After a quick stop at Nana’s, we hit the road. I planned some sights to hit along the way – like the Bicentennial Tower in Erie, PA. Lake Erie is the shallowest and warmest Great Lake.
We stayed on Lake Erie that evening, camping at East Harbor State Park near Sandusky, OH. The beach in the morning.
Of course, I went for a swim. 5 Great Lakes for 5.
Dad got us safely through Chicago and we headed to Spring Green, WI. Up first, we visited the House on the Rock.
It was, at first, a house built upon a 60 ft tall rock.
It had a cool ‘infinity room’…
it extends 218 feet over the valley. Hope a good engineer figured out how to properly support it!
In addition to the house, there were ‘attractions’. Like this huge sea sculpture.
A carousel.
And much, much more. After House on the Rock, we headed to Frank Llyod Wright’s Taliesin. This is the visitor center…
which contains the world’s only remaining Frank Llyod Wright designed restaurant (we ate cheese sandwiches at a scenic overlook – not the restaurant – but we did walk around and enjoy the space!)
Then we headed to the house for a self-guided tour.
It was a beautiful home built into the surrounding hill.
I particularly liked the bird walk a balcony Wright added to the house so his wife could walk out in the morning and enjoy the birds.
Dad noticed that one of the towns we were set to drive through had Pannekoeken. When he wasn’t looking, Mom rerouted us from our campground destination to the restaurant! We had fried cheese curds (when in Wisconsin, you eat cheese curds)
and pannekoeken (dutch pancakes) stuffed with cheese, bacon, and sausage. Excellent!
After dinner we crossed the Mississippi into Minnesota.
The next day, we took a break from driving and road our bikes in the Driftless region (a geographic region that was completely bypassed by the last continental glaciers). We were on the Mississippi River Trail/Apple Blossom Scenic Drive. It was really nice.
I’m not sure if you can see it, but this farm had all its hay wrapped in red, white, and blue.
That’s the Mississippi behind us!
It was hot and humid. This is me after dinner. Sweaty.
Whew! I’m exhausted from all the places I just went to and all the sights I’ve seen. House seemed like a good place to see and hopefully stable. Cheese curds and stuffed pancakes?? Well worth the detour. They should wrap the hay bales here in red white and blue instead of them looking like giant marshmallows all white.