this would be it.
Maybe we could get some backstage passes, eh?
We had dinner at Emeril's Table 10 at the Venetian, sitting at the "food bar".
The food bar overlooks the kitchen and we had a nice dinner and entertaining time with our new friend, broiler man Miguel. It was not a busy night so we had time to talk and learn how they do things.
Epilogue
We drove over 7300 miles and were gone for seven weeks. The Sportsmobile averaged around 12.5 miles per gallon and we paid as little as $2.299 in Oklahoma and as much as $3.899 in Nevada.
We slept in the van 23 nights, either at campgrounds, peoples' driveways or Marshy Point. We stayed in hotels 10 nights, in Williamsburg at Bob's house 14 nights and one night at Kevin and Mary's in Chagrin.
The red line was our route (counter-clockwise) and the red dots are stopping points.
On days that we traveled, we averaged about 250 miles a day, with a high of 481 (Worthington, MN, to North Platte, Nebraska) and a low of 89 (Santa Fe to Taos). Chagrin Falls to Olmsted, OH, is less than 89 miles, but it's all Cleveland to us, so I didn't count that as a travel day.
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