DeForest - 4th July 13

Today is the 4th of July - Our very first 4th of July.

 

Daryl starts the day by entering in the 5 mile fun run (always considered this to be a conflict of words myself & why would you pay $20 just to go for a run?????)

Anyway, he did well and got lots of 'feedback' on his photo he posted, especially about his little shorts & legs.

 

Sexy

 

After breakfast, we go downtown and put the coupe in the car show for the day, which gave us easy parking and settled in to watch the parade.  While there of course we got all the low down on car events and a meet tonight at Quaker Steak & Lube in Middleton.

 

 

DeForest is a small town and very much like Waikanae in size and appearance - green and lots of big trees, a nice area to bring up kids.

 

Daryl was disappointed that there was no big marching band in the parade, although they did have a couple of small ones, like the local school.  The parade went on and on with all sorts in it - anything goes basically, churches, karate clubs, sports clubs, dancing schools, tractors, fire engines, armed forces, veterans, police, schools, scouts, local businesses, clowns, etc etc 

 

 

 

We were amazed they are not so PC as good ole NZ.  They still throw out lollies to the children, who run out to get them (in front of the next vehicle....), squirt people with water, no barriers.

People leave there chairs out the night before ready for the parade - think most of the town was there and all ages.

 

 

After the parade was a typical fair type day in the town square and we had a pork sandwich and watch another band "Shotgun Jane" for a while before going home for a rest.

 

Later we headed out for the meet in Middleton about 18 miles away.  We meet Mark there who takes a shine to the 40 and wants to swap his 49 Merc for it.... or you can buy it or $44,000US.

Quaker Steak & Lube is set up like an old garage - the first one originally was made in and old garage and went so well they franchised it.  They have a bike meet every Wed & cars every Thurs, but the guys reckon this one was very quite - not sure why maybe due the holiday.  Didn't matter to us as still lots of cars and all new to us - the food was pretty good too, as was the live band playing in the car park.

 

Mark & Daryl & Marks Merc above.

 

 

 

 

 

About 8pm we head back to DeForest to catch the fireworks display in the town square at dusk...which apparently is not until 9.40pm.  Man they still have the big old loud fireworks - so loud I covered my ears.  It had been hard to get a park down there so we headed off early to miss the rush getting out and sit back and relax for a bit.  Big Day.

 

Well, we have now done a 4th of July celebration.



DeForest / Madison, WI

Day 1 in DeForest- 3rd of July.

 

The camp tell us there is a fireworks display tonight in Warner Park, Madison - Rhythm & Booms, so we head into Madison and drive past the park to see where it is and if we want to go and find a park later for the fireworks display. 

 

 

 

 

 

Continuing on into town we stop at the St James park on the lake side to have a look and then went on to find the state capital building.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Liberty Bell replica



Supreme Court House

View from the 6th floor observatory


It was about 2.30pm and tonight at 7pm there is a orchestra concert in the square..... It seems that you lay your blanket down and it is safe, no one will touch it & you come back when your ready.  Many people were making a day of it, even four hours before it starts - (there is a sign of rules stating no blankets until after 3pm.... but who's looking).  Not sure this would work in NZ.....

After dinner, we cruised down the road to DeForest town square as they were having a band in the beer garden for the 4th of July celebrations (tomorrow).  The band was the 'Love Monkeys' which was a wide mix of music but pretty good, so we had a beer and hung around for a while.

 

Joilet - De Forest (Madison)

Next morning we are hitching up to leave and I notice we have a flat tyre on the RV.   When Daryl checks this out, we have tyres that are ready to go - disintegrating on the inside and we need 4 new tyres...bugger, they say it comes in threes and this is the third!

After phoning around we limb into town about 5 miles away and arrange for new tyres which is to take 1.5 hours (we have learnt this is never the case, so 3 hours later we are finally on the road again) and $550 lighter.  Oh well, it's still cheaper than home!

By the time we get back to camp and pick up the trailer & coupe, it's 2pm and we have reservations at the next camp, 3 hours up north in Wisconsin, so hit the road.  Illinios is full of toll roads up this way and we hit about 5 of them on the same freeway before getting to Wisconsin.

We arrive at 6pm in De Forest which is not far above Madison the state capital.  When we are checking in the owner comes rushing over show us pictures of 39 ford being restored at the moment and tells us of several car events - hmmmmm.  Set up camp and settle in for a bourbon and watch the sun go down.





Our fur family

Joilet day 3 - drive to Indiana

We head off to see what the bottom of Lake Michigan area is like and choose a town called Gary which is on the bottom point with the intentions of driving around the lake area and seeing what Indiana has to offer - most likely we will not be coming back this close to the base of the lake, so we thought a day drive would be a good option and looking forward to a nice little town on the water.

It takes about an hour to get to Gary and we exit the interstate and cruise on in... as we cruise down the road towards the lake and town area we become increasingly aware of the area and the feeling that maybe we don't want to stay here.  Being in the coupe we stuck out like a sore thumb, and Gary turned out to be a run down unsafe black neighbourhood, we were definitely the wrong colour.
We need petrol (of course we did), so choose the best looking station which was still a dumb, get petrol and get out of there!  Mimi tells us this is where Michael Jackson was from......

Tossing up to go back to Joliet or further up the coast, we end up heading further up and decide to turn in around Porter to try and drive up the lake side.  You don't actually get to the edge of the lake but the drive up through here is lovely and turned out to be a state park with sand dunes. 

We go up to Michigan City which is still in Indiana although close to the border of Michigan and is a small 'seaside' holiday town type place.  We drive through and turn into the 'beach' about 5 miles further up which becomes a lovely area of lakeside holiday houses. I imagine this is what they term going to the lake house for summer is.

Driving back down towards Michigan city on the narrow lakeside road we finally find a park to stop at - $8 to park in there.....but after some talking there is parks across the road a bit for free, so we go there and walk across. 

This really is a 'beach' with waves, sand, rips, sand dunes and the lighthouse of course.  You can't see the other side - it is huge. 

Yip we even dipped our toes in despite being a grey day and water wasn't too bad either.  Lots of people swimming but since it was a work day it wasn't too crowded - bet it is on the 4th of July tho.

 

We head back into town and go to the outlet shops there which are designed like a seaside town - quaint.  Do a little shopping and it's about 4.30pm - we haven't had lunch yet.  Time flys when you are having fun.... this is often the way the day goes.  We are a bit peckish so decide to look for a cafe and spot the Shoreline Brewery & Restaurant, so decide to try that & have an early dinner.

 

We try one of their new brews - not my kind of beer and couldn't drink it so the waiter brought me 3 samples and replaced it with one I liked at no charge, which was very nice of him as I wasn't worried about it.  The meals were huge & very nice - tender mussels and pork, yummy.  Good choice and we head home having recovered from our little adventure at Gary, which now sets the benchmark of places not to go.

Joliet

On the way home from Chicago we went down the old Route 66 which took us into Joilet's old city center and the first promotion we see of Route 66 as Chicago does not seem to recognise it except the two street signs.

Today we were to head back into Chicago for another look around........but.......Daryl could hear drags........

So we went to the drags which happened to be not far away across the river at Route 66 Dragway.

And this little one was just outside the RV door that night.

Chicago

We decide to drive into Chicago about an hour away from Joliet today and find our way into the inner city easy enough.  The day is a little overcast but fines up later on and we have a good day looking around the city, old architecture, rivers and also go up Willis (Sears) Tower for a gander.

 

Draw Bridge

Inner city Chicago

 First stop we walked down to Navy Pier for a look around to see what was there.

 

 

 

Then we jumped on a water taxi for a ride up to Michigan St...

 



 



Had to find this place.....

Train tracks above roads









Having travelled from Santa Monica to Chicago stopping at many places along Route 66 as we went - finally we have made it to the end!